Introduction and Chelsea's Goals in Speaking Out

John Dehlin [00:00:01] Hello, everyone, and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I am your host for today, John Dehlin. Today we are here to talk about something quite important, also quite serious and quite sobering. And I will just give a sort of a subject matter slash trigger warning at the very beginning. Today we're going to be talking about abuse and specifically sexual abuse within a Mormon context. I am here with my partner, Margi. Hey, Margi.

Margi Dehlin [00:00:33] Hi.

John Dehlin [00:00:34] And we are here to interview Chelsea Goodrich, whose story has recently been covered by the Associated Press. And so, without any further ado, Chelsea Goodrich, welcome to Mormon Stories Podcast.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:00:50] Thank you, John.

John Dehlin [00:00:53] I guess before we begin, I'll just say this story we're going to be covering in two parts. Part one, we're going to be just covering Chelsea's story where she will be telling her story of abuse by her father and then how the, you know, the bishop and the stake presidents got involved in her Mormon ward and stake and then eventually how Paul ridding of risk management from the LDS Church got involved. And all of this led to a settlement.

John Dehlin [00:01:26] All of that's been covered in the AP story. But the purpose of today is to just allow Chelsea to tell her story long form. That's going to be part one and then part two. We have received through a separate source the three audio recordings that were made between Chelsea, her mom, a friend of theirs named Eric, and Paul Ritting. That includes the negotiation talks which ultimately led to Chelsea and I believe her mom receiving a settlement from the Mormon Church. In part two of our interview today, we're going to be playing large excerpts from those three audio recordings, much, much more than the two one minute clips that were available in the AP article.

John Dehlin [00:02:16] And then we're also going to be releasing three audio recordings with some minor redactions publicly so that anyone who wants to listen to the full audio recordings can. So that's going to be part one and part two of today's interview.

John Dehlin [00:02:33] And so Chelsea, if it's okay. Well, first of all, thank you for coming on Mormon Stories. We're honored to have you here to tell your story. And I think you wanted to begin by stating an intention and, and by clarifying some questions that you've received in response to the AP article. Should we start there and any other way you want to start?

Chelsea Goodrich [00:02:55] Yes, absolutely. Thank you for bringing me on as well so that I can tell the complete story. And I guess I would just start by saying that I don't want to start off by crying. That's not a good start.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:03:12] But I Take no pleasure in coming forward about this publicly, in discussing the details of my abuse or what has happened to my family. This is not something that of course, any of us ever wanted or wanted to become public.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:03:41] But I know a lot of people have wondered then why have I shared my story? Am I sharing it? And really what happened was that I found out the end of last year, beginning of this year, that my dad, who I usually call John, but for this interview, I'm going to call him my dad. Because you're John. You're the good John.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:04:10] I found out that he was involved in my sister's current divorce case, fighting to have access to his grandkids, to her children, and that they had been spending time with him in his home, et cetera. And I also learned that he is still a current, actively practicing dentist in the state of Idaho with dental patients that I assume include children, since he has no current restrictions on his dental license.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:04:46] And really learning these things were very concerning to me, of course. And I was asked by my brother in law if I would be willing to testify in the divorce case on behalf of those children that are at risk.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:05:07] And of course I was going to do that. And because I was subpoenaed through a court order and deposed in that case, I was required through subpoena to turn over all documentation and recordings regarding my abuse by John Goodrich, by my dad. And through that, all of this information became essentially public access.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:05:35] And so I believe that that is how the AP came to get that information, in addition to the recordings that they received from Eric Alberti. And so through this process, I have not had to violate my contract with the church, nor a contract that I had with my dad through a settlement after I sued him. There was a lawsuit against him as well. I shouldn't say as well, because I never sued the church, but I did sue my dad.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:06:13] And I never had to violate those contracts because of the way that things have been able to come forward legally. And I'm grateful for that.

John Dehlin [00:06:32] Okay. And then also, did you want. So, so that's how you're not violating the church's, your agreement with the church, the LDS Church, is that right?

Chelsea Goodrich [00:06:45] Correct.

John Dehlin [00:06:46] Okay. And your settlement with your dad?

Chelsea Goodrich [00:06:49] Correct. And I will say that, you know, the church wanted me to be quiet about the church's part of the story, which, you know, was silencing me on a very important part of my story. But now that the Church has come forward publicly, making a statement that I can tell my story, I assume that means everything. And they stated that I made a civil claim against the church, which I never did bring a civil claim against the church. I did discuss with Paul Ritting my concerns about how poorly the church had handled a number of things. But I never did try to sue the church. I'm not now, I'm not going to. And I haven't violated my NDA because of everything coming forward, as I stated through a court order, court ordered subpoena.

John Dehlin [00:08:04] And this is maybe restating a bit of what you've said, but it's just me trying to get it straight in my mind when the story came out in the Associated Press and maybe it was interpreted from the article that people felt like the church was trying to silence you. From their reading of the AP article, it seemed like the church's response was, we didn't try and silence her. She's allowed to tell her story. We didn't silence her. It seems like what got lost there is, as I understand it, in your NDA, the church didn't say you couldn't speak at all. But in your NDA, the church. Well, that we know that they asked you to delete the audio recordings that you had. But also, do you want to fill in or are you allowed to talk about that part or.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:08:53] Well, the church didn't want me to.

John Dehlin [00:08:59] Or I could just say my understanding, if you'd rather not.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:09:04] Yeah, it may be better not to. But what I will say is that the NDA was not allowing me to tell the whole story.

John Dehlin [00:09:12] Okay. Yeah. So my understanding is that it was misleading for anyone trying to advocate for the church to claim that the church was okay with you telling all parts of your story. Because. Because there were limits based on the settlement with you in the church as to what you could say. And so that's misleading if the church gives the impression that you were free to tell the full story, which I think many people interpreted that from the church's apologetic responses. But then the church did reply saying, hey, we don't have a problem with her telling her story. And I'm paraphrasing. And if that's what the church said, it's almost as if they're saying, we're okay with you telling your full story.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:10:05] Correct. And when it comes down to it, you know, the story related to my dad and his abuse of me and, you know, the church aspect of it are inseparable. Those two parts are inseparable from each other. So I really can't tell one without telling the other.

John Dehlin [00:10:21] Got it. And if you were just to sort of Go macro and say why you want to tell your story. It's probably really obvious, but like putting your dad aside, putting even the church, church's involvement with you aside at a big picture. Why do you want to tell your story?

Chelsea Goodrich [00:10:37] I want to tell my story because there are still children at risk of being sexually abused by my dad. He himself said that he, before he had grandkids, he told Bishop Miller and our family that he didn't think that he could trust himself not to abuse his future grandkids. And yet here he is, involved in a divorce proceeding, fighting for access to be able to see his grandkids and have a relationship with them. And so for me, that is the bottom line of it. And also there's other kids too, that have. He has easy access to as a dentist, and he still has access to using, you know, various drugs, including the conscious amnesia drug Halcyon, that, you know, he got the felony charge for drugging Sherry Tanner with.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:11:27] And so for me, it's reached a point where I don't want to play the part of a Pontius pilot, like I think a lot of people have in this process, where I see and know the truth, but I wash my hands of it and turn my back and walk the other way.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:11:46] A lot of entities in this process have been willing to do that. Even, you know, entities claiming to be Christian, following Christ or leading for Christ, have ignored, I think, Christ's doctrine of what he said about the souls of children versus what should be done with those who would harm a little one.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:12:17] And that really contradicts with some things that have been said by the church about why, for example, the clergy privilege law, why they fight to keep that in place, is to essentially, you know, for the souls of the predators. But Christ made very clear what he thought about the predators versus the children.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:12:37] And he also said, inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me, who are the least of these, any more than, you know, children who are helpless without our protection. And I do feel that for those listening that are.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:12:58] That consider themselves followers of Christ, that it is important to look at how what Christ taught contradicts here with what is being done in the handling of predators and their victims in the church and in society.

John Dehlin [00:13:17] So even putting your own case aside, are there intentions you want to express just about Christian churches or the LDS Church and its handling of victims just broadly?

Chelsea Goodrich [00:13:28] Absolutely.

Margi Dehlin [00:13:29] Yeah.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:13:29] Thank you for asking that, John. I just. I think that there needs to be transparency in the way that these situations are handled, there needs to be less secrecy. Ideally, no secrecy when it comes to child sexual abuse and transparency and openness about the truth of the facts of abuse and who's abused and who's been abused. And that should never be covered up. And I would put that out there to all the churches, to all the entities of society that we come together as a society and really we stop the hiding and covering up of abuse and we bring what is in the darkness out into the light and start acting in transparency for. For the good of all, for both the victims and the predators. That is what is best for the victims and the predators. Is transparency.

John Dehlin [00:14:37] Beautiful. Okay, well then, now that we have kind of those intentions set, what parts of your story would you like to begin with?

Chelsea's Childhood and the Abuse Begins

Chelsea Goodrich [00:14:51] Well, I guess that, you know, because the stories that are out there publicly about all of this don't really talk much about my abuse in some instances, even kind of misstate some things a little bit due to the level of vagueness and ambiguity that was in the way that that was presented then. I think it's important that I clarify that a little bit more because I think that that's just part of me being transparent as well. Even though, frankly, it's difficult because I don't want to be. I think a lot of people could relate to this that are abuse victims. I don't want to be associated with and defined by my abuse.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:15:44] And I don't want people to look at me and think of that abuse and think of the details of it. And so I've been reticent to be as forthcoming about that in many instances because you do feel kind of marked.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:16:05] And there's, you know, can be a stigma around certain things. And I'm still single and in the dating world, and it's not like I really want that information out there for people to see and maybe misjudge me by. But I'm going to be honest about those details today in a way that I never really have been fully before, because I think that, again, it's part of me being transparent and it's for the bigger causes that I stated as we started to begin with. So when I was two and a half years old, I was living with my parents here in Salt Lake City, Utah, and I was exhibiting some kind of odd behavior suddenly that my mom was confused about.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:17:03] So she took me to have an evaluation by the head psychiatric nurse at Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City. And that was Rhonda Nelson. She's now passed away. But Rhonda Specialized in child sex abuse cases and therapy. And she often used play therapy as part of the diagnosis process of especially younger children.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:17:34] And so my mom took me to Rhonda for an evaluation and she gave me a diagnosis of having been sexually abused. And she said, there's no question that this child has been sexually abused. The question now would be, do you know who?

Chelsea Goodrich [00:17:53] And Rhonda spoke with both of my parents, and they both said, you know, we have no idea, we don't know. And my mom didn't even consider that it could be my dad. And I hadn't been really with many people besides my parents, Just like nursery at church on Sunday kind of thing. My mom was a stay at home mom, so my mom was disturbed about it. She said in hindsight that my dad didn't really seem as upset as he should have been, but she just decided to be extra vigilant about who I was with.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:18:36] And that kind of became the standard going forward for her. As we were growing up as kids, me and my younger siblings and myself, she didn't want us to go to sleepovers and stay at friends houses and things like that. So we didn't. We were pretty sheltered that way. And ironically, you know, there was someone, you know, an abuser right under our own roof.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:19:07] But my mom wasn't aware of that at the time. So as the years went on, you know, in hindsight, it's all very clear, Especially now that I am a therapist myself and specialize in trauma, I can look back and see that I exhibited many symptoms of a child who was being sexually abused.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:19:28] A lot of regression type things, and a lot of dissociation to the point where my school teachers, a couple of them, thought that I might have autism, which wasn't as diagnosed as frequently back then. But I just was not engaging normally. I was really struggling. Even though I was academically normal and advanced in some ways that I just was completely checking out into my own world and really struggling socially.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:20:06] Suddenly started peeing my pants when I was in the first grade at school. It was humiliating. There's a lot of these things that are symptoms of, of child sexual abuse taking place.

Margi Dehlin [00:20:15] So

Chelsea Goodrich [00:20:18] time goes on. And because I was struggling and had a younger brother who was also struggling and exhibiting symptoms of abuse, my mom, she decided to homeschool us because we were struggling so much in school and socially and, you know, That had its pros and cons for the situation. But when I was about eight or so, we moved from one house in Idaho to another house in mountain home where we had an indoor swimming pool, which, you know, was very exciting for us kids.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:21:02] And we played in the pool a lot. And we played in the pool with my dad, and it was very physical play, as you know, tends to be when you're playing in a swimming pool. But we had, like, ropes and bars that we could swing on like little monkeys. And when my dad would play with us, he would lift us up on the bars, and he would also have us ride on his back. And then he would do something where he would say, okay, now it's my turn to ride on your back.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:21:38] And that's apparently where a good amount of the sexual abuse happened, was just in this whole process of us playing with dad in the pool. And when I was about 9 years old, and we'd been living there for a while and playing in the pool a lot, one day my dad took me aside into the family office in the house, and he said, I need to talk to you about something. And he shut the door, seemed very secretive. And he said, I need to apologize to you about something.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:22:19] And he started just sobbing. And I'd never seen him like that before. He was crying very hard. He seemed very. And he said, you know, when we've played in the swimming pool together, he said, I've been doing bad things to you. And he said, I've been having bad thoughts, and I've been touching you in ways that I shouldn't.

Margi Dehlin [00:22:39] And

Chelsea Goodrich [00:22:42] I'm just so sorry. But I want you to know that I've repented. I've taken care of this. And so I don't want you to tell mom because she would just get upset. And he said, and we need to be more careful when we're playing in the swimming pool together. And I'm expecting that of you.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:23:10] And I just didn't even know how to process what he was sharing. Didn't really know what he was talking about, didn't know what my responsibility it was that he was sharing. And so I just decided after that not to play in the pool with him anymore.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:23:31] So then from about, you know, that point until I was a teenager, my dad would come and get in the bed with me, in my bed with me at night, usually the middle of the night, sometimes early in the morning, but usually in the middle of the night. And that happened usually once a month or so.

John Dehlin [00:24:01] And if it's okay, I've already given kind of a warning, but I'm just going to. Again, we're going to be talking about. You might. Chelsea may be talking about some unsettling and even graphic things. So please take care of for yourself and for anyone who might be listening as Chelsea continues this story. Sorry to interrupt.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:24:19] No, you're fine. So, yeah, I would say nearly once a month for over the period of several years, he would come and get in bed with me at night. And I was very uncomfortable with it. My instinct was to feel that something felt wrong.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:24:50] But my dad, when I would try to resist what he was doing to me, would say, you know, oh, you don't like your dad. You don't love me. Why don't you love me? And so I felt ashamed and guilty, and I felt like it was my problem, that I had a problem with him, you know, pushing his private parts against my backside. And I could often feel his erect penis against my backside. And he would massage my back and shoulders while this was happening, I think as a way of maybe even distracting me from what was happening down below.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:25:48] And. What he did over these years was, you know, what is in Idaho, the standard of lewd and lascivious conduct, both what he did in the swimming pool and what he did in the bed with me. But there were a couple of occasions where it escalated to what would be, you know, considered rape, where there was pain and penetration.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:26:24] Again, this was, I guess, what it's called sodomy. I don't know. It was from behind. It was anally. And by the time I was almost 14 years old, I think that I had been groomed so well to tolerate this and not resist it, that that's when it had escalated to a point that there was more, at least one more severe incident.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:26:59] And one of these incidences was at a hotel room on a field trip, school field trip back east for a charter school that I was doing distance studies through at the time with my brother. We went on this field trip, and in this hotel room, there was a whole incident that happened where John got in the bed with me.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:27:26] And that time was more extreme. It went to the level of rape. And for a long, long time, I could only remember the very clear details of right before and then afterwards, and then the next morning, confronting him for the first time ever.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:27:49] And I had blocked out a lot of the actual abuse because I recognize now that I really did disassociate during that time as a mental. My brain's attempt to protect me. But over the years, I had recurring flashbacks.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:28:22] There were, like, somatic PTSD flashbacks. And I've been diagnosed with PTSD now, but flashbacks to that incident only for a long time. I couldn't Connect who it was, where it was. It just was this physical replay where I could physically feel all of the physical sensations of the abuse over again, over and over again. Especially when I would try to sleep at night, it still happens. And I roll over to my side. It's like my brain just does this replay, and it's a PTSD flashback of the rape.

Questions About the Perpetrator's Other Victims

John Dehlin [00:29:06] One quick question. Now that we know he's admitted, as I understand it, of drugging another woman and raping her, have you ever thought about whether he might have used any drugs with you, even as a teenager, or has that even crossed your mind as a possibility?

Chelsea Goodrich [00:29:26] Yeah, absolutely it has, John. When I really connected that there was a lot of discombobulated memories and pieces missing. But that can be normal for in cases of sexual abuse, anyways. But when I spoke with Sherri Tanner after she came out with her charges against John, she shared with me that how John had drugged her actually on two different occasions, was through giving her a smoothie drink that he'd made. And as soon as she said that, I was just blown away because growing up, my dad was kind of obsessed with making me drinks and smoothies.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:30:13] Me in particular, to the point that, you know, the family would kind of joke about it, like, you know, are you just trying to get rid of, like, our rotten produce? Like, why do you keep forcing smoothies on Chelsea?

Chelsea Goodrich [00:30:29] And he would say, well, Chelsea's the only one nice enough to actually drink my smoothies. Everybody else rejects them. And there's probably some truth to that. I was more submissive towards my dad than I think my other siblings were in general.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:30:47] So, yeah, it's crossed my mind when Sherry told me that. That she was drugged through the smoothie in one incident, she was drugged by him crushing up the pills and giving them to her that way in another incident. But I don't know. I'll never be able to prove that, but I know that, John. I know that my dad had access to the conscious amnesia drug Halcyon during that same time period while I was growing up.

Margi Dehlin [00:31:29] So.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:31:34] This incident that happened in the hotel room, it was bad enough that for the first time, I confronted my dad the next morning about it. And. I was upset. I don't remember the exact conversation, but I know I was upset. And I confronted him, and he just said something to the effect of, well, I was just cuddling you. I was just snuggling with you. I just wanted to cuddle you.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:32:06] And. And on the recorded conversations with my dad, I ask him about this, and you can Hear him. He admits to all of it. Like, I asked him about the swimming pool incident, and he says, yeah, that'll happen, but, you know, I did repent and take care of it.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:32:24] And then I asked him about what happened in the hotel room and me confronting him the next day, and he said, yeah, I remember all of that, but you have to realize that by the time I was talking to my dad and recording it, my brother was there with me, too, recording it.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:32:38] That he knew he was being recorded. He knew there were obviously legal implications to all of this, and he was toning things down and he was lying. But even still, he admitted to quite a bit. And he said that he had erections while he was playing with me in the swimming pool. And he said that his penis was on my bum.

Margi Dehlin [00:33:03] And

Chelsea Goodrich [00:33:07] the hotel incident, he admitted to that much, which is surprising since he was, you know, being recorded. But he also told me on these recordings that he had while he was a bishop, he had gone and confessed to the stake president at the time about his abuse of me. He said I wouldn't confess to the stake president, took care of it, And so it's all behind us now kind of a thing.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:33:47] And he also told me that he had experienced abuse as a child himself. He said that he had older siblings do some level of abuse to him. And he mentioned one of his older sisters, and he said, you know, what she did to me is something that should have her in prison right now for life.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:34:10] And he said, but look, she's still free. Because I didn't want to do that to her, kind of saying to me, you're not going to do that to me. And honestly, I don't really know because my dad's story has changed a lot about his childhood abuse.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:34:29] I don't really know what's true or the extent of what happened. I do think that there were some things that happened. Obviously, that's no excuse for what he went on to do himself.

John Dehlin [00:34:46] But is it okay? My memory is. Is that in one of the audio recordings, your dad admits, I believe, to you and your mom, that when he was massaging your back in bed, I think I hear. I heard him say that at least one time he admitted to having an erection, to having sexual thoughts about you. But. But I think in the recording, and we'll play this, I think, next episode. But I. I think he said something like, but I knew I was wrong, and so I ran away. And I promised never to do that again. Is that.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:35:20] Yeah, I mean, he's kind of all over the place on the recordings, sometimes he says things like, you know, he said, oh, my penis was never on your bum. The one time that happened, you know, it really freaked me out. And then later he'll say, but he

John Dehlin [00:35:34] admits that he had attractions to you.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:35:36] Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. He says that he. He said anytime, he said to my mom on a recorded conversation he had with her. I think we have a total of three recorded conversations with him. The first one is he and my mom. The second one is he, my brother, and me. And then the last one is my mom is my dad and mom and myself.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:36:07] But, yeah, he said to my mom, he said, anytime I moved in too close, I was going to get aroused. Referring to me. And. Yeah, so at certain points, he says that he got aroused or that his penis was on me. But then at other points, he'll say, I never touched you. I never touched you. So he goes back and forth like this. But, I mean, the statements where he says that his penis was on my bum line up with my own memories. And if he never touched me, then I would never have had anything to remember or anything to confront him about. It was because of his.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:36:45] It was because of me feeling him physically touching me and feeling his penis against, you know, my backside that I even had anything to talk to him about. You know, if he'd never touched me, then there would be nothing to remember and nothing to talk about. I have a question for you.

Family Dynamics and Keeping Secrets

Margi Dehlin [00:37:09] Yeah. I was curious about, you know, is this something that you kept to yourself for years? Like, were you alone in kind of your experience of your dad in this way? And at what point did your mom know? Was it while you were. Was it when you were 14? Does that make sense? Like, were you just so alone in the knowing? Were there safe places for you where you were able to actually talk about what was happening to you?

Chelsea Goodrich [00:37:50] Yeah. No. I was totally alone in this experience. I think that really the reason that my dad came to make that confession to me when I was nine. I'm not saying that he had no remorse at all. I don't really know. But I can tell you that the effect of it was that I was trained from that point on that this was between my dad and me.

Margi Dehlin [00:38:14] Mm.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:38:15] And that we weren't talking about it with anyone else.

Margi Dehlin [00:38:18] Yeah.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:38:19] So as close as I was and am with my mom and told her everything else that was going on in my life, I never told her about any of this, because I think that that had been well established between my dad and me, that this was not something That I was to talk about. And I will say too that because he had come and told me at age 9 that he was sorry and had repented of whatever he'd done, that I didn't necessarily associate that with what was happening when he came, when he would come and get in the bed with me.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:38:57] Because I thought, well, my dad, he's trying to be a good dad. Whatever he did that was bad, he's sorry for, he repented of it. So I'm guessing whatever he's doing now can't be bad. I just don't like it.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:39:17] I don't like it. I'm uncomfortable with it. So uncomfortable. Felt grossed out. But I thought, this is my problem. This is my problem. Because what he's doing, I guess, is okay.

John Dehlin [00:39:30] And a big question I have is if he did repent to his bishop or stake president when you were 8 or 9 or when you were 12 or 14, what did they do about it? Did they. Did they just forgive him and just let him not tell anyone, not tell your mom and allow the abuse to continue? Which is the pattern that we've seen in the Arizona case and the West Virginia case and in other cases.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:39:54] Yeah. And that obviously, I guess we can go more into that later. But I want to clarify that when I say that there were recorded conversations that we had with my dad about the abuse, that came later. So I guess by mentioning that, that kind of jumps ahead to 2015.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:40:14] But that came later. Just to be clear, there wasn't recorded conversations happening when I was a kid about this that did come later. But those recorded conversations that we had with John that we had with my dad later, just. They clarified and validated my own memories.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:40:36] You know, what he was willing to admit to lined up with my memories. And there's more things that he confessed to in audio recorded conversations with other people. But I guess I can talk more about that later. But there was a lot of just him saying that he had erections while he was near me, massaging my shoulders in the bed with me in the pool, and at times even said that he was having contact with his penis on me.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:41:13] But mind you, he knows he's being recorded for most of these recordings, so he's minimizing that. But yes, he's made some degree of confession, even on audio recording to the abuse. Yeah. So I guess I'll just fast forward now from age about 14 when that last.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:41:37] Incident of abuse that was really severe happened. I mean, as the years went on, my dad continued to molest me in other ways when he would, when he would hug me, when he would really show me any kind of affection.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:41:56] Now I know from his own audio recorded admittances that he was pretty much always aroused when he was showing me affection and having erections and things like that. So now I understand that all of that was abuse even into my adult years. And there were things that I was uncomfortable with and my gut told me that something wasn't right, but I didn't have proof that anything was wrong until later when we talked to him and recorded him and he admitted that he was continuing to have inappropriate behaviors towards me even into my adulthood.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:42:43] Yeah. So fast forward now. From 14 on up. I went on an LDS mission for. Yeah, I went on a mission for the LDS church to Korea, South Korea, and went to college, finished that, was living in Utah through most of my 20s.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:43:12] And I began to realize that I really couldn't have a relationship. I was dating a lot, had a lot of very great young men

Margi Dehlin [00:43:31] that

Chelsea Goodrich [00:43:31] I had the opportunity to date, had a couple of opportunities to be married where it was, you know, those kind of discussions, conversations were coming up about marriage and getting more serious. And as soon as that would happen, I would have very severe panic attacks and I would get severe migraines that were, you know, like those complicated migraines where I actually lost vision.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:44:05] And for a little while my doctors had me not driving because of this and I had to go to the emergency room a couple of times related to these health issues. And it was directly related to the thought of, I guess.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:44:27] That closer intimacy with a man. And I just remember that the feeling, overall feeling was like that I was going to be trapped. And I couldn't really define why I felt that, but I just felt like I was just going to be so trapped. And that once I was having sexual relations with someone that I was going to just have my rights and will taken away and that I was going to be forced to do things I didn't want to do and I was going to be trapped in that. And that was just overwhelming.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:45:00] And there was really no evidence for this at the time. I thought, I wasn't aware of why I felt this way, but it was very sad. It was very hard.

Margi Dehlin [00:45:13] Yeah,

Chelsea Goodrich [00:45:15] there was. Sorry. I'm okay. There was one guy that I really loved and he loved me too. Just couldn't move forward. And I remember him saying, he said, I feel so bad because I feel like this is my fault. He said, because when I try to talk to you about my feelings and us getting more serious he said, then the next thing I know, you're in the emergency room.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:45:47] I said, it's not your fault. Anyways. So this was in my 20s, after my mission, and there was just a lot of anxiety and depression and panic attacks surrounding the dating. And then I moved to Los Angeles. I was going to graduate school there, and I was studying psychology, and I was learning about the.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:46:20] The unconscious mind more and how it operates and how it's important to pay attention to certain. Certain symptoms and things that can come up, because it can be the unconscious brain and nervous system trying to tell you something that's stored away at a deeper level that you may not be conscious of or fully conscious of or understand.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:46:49] And so I started thinking, wow, you know, maybe I need to pay closer attention to these recurring sleep issues that I have that seem to be related to this flashback of me being sexually assaulted from behind, which made no sense because nothing like that had ever happened in my dating. I had never been sexually involved with anyone. And so I was very baffled by that. And I thought. And also, you know, I just. I can't seem to have.

Long-Term Effects on Relationships and Identity

Chelsea Goodrich [00:47:28] There's a lot of issues with me trying to have a relationship with a man. And so I think that's when I really started, you know, around age 29 or so. I started looking closer at what I was dealing with and looking at my childhood and my past and some memories. And I thought, oh, you know, there was that time my dad came to me when I was nine about the swimming pool.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:48:04] And I thought. And he did come and get in bed with me all the time. And I do remember, I thought, I have some memories, and I'm certain that I felt his penis back there. And just to give you an idea of how naive I was, though, at the time, I remember thinking, gosh, I bet he would have been embarrassed about that.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:48:21] I bet he would be embarrassed if he knew that I could actually feel his penis back there. Because I'm sure that was an accident. So that's still kind of how I'm conceptualizing it and trying to process it. And.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:48:42] Also around this time, two of my younger siblings were getting married. They had both gone on missions. Now they were each engaged to different people and going to be married in the temple. And my family had decided that.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:49:01] That we should do a double wedding. In favor of practicality and saving some money to do a double reception, I should say. So we were preparing for this double reception in Mountain Home, Idaho, and my mom and I were heavily involved with doing most of the work for that and my dad was really concerned about the money, as he often was.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:49:40] And we were trying really hard to keep costs down to the point that, like, we found a venue that was. We were going to be able to get, I think, for free or very inexpensively, as long as we did all the work to clean up the yard and kind of clean up and renovate the house. The venue, in exchange for saving money. And I think we got the food for the reception at Costco. And anyways, I'm just saying this to give you an idea of how hard we were really trying to do this on a budget. But my dad was still upset about what money was being spent.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:50:22] And at one point, my mom and I were working together at the house on my sister's wedding dress that we'd also gotten off of, like, one of those, I don't know, twinkle.com Chinese sites where we'd gotten, like, a $20 wedding dress, but we were doing altercations on it to turn it into a nice wedding dress anyways, trying to save money. But my dad was still kind of yelling at us about, like, the money that he was gonna have to spend. And he walked away after kind of yelling at us again. And my mom and I were working on the wedding dress, and I said, you know, I know, you know, dad can be a real jerk sometimes, but I said, to be honest, I think that's not what bothers me the most about dad.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:51:17] What bothers me the most is some of these, like, creepy memories that I have of him growing up. And my mom was like, what are you talking about? And I just started to tell her everything that I've already stated,

Margi Dehlin [00:51:35] and she

Chelsea Goodrich [00:51:36] was like, what the hell? What do you mean? She started asking me more questions, and I still remember her kind of dropping the. What she was doing at the sewing machine and just turning to me, and she was like, oh, my gosh. Her face was just flesh red. And she was like, this is.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:51:58] This is. This is not good. And she told me that later that she knew from that moment on that her life was never going to be the same again. And based off some things that I told her and her knowledge of John's sexual preferences and approach from behind and et cetera was part of why she knew what I was telling her was not probably a fluke or an accident or something innocent.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:52:35] So she said, you know, we've got to get through this double reception. Try to, you know, keep it cool for that, get through that for the kids. But she said, when that's over, I'm going to confront your dad.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:52:51] And I had to head back to Los Angeles at that time. But I said, yeah, well I'm coming home again soon as you know. And so I'll talk to him as well when I get back.

John Dehlin [00:52:59] Did you say around what year this was? Did you mention that if I missed it, I'm sorry, 20.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:53:05] 15.

John Dehlin [00:53:05] Okay, it was 15. Okay.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:53:07] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:53:07] Okay.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:53:10] So. She did confront him after the wedding reception was over and she didn't record that first conversation. She wishes to this day that she had, but it wasn't even on our radar to be recording at that point. My brother in law actually suggested around this time after this first conversation that we start recording him.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:53:45] His attorney friend had suggested that and he passed that along to us. So we did, and I'm so glad that we did. But this first conversation did not get recorded and my mom really wishes that it had because in the first conversation he was completely caught off guard and not prepared for what was happening and he wasn't being recorded. And so he was the most candid and forthright. And so my mom asked him, this was July of 2015, right after the reception. And she said, john, did you go and get in the bed dozens and dozens of times with Chelsea with that little girl while she was growing up to sexually gratify yourself on her?

Chelsea Goodrich [00:54:40] And he said, yes, yes. She said he kind of started breathing hard and he looked distraught. And he said, yes, yes, everything she told you is true. It's the truth. But I repented. I took care of it. I went and talked to stake President and I took care of it.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:54:59] And it's all in the past and it's all behind us now. And my mom said, oh, no, it is not. She said, did you also abuse my other daughter? Because my sister shared a room with me in a separate bed growing up. And she said his demeanor kind of changed and he looked a little disgusted. And he goes, no, no, no, I was never attracted to her. She was too chubby.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:55:28] And my mom said, well, lucky for her. So at this point she said, he seems really penitent, really scared. And she said, you know, I don't know what to do. I need some time to think about this, to process, to talk to somebody. I don't know what to do about this.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:56:00] And again, he was like, no, no, you don't need to do anything. I repented. I confessed to church leaders president and I don't do that anymore.

Margi Dehlin [00:56:19] So.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:56:24] Around that time we had some relatives coming through town that stopped by and they saw that my mom was really distraught, and they said, what's going on? So she started to tell them. And apparently they had been through something similar years before in their family, And they had an idea of how these kinds of things can go.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:56:54] And they talked to John, and they said, you need to go to the police. You need to take yourself to the police. We can go with you if you want, for support, but you need to turn yourself in.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:57:09] And John said, my dad said, you know, I'm just so scared. And the relatives wrote a witness statement related to this. I don't remember exactly what the statement said, but the relative said that my dad said, I'm really, really scared.

The Bishop Who Knew and Church Leadership's Response

Chelsea Goodrich [00:57:31] Back when I was a bishop, there was a man in prison that I would go and visit because he was LDS in the ward, and he had been put in prison for raping his stepdaughter, his teenage stepdaughter. And my dad said, you know, I always felt like the punishment that he got was too harsh for what he'd done. And he said, and I feel like what I did was way worse than what this guy did.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:57:59] And he said, so I'm just really scared of what they might do to me, give me life in prison or who knows? I just. I'm just really scared. So the relatives, at some point, there was some. I don't know who first suggested it, but there was some suggestion brought up of my dad going to talk to the bishop first.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:58:25] And of course, he was way more amenable to that than going to the police. So he said, yeah, I'll go talk to the bishop first. And so the relatives escorted him, essentially made sure that he got to the bishop's house, and they left him off there.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:58:47] And he spoke to Bishop Miller, Mike Miller, that night, and made a pretty serious confession of the abuse. And then after he talked to Bishop Miller, I spoke with Bishop Miller over the phone. I was back in Los Angeles.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:59:13] I spoke to Bishop Miller over the phone, and Bishop Miller told me that, you know, my dad had come and confessed to him. And in the process of talking to Bishop Miller, he started to tell me some things that.

Chelsea Goodrich [00:59:32] About my abuse that I didn't know. And then I think Bishop Miller started to realize that I didn't remember everything that John. That my dad had told him. And so then, you know, I think Bishop Miller kind of stepped back a little bit and was like, oh, I guess I need to be careful with him saying to you here, because seems like it seems like your dad confessed to me a lot more than you can remember is what the bishop said, but before it reached that point, the bishop told me, he said, you know, it sounds like.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:00:23] One of the worst incidences of abuse was something that happened in a hotel back east. And he said, your dad told me that things got really out of hand, that he got scared that something bad was going to happen to you. And the bishop said, I got the impression that he may have been scared that you could have gotten pregnant.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:00:51] And he said, chelsea, I want you to know that if you have any flashbacks or nightmares of being raped from behind, he said, there are very good reasons for that based off of what your dad

John Dehlin [01:01:05] told me.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:01:09] So that was hard to hear, but it was also validating because of the years of these recurring flashbacks and nightmares that were of being sexually assaulted from behind. So then the bishop kind of realized that I didn't fully remember. The details of everything that he was talking about, and so he kind of stopped sharing. But he did say to me, he said, I really hope that if you decide to turn your dad into the police and this goes to a criminal case, that he said, I hope that I get subpoenaed to be a witness. He said, boy, will I talk. Those were his exact words. He said, the things that your dad confessed to me, I need to be able to share publicly so that people can protect their kids, so that more kids don't get abused.

John Dehlin [01:02:17] And for those who are interested in the audio recordings we're going to share next episode, Bishop Miller is involved in the conversations. He presents in these audio recordings as someone very willing to help in any way the Church will allow. So to me, that is just an extra. Not that you need validation, but that's just an extra validation of everything you're saying because he was, like, wanting justice. As I interpreted the audio recordings.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:02:47] Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:02:49] Yeah.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:02:49] I think his first instinct was to do the right thing. Yeah, I don't think it was that complicated for him. And I realized that there were legal implications. But it seemed like, you know, after he spoke to the attorneys over the helpline, that his attitude changed so completely that it was shocking to me how much it became purely about, oh, I'm going to get sued. John could sue me.

John Dehlin [01:03:23] And just really quickly, for those who don't have an LDS background, we've covered this on Mormon stories in the 90s. I believe the Mormon Church put together a hotline for bishops and stake presidents to call. But what's been revealed about the hotline is it was not to support the victims. It was fielded by, you know, or managed by the Mormon Church's. Law firm, Kirtner McConkie. And we've even seen, like the call scripts of the people that would receive those calls. And it was all about managing the Mormon Church's legal liability and, and coaching, as I understand it, I would say coaching the bishops and stake presidents to not report these instances to the police, to not talk or tell anyone to not get involved in the legal process.

John Dehlin [01:04:10] And it almost seems like it was set up to also keep the families silent so that the incidences of abuse and the perpetrators would be protected and that ward and stake members and other family members and community members would never even learn that abuse had happened. That's, those are my words. That's my understanding. But when we talk about the hotline, let's be clear, this wasn't a help the victims hotline. This was a protect the Church with an army of lawyers hotline. Is that your understanding?

Chelsea Goodrich [01:04:41] It is. And you know, this will come out more on as we go through the recordings together. John, but just to paint a picture for you, I mean, you know, Bishop Miller asked the hotline attorneys, helpline attorneys, should I make a report here? And they said, no, no, you don't need to, because she's no longer a minor in the home.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:05:10] And to Bishop Miller's credit, I guess he apparently did encourage my dad to go turn himself into the police. But obviously my dad wasn't going to do that. And I really do feel at the beginning that Bishop Miller wanted to support me.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:05:31] In the beginning. I think if I had gone right away to the police, which now I wish that I would have. But at the time, we were still deluded as a family into thinking that my dad could be rehabilitated somehow.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:05:49] Now I understand that that's not really a thing. I understand more. And also my dad wasn't really remorseful. All right, at first he acted remorseful, but then after he spoke to an attorney who told him that he thought statute of limitations would be up on this crime, sexual abuse crime, from that point on, my dad became pretty cavalier about the whole thing and the seeming remorse went away.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:06:28] But anyways, I'm saying I wish I had turned him in right away, but at that time I still thought that maybe my dad could get help or be helped and there was some way to work through this. He had actually signed up to go to some sex addiction related treatment clinic in Arizona called the Gentle Path at the Meadows.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:06:53] John had. My dad had spoken with them and actually was planning to go there, was signed up for that. But then, but then he did not so. I do think that in the beginning, Bishop Miller was definitely on my side. And I think that, you know, if he had said to me, if you go to the police, I'll go with you, I definitely would have, I think, gone at that time.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:07:31] But instead, there was this feeling that everything was being handled in house with the church. And the stake president at that time, he'd been a longtime friend of my dad's. He'd served in a former stake mission presidency with him, and he was a dental patient of my dad's.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:07:56] And after my dad went and made the confession to Bishop Miller, I guess he eventually talked to the stake president, but told him a more watered down version of that confession and also told the stake president that my mom was mentally ill and that she had gotten me to lie and say that I'd been abused, even though I hadn't.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:08:21] And the stake president decided to go with that story for quite a while. So my dad wasn't excommunicated for about four months from the time that he confessed to the time that he was excommunicated. And that was really mostly because the stake president really didn't initially want my dad to be excommunicated.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:08:53] And he wouldn't even speak to my mom and me. The stake president wouldn't speak to us. And that was very hard. That was painful.

John Dehlin [01:09:03] So he never called you or your mom in to get your version or side?

Chelsea Goodrich [01:09:08] Nope, not until Bishop Miller kind of forced that to happen. So he finally, one Sunday, Bishop Miller pulled us in with the stake president. And the stake president said, I don't have any time. I've got another meeting to go to. And the bishop said, you've got to talk to these ladies. You can't just ignore them. And so I still remember that, you know, it was very clear that the stake president had completely bought my dad's new story, because he treated us accordingly, like we were crazy and lying. And he just sat there very cold and with this deadpan face. He said, well. Referring to my dad, he said, well, did he even ejaculate?

Margi Dehlin [01:09:59] Mm.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:10:02] And I could see the look on Bishop's. Bishop Miller's face was a little shocked. I guess the stake president seemed to be indicating that that was a line deciding whether my dad would be excommunicated or not. And then he also said to my mom, right after that, he said, well, and do you still even share a bed with him?

Chelsea Goodrich [01:10:27] Like, have you not been sleeping with him for years? I don't know what that question is. Was about, but it Seemed like to us, it seemed like he was saying maybe that was an excuse for why my dad had had to come and get in the bed with me was because he wasn't getting sexually fulfilled in his marriage.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:10:57] That was the impression. I don't know for sure, but that was the impression. And my mom was like, she could hardly speak. She was just speechless at that and was like, yeah, I mean, I've been sharing. I've always shared the bed with my husband sometimes, you know, he's a night owl. So sometimes if he's coming in really late, I might go to another bed, knowing that he's going to come and wake me up. But anyways, here she is having to explain all that, and it just doesn't. It's not relevant.

Margi Dehlin [01:11:34] So

Chelsea Goodrich [01:11:38] in the same conversation, my mom and I are telling the stake president, you know, We're saying, you know, my dad is still in active danger. He admitted to us that he said he doesn't think he could stop himself from abusing another kid again.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:12:00] That he doesn't even know if he could trust himself not to abuse his own future grandkids. So we're telling the stake president that John told us this, that my dad told us this. And the stake president just stares at us like blank. He doesn't even respond.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:12:14] And Bishop Miller pipes up. He speaks up right around that time and says, yeah, he told me the same thing. He said, John told me the same thing, that he doesn't think he could trust himself not to abuse, sexually abuse his future grandkids.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:12:36] And right then, the stake president turned to Bishop Miller and he goes, oh, John told you that? And the bishop said, yeah, yeah, he told me that and a lot of other stuff that's pretty serious. And the stake president said, oh, okay, okay. Call Salt Lake.

Margi Dehlin [01:13:03] So maddening.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:13:05] So basically, it was like anything we said was held suspect is probably not true. But as soon as the bishop said the same thing, then it was to be believed and taken seriously. And according to Bishop Miller, somewhere around that time he had a conversation, and this is on the recordings with Paul Ridding, but he had a conversation with stake president where they got on the same page and where Bishop Miller said, hey, this is what John Goodrich confessed to me.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:13:46] And president said, oh, I actually didn't get that extent of a confession. So now I realize that it's more serious. But I mean, I still don't think that there was an excuse for, you know, the way that the stake president treated us, regardless.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:14:06] So then it took a few months because I guess Ultimately, in spite of the stake presidents kind of wanting to avoid my dad, avoid excommunicating my dad. Apparently, according to Bishop Miller, the church basically mandated the excommunication because once Bishop Miller called the helpline and explained to them that my dad had been a former bishop in that same stake. In the same stake.

John Dehlin [01:14:51] Okay. So he would have been known to all the stake members as a former bishop. And then if the abuse had happened and by your report, did happen while he was bishop and before he was bishop, that would call into question the inspired call of him as bishop to begin with. So for so many reasons, plus there was a personal relationship by this point with stake president and your dad. For all those reasons and probably many more, I could see why the stake president would want to live in denial and just avoid an excommunication because that would validate so many problems in the system.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:15:32] Right, Exactly. I guess he said something like that to Bishop Miller. Bishop Miller told us that he said something to the effect of, you know, that this could really negatively affect my dad's life, his practice, and that also it was going to. It was going to look bad for the church locally and everything like that. So

Margi Dehlin [01:15:59] there's such a focus on the abuser.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:16:03] Massively. Massively. That's what I came to realize through this. I'm still coming to realize as I hear other people's stories and I have, you know, had other abuse survivors, victims reach out, that there's a strange thing in our culture, I think a bit at large, but significantly more in the LDS Church and obviously other churches as well, of, for some reason treating the abuser like, you know, they're the one that left the 99. They're the prodigal son. They're the. The sinner to be, you know, sought after and loved through their repentance process. And somehow the victim just gets shamed and blamed and shunned. And it's. I'm still trying to. I was telling Margi earlier, I'm still trying to comprehend it. I really can't wrap my mind around. Goes deep.

Margi Dehlin [01:17:11] Yeah.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:17:12] So, yeah, when my dad was excommunicated In October of 2015, It's my understanding now that in an excommunication court that the family is to be notified and at least allowed the opportunity to attend. And at very least, if there's an abuse situation, that the victim is supposed to be allowed to attend, given that opportunity to attend the excommunication court. And that did not happen at all. So our family expressed to President that we would Want to be there.

John Dehlin [01:18:04] And was there a separation where your dad moved out or you know, would the family get at least split in terms of living arrangements?

Chelsea Goodrich [01:18:12] Okay, yeah. So during this time my brother actually had to come and basically force my dad to move out of the home. And at this time he was,

John Dehlin [01:18:25] he

Chelsea Goodrich [01:18:25] was doing a lot of pity plays with my mom. He would cry and tell her like, you know, I'm sorry, you know, for everything. And he was suddenly treating my mom really nicely, really well. And I remember my brother saying, you know, dad, I think it's a little late for treating your wife and family well.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:18:52] I think you're a little late to the, to the show here. So yeah, he moved out, my dad moved out. And like I said, he was behaving pretty penitently. He'd signed up to go to this sex treatment, sex addiction treatment, sex perversion treatment center. I don't know exactly all what they do, but in Arizona.

Attempts at Reconciliation and Reporting to Police

Chelsea Goodrich [01:19:20] And we were all hoping, okay, maybe, maybe somehow this can be worked through. That's why I didn't initially go to the police. And then as I mentioned earlier, my dad talked to an attorney that kind of said, you know, statute of limitations should be up on this. It actually wasn't. But that attorney was misinformed and misinformed my dad. So once my dad thought that he couldn't legally be touched, he just wasn't penitent anymore. He wasn't remorseful anymore.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:20:00] He was becoming more aggressive verbally, physically. I was at my parents house one day during this time trying to talk to my dad and he was physically blocking me from leaving the house as we were having an argument. I was trying to leave and he was physically blocking the door.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:20:24] I was getting scared. I was thinking, I can tell that there's a change in him where he seems like he has a lot of rage and fear and desperation and he's trying to be physically intimidating towards my mom and me. And my mom had started speaking to a divorce attorney at this time. The divorce hadn't started.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:20:53] And the divorce attorney told her, you need to get out of that town. He said, I've seen this kind of thing before. Everyone's going to side with your husband in the church and in the community because you've been a stay at home mom and he's been out there. He's been everyone's bishop, dentist, Rotary Club president. He was voted citizen of the year once or twice. He had honorary base privileges to go on and off the local air force base even though he wasn't military.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:21:23] So this is how beloved this man was. And he's wealthy and he had money. And so this attorney said, you know, you're not going to want to stick around there, you're going to want to leave, move away to another town for your own safety and for the fact that he said, I hate to say it, but your local church members in the community are probably gonna turn on you. They're not gonna support you through this because they're not gonna wanna see it. They're gonna wanna believe him over you. And we couldn't comprehend it at the time, but that attorney was spot on.

John Dehlin [01:21:55] And so where's Mountain Home in Idaho?

Chelsea Goodrich [01:21:59] You know, it's about 45 minutes outside of Boise, if you know where Boise is going. I think kind of southeast, ish, something like that. I don't know, I'm not really good on my northeast southwest, but it's 45 minutes outside of Boise.

John Dehlin [01:22:15] Okay.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:22:15] And small town, air force base town. A lot of my dad's dental patients were active duty military, that kind of thing.

John Dehlin [01:22:26] So you were talking and I got you off track. You were talking about your dad being summoned to a disciplinary council but you all not knowing about it, Is that right? And you go wherever you want with the story. Yeah, I just want to realize that I took you in a direction and right when you were about to go there, but go wherever you want.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:22:44] No, that's fine. I mean that fits in because during this time we were trying to kind of flee away. My mom was caregiving my 84 year old grandma at the time full time and I was still in la, but I felt like really strongly and I'm so glad that I followed this feeling that I just needed to leave LA and come not only help my mom and grandma move to a new town 90 minutes away to Haley, but to just stick with them, support them through everything. And they supported me too. We kind of needed to stick together through what was going to come. Was going to be very rough.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:23:36] And so I don't know if the stake president justified that because we were in the process of moving away. That's why he didn't need to update or notify or inform us of what was going on with the excommunication process.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:23:54] I don't really know but we weren't, we asked to be informed, we weren't. And then my dad was excommunicated and we didn't know. We actually found out because my brother in law reached out to wrote him a letter about how he's a Mormon

John Dehlin [01:24:12] general authority or was Correct?

Chelsea Goodrich [01:24:14] Yes, correct. And my brother in law knew him, somehow reached out to him and said, you know, this is how my mother in law and sister in law are being treated by the local church leadership and looked into everything. And he said, well, just so you know, looks like now this guy has been excommunicated. And so that was how we found out that he'd even been excommunicated was through my brother in law.

John Dehlin [01:24:43] Didn't someone show up to the original hearing and find the church empty? The original disciplinary council and find the church empty?

Chelsea Goodrich [01:24:49] Correct. Good. Knowing the facts, John. So yeah, the excommunication court was scheduled for a certain time I think like in September. And then my brother in law and my sister actually drove up from Utah to Idaho so that we could all attend together. And we went over to the church and no one was there. And so then we contacted Bishop Miller and he said, oh yeah, I think it was called off, rescheduled, but we didn't know, I mean, even to the point that family's coming from out of town and we had no idea. So then I think about a month, give or take later, my dad was finally excommunicated. But we weren't informed about that court at all and found out through my brother in law talking to Elder.

John Dehlin [01:25:54] And if the church was trying to keep this quiet, to not have it get out, to avoid any legal liability for itself or even for your dad, it would have wanted no one at the disciplinary council because that's when facts would have been shared, priesthood leaders would have been listening.

John Dehlin [01:26:13] And you know, there would have been other witnesses that could have testified as to whatever your dad was confessing to. Like I know for sure my wife was in my disciplinary council and everyone that I know of had the option of having their spouse at the disciplinary council and having witnesses.

John Dehlin [01:26:30] So based on my experience of a disciplinary council and those that I'm aware of, it's extremely weird that family members weren't allowed to be there and that this was all happening in secret. Although I guess the church would say that your parents were separated, you know, but I, I don't know. That doesn't seem like. It just seems convenient that the, that the church wanted, appeared to want no one there.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:26:56] Correct. And I mean, my parents were in the process of separating, but they had only been separated at that point for maybe a month. And that was after, you know, almost 30 years, or actually, yeah, 30 years of marriage, Temple marriage, so.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:27:14] And also, I guess according to church policy, at the very least, I as the victim should have Been given the opportunity to be included, and that didn't happen. And yes, that was a problem, because what happened was that my dad was able to tell whatever narrative he wanted. Bishop Miller wasn't even there. Bishop Miller, who he'd given the original confession to, wasn't there.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:27:44] So think of how easy it was for my dad to say what he wanted to say. And he did. He said that my mom was the one that had been the abuser and that she had severely beaten and abused us kids.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:27:59] I mean, frankly, if that was true, that doesn't look very good for him either, because, you know, he was allowing for it. But that, of course, wasn't true. But he told everyone that my mom was mentally ill and had abused his kids and that he was innocent. But I don't know if my dad realized it at that point that the church had already mandated this excommunication. So really, it was just a formality. This particular excommunication court was more of a formality than anything else, because the helpline attorneys had already told Bishop Miller, you know, with this man being a former bishop and having had who knows how many kids in his office as a bishop alone with him, we're not going to mess around with this.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:28:44] This guy's got to be excommunicated. So that, you know, at least we took action steps for the record. So someone in the excommunication court, one of the men that had been in that excommunication court, and for those who don't know, there would only have been men in the excommunication court.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:29:09] One of those men told their wife about what had happened in the excommunication court, and she told someone else. And anyways, pretty soon there was gossip spreading around like wildfire around the stake that, you know, my dad may have been innocent, that it was really my mom who was the abuser.

Excommunication Process and Community Confusion

Chelsea Goodrich [01:29:33] And I think it was easy for people to be confused and believe that was possible, because the stake president then didn't go through normal protocol to announce to those who needed to be told that the excommunication had even happened.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:29:52] And so I think that there was a lot of people confused as to whether my dad had been even excommunicated at all, that maybe there had been some court held. But then in the process, it became clear that he was innocent and my mom was the guilty one. So this is the kind of story that was spreading around. And it was just horrific for my mom because she was suddenly seen and treated differently by a lot of people and, you know, realized she didn't really have.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:30:21] She didn't really have a community. She didn't really have friends. When it came down to a sex abuse scandal and an incest scandal, where it was more comfortable for people to believe that their former bishop, their dentist, their colleague, their friend, their whatever, was not a child molester.

John Dehlin [01:30:45] Did you say that he had served on the stake High Council with stake president?

Chelsea Goodrich [01:30:50] It was a mission presidency back when they used to have.

John Dehlin [01:30:53] Okay.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:30:54] Districts or missions.

John Dehlin [01:30:55] Okay, yeah. And I'll just say again, when I was dis, you know, when I had my disciplinary council, we were told in the letter that if I resigned that everyone in the stake would be notified. So like, you know, it's weird that they would selectively want apostates, everyone to know and the church ended up making a public statement. They would want someone who they decided was an apostate, like Sam Young, Bill Real, Jeremy Runnels or others. They would want the world and the stake and the ward to know that that apostate was an apostate. But whether it's Colby and Cam Reddish and their story or the other stories that we've covered on Mormon stories, when it's a sexual abuser in the ward, in the stake, the church doesn't want to make an announcement and they punish anyone who tries to warn other warder stake members that there's a predator in their midst.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:32:01] Absolutely, John. It is hard to understand because they did try to keep this very hush hush, in contrast to what you just stated. They wanted to keep this type of situation hush hush.

John Dehlin [01:32:14] Yeah, yeah. And that's at the expense of potential victims.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:32:22] 100%. 100%.

John Dehlin [01:32:24] And actual victims.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:32:27] Yeah, yeah. And that's, you know, really how that all played out. There's obviously more details that I won't go into about other things that happened with other members and conversations and how we were treated. But ultimately what it came down to is that the reason there was so much confusion and my mom was able to be slandered and we were perceived in a certain way and treated so badly was because of really how the local leadership handled things.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:33:16] And so fast forward the next year, the next July 2016. My mom and grandma and myself had moved to Haley, Idaho. We were attending the LDS Church. Still going to church there, thinking what had happened to us maybe was a one off.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:33:44] And I don't want to go too deep into this, but there was another situation that happened, a situation that happened in that ward where there was a married man in the ward with children who had been the. He was the early morning seminary teacher when we got there.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:34:01] Then he got released at some point and made the Sunday school teacher. But he was stalking me and he was sending me inappropriate messages. I was called to be in young women's and his daughter was in my young women's class and I was working with her, she was struggling and this man was sexually harassing me. And at church he would come over and put his arms around me and hug me from behind, which is a huge trigger, especially from someone like that.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:34:35] And I did tell local leadership what was happening. They said, yeah, we know we've gotten other concerns and reports. We've had our own experiences with this brother, if you want to call him that and we'll see what we can do.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:34:55] And I told them as well that a 20 year old young man who just returned from his mission had confided in me that growing up, when he would go over to this brother's house, that the brother would grope him regularly. He would do this tickle game and in the process he would fondle and grope his penis, the young man's penis. And the young man said he didn't want to say anything to anyone because this brother's son was his good friend, was his best friend. And he said, I don't want to hurt my friend by telling on his dad.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:35:33] So I told the stake about that too. And Haley, I told the stake about that as well. And they said, okay, you know, we'll do something. They didn't do anything. The guy stayed in as the Sunday school president. And when I would go to church, I did tell him, the man, that I was going to report it to the police, that he was stalking me. So he stopped coming over to our home and stalking me.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:35:59] But at church he would still come over and harass me, try to touch me, try to grab me. And no one would do anything. None of the church leadership there would do anything. And so that was the point where I almost felt like I was being hit over the head by a two by four with these experiences because I was willing to keep going to church even after what had happened with my dad, as crazy as that may sound to some people. My mom and I were still, we still wanted to, we still believed the church was the gospel and we were going.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:36:39] And then I had this other experience where I went to leadership for help. And once again it was just being ignored, brushed under the rug. And this person was still being allowed to just operate as if nothing had happened within the church. And I thought, okay, I can't Keep going to church. It's not safe for me there.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:37:06] And that's really. When. When I stopped going, probably about five or six years ago, I just realized that this was a lot more systemic of a problem, the way the church handles sexual predators and treats the victims. I thought, okay, how many more times do I need to have this kind of thing happen or witness it happen to somebody else and just keep plowing forward like everything's normal?

Chelsea Goodrich [01:37:46] So, yeah, I feel in a strange way like God allowed for that experience to happen as well, so that I would start to see the bigger picture, because I realized that there's a lot of people who have been in the church their whole lives, and they've never had anything like this happened to them.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:38:09] And so maybe for some people in the church, it could sound like, wow, you know, how does she keep having these experiences when I never have kind of a thing? But I don't know. But I can tell you that there's a lot of other people just like me, a lot of other people who have had pretty much the exact same type of experiences, unfortunately.

Margi Dehlin [01:38:37] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:38:39] I'm so sorry.

Margi Dehlin [01:38:40] Yeah.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:38:41] Thank you.

John Dehlin [01:38:44] So where. Where does the story take us? What's the next part?

Chelsea Goodrich [01:38:49] So the next part goes to. My parents are going through a divorce, and we were pretty scared because we moved up to Haley, and we kind of had to do that alone. None of the church brethren in Mountain Home were helping with that process until the Relief Society president in Mountain Home actually insisted.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:39:21] She went and talked to the bishop, and she said, are you going to let these ladies, like, move completely by themselves up to Haley? And there was something about. We had tried to get a regular moving truck and moving service, but that wasn't going to work.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:39:40] And so the bishop said, okay. And he got another brother from the church, and they did help us move some larger items at the very end. But we had done all the moving before that, and it was just so exhausting.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:39:58] Didn't have a lot of help. And around the same time, my dad served divorce papers on my mom first, because I think that, you know, he began to realize that it would be advantageous for him to have been the one to serve. And to say it was just, you know, for his reasons, not for what we were going to say. It was the truth.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:40:21] And so around that time, he also cut my mom off financially, which included me, because, frankly, when I was living in Los Angeles, my dad was supporting me. I was living in a nice apartment there. I was going to grad school, and he was paying for basically everything.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:40:41] And so I knew that by telling the truth of what had happened to me and by fighting him on the issue, that I was going to lose all that. And so I did drop out of grad school at that time, had to leave the nice apartment, you know, lost all those things. But I mean, of course, I mean, in my mind I thought, I'm never taking another dime from him again.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:41:12] Especially if he thinks that that's some kind of a trade off or some kind of hush money, you know, in and of itself. So anyways, we were cut off financially now and we ended up going to the local women's shelter because a sweet little therapist in her 80s, she told My mom and me, she said, you know, you need to go to the women's shelter because they're going to help you. And she said, you know, they will pay for you to get therapy and everything like that and support at this time. And she said, and they'll help you make a safety plan. Because we were, we were feeling scared.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:42:00] As we had learned through the divorce process that my dad had, you know, through the purchases that my mom was able to also view, had purchased his first handgun. He didn't have any guns before that that I know of.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:42:19] And around the same time, my mom came to find out that my dad had forged life insurance policy on her. At least one policy. And there was very clear evidence for that. He was originally actually charged on the forgery when he was arrested in Mountain Home when they arrested him on the sex charges. So, yeah, we had evidence for the forgery. And you can imagine that we were kind of nervous.

Margi Dehlin [01:42:46] Yeah.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:42:47] About the fact that he had forged life insurance on my mom after they were separated and bought his, you know, first handgun. So there was also a couple of break ins that happened after we moved up to Haley around this time. And the first break in, the only thing that the person who broke in took was the original recording device that we had been using to do some of the audio recording of our conversations with my dad. So since that's the only thing that was taken, it was highly suspicious of who had broken in.

Margi Dehlin [01:43:25] Yeah.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:43:26] And anyways, it was just a scary time. And so we went to the women's shelter, which felt so weird because we were like, we're not those people. You know, you think of the people that go to like a women's and children's shelter for help, and we thought like, you know, it was just so weird to feel like we were those people because were like, no, we're not. That's not like it was just so hard to grapple with what we were now experiencing. And the fact that my mom was, like, driving this nice Mercedes vehicle up to the women's shelter. Here she has this nice car.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:44:05] She'd been living that kind of a nice life. But here we were saying, we actually. It doesn't look like it, but we don't actually have anything. And so the women's shelter, they gave us vouchers to go and get some winter clothes at the local thrift store because we had moved so quickly that we actually left behind quite a bit. We were scared enough and urgent enough in our moving that we did leave behind a lot and reached a point that we didn't feel like it was safe to go back. And my mom's attorney told her that. So, yeah, we were short on winter clothes and other things.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:44:44] And the women and children's shelter, the advocates in Haley, they were amazing. They helped us create a safety plan. And for a little while, we were on food stamps briefly, and they paid for our therapy for quite a while for us to get therapy.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:45:07] And that was all just amazing. You know, that was huge support because we no longer felt that trust with the church to a great extent, to go to them for help. And so then the divorce got pretty ugly because naturally, my dad was, like, you know, fighting the claims of the sex abuse, and he was trying to really build up the narrative that my mom had been the abuser.

John Dehlin [01:45:38] Was there a custody dispute with minors or. All the children were adults.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:45:43] Okay, all the children were adults now,

John Dehlin [01:45:45] fortunately, just arguing over money, I guess, and blame.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:45:51] Yeah, yeah. Really?

Margi Dehlin [01:45:53] A narrative.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:45:55] Yeah, the narrative was the main thing, because if the narrative was what it really was, if the truth was the truth, then my mom had grounds in the state of Idaho to get, I think, basically everything, at least.

John Dehlin [01:46:15] You mean financially?

Chelsea Goodrich [01:46:16] Yeah, financially. To get at least what was there of physical assets and things. And if the story wasn't true, then she could even be at risk of getting nothing for having lied

John Dehlin [01:46:33] or sued for defamation.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:46:35] Exactly. Yeah. So the divorce struck out for two years. And we were told by my mom's divorce attorneys, you know, don't turn John in now because that will further complicate the divorce, and you might lose financially if you turn your husband in. If you and your daughter turn your husband in for what he did to her sexually, then that could financially harm you.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:47:05] And, in fact, my dad's attorney, Jim Bevis, he wrote this letter to my mom's attorney saying, let's not kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. By turning John Goodrich into the authorities, then you will be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs, you know. And so for a few months, my mom listened to her attorney's counsel because she thought, okay, surely this divorce will be settled soon.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:47:37] But it became apparent in the summer of 2016 that the divorce was not going to be settled soon. Things were continuing to drag out, and my mom had a phone conversation. I was there with my brother. He's the next sibling under me, a couple years younger. And in July of.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:48:02] Actually, August of 2016, my mom had this phone conversation with. And they're talking about the divorce stuff, talking about some other stuff, and tells my mom, you know, as you know, dad admitted to me that he did sick and wrong things to Chelsea.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:48:27] And he said, you know, but what makes me nervous is that dad told me that he's still getting boners. That was his wording. He's getting boners when he's around little kids. Every time he's around little kids, he gets boners.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:48:42] And he said, and also realized that dad is dating women with children. He's now dating, and he's dating women with children. And he said, and, you know, I think he's, you know, still having those urges to molest because he told me he still gets boners anytime he's around little kids. So this is in this conversation that we had with my brother that of course, we're recording, because at this point we record everything, even though we're hated for it.

The Father's Reaction to Excommunication

John Dehlin [01:49:18] Wasn't there a comment your dad made about being happy he was excommunicated? Do you want to share that?

Chelsea Goodrich [01:49:24] Yeah. I don't really know why my dad said that, but I would assume that it's got to get exhausting to live what would presumably be that level of a double life. I have to be careful how I say that, but it seems to me like it was a pretty extreme double life for a long time, and maybe he didn't feel like he had to live that level of a double life anymore now that he's not in the Mormon Church. I don't know.

John Dehlin [01:50:10] So he didn't continue as a believer wanting to get rebaptized, as far as you know?

Chelsea Goodrich [01:50:18] As far as I know, he has remained out of the church. He did remarry, and it attends another church. Now, from what I've heard in Boise, it's not Mormon, it's not lds, but yeah. So my brother, he tells us over the phone that my dad is still getting boners around kids, that he's dating women with children.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:50:50] And recently around this time, my mom, as escorted by her attorney's assistant, had gone back to our mountain home house to get some remaining belongings. And when she was there, when I was there, too, three of us witnessed this, that there was, like, little kids floaty toys around the pool, little kids swimming suits, and there was a new cooler thing there with alcohol drinks and, like, little kid juices in the cooler. And so we saw this, and we're like, oh, wow.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:51:25] It appears that my dad's having swimming parties over at the house where little kids are involved in playing. And we also had a neighbor tell us that there was some neighbor kids that were going over there to swim as well.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:51:44] So this is 2016. We witnessed that. We had my brother tell us that my dad is getting, quote, boners around little kids still, and he is dating women who have young children. So at this point, in spite of the fact that the divorce is not over, isn't even looking like it's going to be over soon. And it wasn't for another year after that. But we, my mom and I, decided that we couldn't delay reporting any longer, regardless of what her attorneys said, because we thought, okay, if more kids get molested in this time, we're going to feel like it's partly on us because we haven't reported this to the authorities.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:52:33] Of course, also it's partly on the church because they know more than I do about my own abuse. Yeah, but they weren't going to do anything, of course. And so, I mean, I still remember that I was very.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:52:51] I felt very calm about going to make the report, driving from Haley to mountain home with our evidence to go and make the report. But my mom was pretty stressed and scared. And I understand more fully now, looking back, that, you know, she was the one who was really going to take the hit for this, and she really did. I mean, she has been the scapegoat throughout this whole process. And, you know, as is common in these types of situations, there's usually someone who's being scapegoated and blamed so that the abuser can make themselves appear innocent. They put everything else on someone else. And through this whole thing to this day, my mom is a scapegoat.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:53:43] And to the point that, you know, my dad convinced a couple of my siblings to join him in blaming her and accusing her of abuse. And that's a whole other thing in and of itself. But that has just been devastating for my mom.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:54:06] But I can come back to that a little bit later. But so we went to the police in Mountain Home, drove from Haley to Mountain home, I think September 1st or 2nd of 2016.

Margi Dehlin [01:54:23] And.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:54:28] We gave the police the recordings of John having conversations with us. And the police told us, you know, It could take two or three months for us to investigate this, but we'll look into it. And then they listened to the recordings, I guess that same night. And to our shock, the next morning, we got a phone call saying we've detained and arrested him, charging him. And we were just shocked because we didn't know it would be that fast. But apparently after the police listened to the recordings of John's confessions, even to the degree that he did confess, they were very concerned, and they felt like he was an imminent danger to the community.

Margi Dehlin [01:55:20] So how did that feel for you, to have them look and hold what you'd been holding in all those conversations and to decisively act in that moment,

Chelsea Goodrich [01:55:33] you know, at that time, that was very validating. It was healing to an extent, to have them see what I saw when that had never really happened through the church process. Yeah, I was never really seen through that process. I was never really told, oh, this is real. Oh, this is serious. Oh, we're so sorry that you've been through this. I mean, the closest thing was Bishop Miller at the very beginning, but, yeah, to have the police take it so seriously was encouraging. And I think at the time I thought, okay, this is gonna be pretty straightforward. Yeah, and some justice is gonna be served here.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:56:19] And hopefully my dad will become a registered sex offender. So that at least regardless of anything else that happens, sentencing wise, at least that could happen. And therefore people could be on notice and could make their own choices to protect themselves and their kids.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:56:40] The initial prosecutor on the case was in Mountain Home, and she was a seasoned prosecutor of, I think, a decade or two at least. And she was amazing to work with. And I will just note that my dad was initially arrested on charges of rape of a minor under the age of 16.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:57:11] Incest, lewd and lascivious conduct, and the forgery. And I guess this is what I was told. I don't know if this is accurate, but that that was the first official incest charge that had ever happened in the state of Idaho. I don't know if that's accurate, but that's what the prosecutor told me at the time.

John Dehlin [01:57:36] That would be mind blowing if true.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:57:37] Yeah, it really would. So I don't know if that's true. Maybe she meant in that county. I just remember something about it being the first incest charge in a large context. So then that prosecutor, she did drop down the charges to the lewd and lascivious conduct only because she said in her experience that she was more likely to get a conviction on my dad through that, dropping it down to one charge and something that would be easier to get a conviction on. So she was great to work with. She, I felt like, really treated me well as a victim, a lot of compassion. And she told me, she said, you know, I'm going to prosecute this man to the fullest extent of the law.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:58:34] I'm going to try to get him life in prison. She said, his criminal defense attorney has already been calling me. And she said, I'm not even going to take those calls because I'm not open to a plea deal in this case.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:58:50] She said, I will warn you that. I will say that the prisons are not full of wealthy, well connected pedophiles. She said, they're more full of the less wealthy, well, less well connected ones. So she said, I will warn you that a lot of times in these situations, she said, you know, your dad is going to.

Chelsea Goodrich [01:59:11] He's going to employ the best attorneys that he can with all the money that he can. And she said, and he's probably going to try to bribe people off in your family, potential witnesses, maybe even try to blackmail people, threaten people. She said, this is just what I've seen in my years and years of experience as a prosecuting attorney that people like your dad will often do. So she did make that warning, and

Margi Dehlin [01:59:45] I

Chelsea Goodrich [01:59:48] didn't fully get it at the time, but things ended up playing out almost exactly like that. So anyways, Tina Shinley, that was her stance on everything, that prosecutor. And then unfortunately, there was an election that November of 2016 and did not get reelected. I think she'd been in for a few terms and the election kind of switched over, you know, like from, I don't remember the Republican Party to the Democratic Party or something like that. She didn't get reelected and was elected to be the new prosecutor that fall. And we heard that he didn't have a lot of experience for the job. And he handed the case to his assistant prosecutor, who was, I think, 28 years old at the time, not highly experienced either, and was also his girlfriend.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:01:04] They got engaged during this process and so there was really no checks and balances there because when started doing things that were confusing and didn't seem right. And I would reach out to the lead prosecutor, to Daniel Page, you know, he stood with her on the issues and you can kind of see why, you know, when see he's such a huge conflict of interest. It's a huge conflict of interest. And there was another conflict of interest, which, you know, I guess these kinds of things can be common in small towns. But.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:01:46] Secretary was also the person assigned to be my victim's advocate. So that was a conflict of interest as well. And early on after got handed the case, Her secretary told me, you know, sorry if things are kind of moving along at a slow pace. She said, to be honest, didn't really want this case and she felt like it just got dumped in her lap and she doesn't really want to deal with it.

The Criminal Case and Prosecutorial Decisions

Chelsea Goodrich [02:02:22] So surprisingly was, I think she was a little bit of a tell all. So I'm sure wouldn't have wanted her to say that, but she told me that and that was really, of course disconcerting to hear that my prosecutor on the case didn't want to deal with it.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:02:46] So that kind of became prophetic. What told me, because as the case rolled on, Ms. Moved the trial date for the criminal case. She moved the trial date at least once. And I think one time she moved it because she was going on a trip to celebrate her recent engagement with a prosecutor.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:03:17] So that was of course frustrating. And finally, in like May of 2017, she told my mom and me to come to Mountain Home for trial prep, that she wanted to meet for trial prep. And so we went to meet for trial prep.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:03:41] And it wasn't a trial prep meeting. It was actually for her to tell us that she was dropping all. She was dropping the case against John. And that was a long and painful conversation. And I wish I had recorded it because, well, for a number of reasons, because of what was going to unfold. But she told us that there wasn't enough evidence. And I said, well, what about the recordings and what about John saying this and this?

Chelsea Goodrich [02:04:13] And she said, well, but you know, that's not enough. We need, you know, Bishop Miller would have been really helpful if he could have testified because he knows so much more. And I said, I know, I agree. But I said the first prosecutor, you know, who had way more experience, I said, she seemed to think that there was enough evidence without that, that she was going to at least try on my testimony and try on the statements made by my dad.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:04:46] And she said, well, you know, it looks suspicious that it's happening that this all came up during your parents divorce. And I said, well, my parents divorce is because of the sexual abuse, and that's easy to show. And she said, oh, well, you know, I just. I feel like it was just so long ago.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:05:08] And it would also be hard to show a jury, especially a mountain Home jury, that anything that your father did to you was anything other than natural fatherly affection. I don't know if she was insinuating that there's a lot of incest that goes on in Mountain Home, but she said she didn't think that especially a mountain home jury could sort the facts out and see for themselves that what had happened was sexual abuse.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:05:36] So, you know, you think about it. There was an original prosecutor, seasoned prosecutor, who saw that there, thought there was enough evidence here to prosecute. There was a judge, Judge Fleming in Mountain Home that I testified before in the preliminary case.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:05:56] He thought there was enough evidence for this to go to court, and so he ruled for it to go to court. And in the interim, there was more witnesses that came forward, like Sherry Tanner, of what had happened to her and other people in the town, I guess, had reached out with anecdotal evidence of things to do with John and his relationship towards certain women and children in the town and ignored all of it. She didn't interview any of those people, any of the witnesses, and yet she's telling us that, you know, she has the power to decide all on her own, and she did have that power that this wasn't going to go to trial and that she was going to drop it all, drop the whole case.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:06:56] So it still boggles my mind to this day that with another prosecutor and a judge wanting it to go to trial and with a number of other strong witnesses to John being a sexual abuser, that in the end, Ms. Had that much power.

Margi Dehlin [02:07:17] Yeah.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:07:19] To do what she did.

Priesthood Authority and Institutional Accountability

Margi Dehlin [02:07:20] So one thing that's really interesting, I think as you're talking, it's bringing it up for me is often times on Mormon stories, we'll talk about priesthood authority kind of roulette.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:07:33] Right.

Margi Dehlin [02:07:33] John? And when you're talking, it's making me think, you know, this idea of when you're playing power roulette within systems, it exists in a lot of systems. And when you're talking, this is an example of it in the judicial system. So you've already experienced it once, you've experienced it in your church environment within that sort of authority system. And now you're having yet again this experience of playing authority, power roulette, where the wrong people, you know, are now having control and real impact on your experience and your life.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:08:21] Yeah, absolutely. Margi. It was overwhelming, to say the least, to go through these experiences Back to back with the church and then with the. The mountain home legal system. So, yeah, tells me, you know, she doesn't think anyone would be able to recognize what happened as anything other than natural fatherly affection.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:08:56] And I was just so confused. My mom and I were both so confused because we're thinking, okay, we've come this far. And there was other people that obviously thought there was extremely strong evidence. And then now we're having someone tell us that none of it's real, you know, and so interestingly, and the viewers can decide for themselves what they think this was about. But my parents divorce trial was scheduled to happen like in the next week or two after this. And that divorce trial was going to go into court before the same judge that was assigned the criminal case, the same judge that I had testified before, the same judge who had ruled for the criminal case to go to court before a jury.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:10:02] That same judge was assigned to assess, you know, sit in court for my parents divorce case. And in that divorce case, all of the same recordings, all the same witnesses, all the same evidence was going to come out publicly in that divorce case.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:10:32] And the next thing we know right before the divorce is to go into court. And mind you, the Sherry Tanner drug raping case had happened. And so my mom's attorney said, you know, because of the Sherry Tanner thing, because John did this while he was married to you, it looks like we'll be able to get pretty much everything.

John Dehlin [02:10:57] Do you want to tell that story really quick?

Chelsea Goodrich [02:11:00] Yeah. So after my story came out in the media that John had been arrested on sex abuse charges. Sherry Tanner saw that in the paper and she had very recently had her own experience with my dad where he had asked her if she wanted to go and get some kind of a microneedling facial. And he told her that they could do it together and that to relax and feel less pain or whatever, this was someone.

John Dehlin [02:11:36] So was he married? Was he single at the time? He's still married to your mom?

Chelsea Goodrich [02:11:40] Yeah, separated, but still married.

John Dehlin [02:11:42] Was he dating her?

Chelsea Goodrich [02:11:43] He was dating, and as I mentioned earlier, he was dating a lot, according to my brother, dating women with young kids as well. And Sherry had two teenage daughters and so.

John Dehlin [02:11:55] And was she. Do you know if she was a. Maybe you said this a patient of

Chelsea Goodrich [02:11:58] his, so no, she wasn't. He tried to make her a patient. He took her to his dental office and looked at her teeth once. But she was never an official patient. So there was some legal argument about that that came up related to her criminal and civil cases. But no, she technically never was. They met online on a dating app. They were dating. She had two young teenage daughters, and he had had them over to the house. He had actually asked Sherry if he could have the two girls over to do a sleepover at his house without Sherry. And luckily, she didn't agree to that. But,

Margi Dehlin [02:12:46] yeah,

Chelsea Goodrich [02:12:51] I guess in the process of them dating, they were going to go get this microneedling facial together that John invited her to do. He told her that she would be more relaxed and have less pain if she took some medication that he had for her. They went and sat out in his car outside of the facial, outside of the dermatology clinic, and he pulled out a pill crusher, crushed some pills for her, and gave her these pills in the name of that she was going to be relaxed and have less pain for this facial procedure that he had arranged for.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:13:32] And so she took the pills. It was Halcyon, which is a conscious amnesia drug. She doesn't remember, of course, anything that happened after the time of taking the pills, because that's how the pills work. After the procedure, facial procedure, he took her back to her home, where he sexually assaulted her. And if anyone has any doubt about it being assault, know that Sherry had recently had a surgery. She had bandages on, and John had to rip the bandages off in order to fully assault her.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:14:24] And so there was blood everywhere because she still had surgical incisions. And she woke up at some point. By the time she woke up, he was gone. Her surgical bandages had been ripped off. There was blood everywhere. She could see that she had been sexually assaulted.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:14:51] He had sex with her. She didn't remember any of it, but she texted him and asked him why he'd done what he'd done. He said, sorry, but it was fun. She went to the police after. Around this time, she also saw my story, and she thought, you know, I wasn't going to go to the police, but she thought, I didn't recognize that he's also a danger to children.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:15:17] So she thought, I'm going to go ahead and go report this rape because people need to realize the truth about my situation, too. So she went to the police, and they said, you know, it may be good if you have any future conversations with him, if you recorded it.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:15:39] And so she did have a few conversations with my dad that she recorded. And on those recordings, he admitted to drugging her and to having sex with her while she was drugged and unconscious. And surprisingly, he also told Sherry a good amount about his sexual abuse of me. He told Sherry some Things about that.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:16:08] Told her that he would have these erections around me all the time on my body. And Sherry was like, don't you realize that that's not normal for a dad to be attracted to his daughter? Sherry also called and talked to my brother and recorded that conversation. And just so you know, none of the recorded conversations that Sherry did was John. Was my dad aware or my brother aware that they were being recorded, unlike my recordings with him. But my brother said to Sherri over the phone in a recorded conversation, he said, yeah, you know, it was wrong what my dad did to my sister. But he said, you know, he was just.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:16:58] Just bored and horny and things got out of hand. So that was my brother's assessment, at least to Sherry, of what had happened with the sexual abuse. But, yeah, so Sherry, she went to, obviously, the police, and they assigned her to work with a prosecutor for her case. And this prosecutor's name was.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:17:32] And he's in Boise, where this all had taken place, and. Told Sherry, okay, you know, we're gonna go down hard on this guy. We're gonna bring in sex charges, sexual assault charges, along with the drug charges. And there was a grand jury actually scheduled that the prosecutor had scheduled for some time that week. I think this was, like, September of 2017 now, something like that, or actually 2016, because it was all happening right after my stuff came out.

Margi Dehlin [02:18:19] So.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:18:19] So this prosecutor scheduled the grand jury. Sherry even canceled a trip back to Green Bay, Wisconsin, that she had scheduled. Canceled the flights, canceled the trip so that she could be there for the grand jury process. And the next thing she knew, she had turned in some statements from my mom and myself about my case. Two looked at them now, realized that we were Mormon, that my dad was a former Mormon bishop, and himself, as a Mormon, I understand that he has done and perhaps still does legal work for the church.

A New Prosecutor and the Mormon Connection

Chelsea Goodrich [02:19:12] He reads over these statements from us, realizes the Mormon connection. And the next day, I think it was like, the next day he contacts Sherry and says, you know, canceling the grand jury, we're not going to charge or prosecute John Goodrich.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:19:33] And she goes, what's going on? He said, well, I think that a big problem here is that Mountain Home police seem to have lost or accidentally deleted some of your recordings of your conversations with John Goodrich. And so, you know, that's going to be problematic.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:19:52] And so she contacted the Mountain Home police. And I believe all of this is pretty well documented. There's a statement from Sherri about it that I have, and I think a recorded conversation with the Mountain Home police. And she said to the Mountain Home police, you know, did this happen? And they're like, no. Detective Satterfeld at the time, he went and double checked. He said, let me go double check. He goes, no, we still have everything here, all the evidence that you originally gave us.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:20:19] And so Sherry went back to and said, why are you lying? What's going on here? And he said, well, I think there was a misunderstanding, some confusion, but anyways, I'm sorry about that. I misunderstood something. But as it is, I don't think that there's, you know, a case here. And so Sherry was livid and just, she said, I'm not going to stand for this. And so she went and talked to somebody over and she said, you know, I'm going to go to the media with my recordings, with everything I have, and I'm going to tell them what happened with. And everyone's going to know that it looks like your prosecutor's office maybe was covering up here.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:21:05] And at that time, she. They said, whoever she spoke to said, no, no, no, you know, we'll. We'll sign you a different prosecutor. So she was assigned to work with. I think the last name is. Could be saying that wrong, but she was assigned to work with a different prosecutor on the case.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:21:26] And that prosecutor, you know, did move forward with it. Unfortunately, there was a plea deal where if John would, you know, plead guilty to the drug charges, the illegal drugging charges that they wouldn't bring in, assault, sexual assault charge. And so because of that, it's very unfortunate because of that, all those recordings that Sherry had, speaking to my dad and speaking to my brother, where they both admitted to certain things and my dad admitted to, you know, essentially drugging and assaulting her.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:22:08] The judge didn't get to. Those recordings were never brought into the court hearing and the judge never got to hear them or even be aware of them.

Margi Dehlin [02:22:18] So.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:22:18] Unbelievable. Yeah, it is unbelievable. And, you know, the only reason I think that there was some consequence given is that at the last minute, Sherry's attorney did put before the judge some email correspondence that I had previously had with in Mountain Home. The assistant prosecutor where says that she's doing like an under the table. I mean, what it was was an under the table plea deal. So it wasn't an official plea deal, but she did an arrangement with my dad's criminal defense attorney where he, my dad would have to go to H and H counseling in Boise to get counseling for working with a specialist that works with sex offenders and pedophiles and so this is all in this email, you know, which the email that proves that that assistant prosecutor did know that John.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:23:25] She did know that John Goodrich was guilty and that he was a pedophile and that he was a danger, but she dropped all the charges nonetheless. So anyways, this email correspondence was put before the judge in Sherry's case and it did have some impact, it appears. And that judge ultimately said, well, you know, I don't have all the pieces here, but at the very least I'm going to give this man a felony for the illegal drug usage. Because he said, you know, I think that it was clearly a crime, a felony, and I'm going to make an example of him for other professionals in a similar position so that they won't do similar.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:24:12] So there was something to that effect in Sherry's case. But you know, Sherry, she didn't get complete justice because the most important evidence for her case wasn't even brought in. It wasn't even allowed to be viewed by the judge. And so it obstructed justice in that case. But I'm glad that some justice was served for her in her situation.

John Dehlin [02:24:37] Wow. Yeah. So, yeah, that's just all. I mean, it's just there's some statistic that like 1% of victims even end up reporting their abuse to police and that of those, one out of a hundred end in conviction. So thinking about how much both you and your mom suffered for speaking up and reporting this, it explains why, I don't know, one in a thousand assaults or rapes end up in conviction. And I'm just so sorry that you and your mom and others had to suffer so much.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:25:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:25:22] When you were, you know, when you were victims.

Margi Dehlin [02:25:24] The striking thing about it too is with, you know, admission, like recordings of admission that should, I feel like, stack the odds more in the. And you had that.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:25:40] Right. Right. And my own witness testimony that obviously, according to, like I said, judge in Mountain Home and according to the original prosecutor was a strong enough testimony to rule for this case to go before a jury.

Margi Dehlin [02:25:55] Absolutely.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:25:55] They felt that way and they were, you know, long time in the field and very seasoned and experienced. And so I think that that does count for something. And you know, I started to tell you, John, that, you know, my parents divorce case was scheduled to go before judge, the same judge that had been on the criminal case and that I had testified before and just a week or 2 After Ms.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:26:31] You know, told us that she was dropping the charges. And the divorce court comes up right before that. My mom's divorce attorney contacts her and says, you know, the assistant prosecutor apparently has a statement that she's come forward with saying that you, Lorraine, asked her in the criminal case to fabricate a witness.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:27:02] And he said, this is not going to be good for you because she's given the same statement to John's criminal defense attorney, to his divorce attorney. And he said, this really kind of is a game changer because he said, I believe that that's false.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:27:25] But he said, I don't know if the judge is going to recognize that it's not true or understand why the prosecutor would come forward at this time with that statement. And we were just completely blown away because as I already told you, we had witnesses for the case that Ms.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:27:53] Never even bothered to interview. We were not asking her to fabricate new witnesses. We were only ever asking her to speak to the witnesses that existed and that were willing to testify. And I still don't know why. I wrote a letter to Ms.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:28:11] Very detailed about that whole conversation we had with her and about the fact that my mother never asked her to lie about anything. And. My attorney at the time said, you know, I wouldn't send this letter. It will probably just cause more problems for you, but I wish that I had.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:28:39] But I realize why my attorney said that is because at that point we really didn't know what Ms. Was capable of, what things she might do next. And so because of that, you know, my mom, at the advice of her attorney, chose to settle the divorce out of court. And because of that, all of that evidence never went before that judge

John Dehlin [02:29:11] and wasn't made a matter of public record,

Chelsea Goodrich [02:29:14] exactly which it would have been. And I'm not saying that I know for a fact that Ms. Was trying to prevent that from happening, but that's exactly what she did. And she did it through what I know clearly to be a false statement, a lie.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:29:41] And so I don't know why she did that, but it looks very strange and suspicious. And about A month later, Ms. Actually started a job at the Idaho Attorney General's office, which a lot of people were surprised about because she was still young and pretty inexperienced for the job that she got.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:30:01] And she also got married around that time. And I can tell you that my dad's criminal defense attorney is a very well connected man. I believe he was an adjunct law professor at bsu, something along those lines. I know way back that he was part of a firm, I understand, that helped defend the 911 terrorists back in the day.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:30:30] But I will just say that he would have been in a position to have gotten mis in that job. I don't know if he did. I know at the very least what it appears like is that because the criminal trial was scheduled for around the same time that she started her new job and got married and everything, that proceeding with that criminal case and trial would have been a major inconvenience to her.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:30:55] But I think the most devastating part was her to come forward and slander my mom's name and character and say that my mom did something that didn't happen and by so doing, once again prevent the legal system and the community from being able to know the facts of what had really happened with my dad and his abuse of me, et cetera.

John Dehlin [02:31:28] I'm so sorry. I. It might make sense to. To conclude this portion by talking about the settlement discussions with the church and Ridding. I know you also settled with your dad, so I don't know in the timeline whether that settlement with your dad comes before or after the discussions with Reading in the church. But let's. If you want. But let's. Let's have that be how this segment wraps up.

How the Church Settlement Attorney Got Involved

Chelsea Goodrich [02:31:59] Yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:32:00] And there's no rush. I just.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:32:02] Yeah, yeah. So. In January of 2017, I wrote an email to Paul Ridding explaining to him, you know, how we had been treated by the local church leadership and members and how that had been handled with the situation with my dad. And just, I wrote and told him, like, the whole story.

John Dehlin [02:32:35] Can you explain how you met him? Because it seems kind of bizarre how you met.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:32:39] It is very strange and very unlikely because I can tell you that I would never. I would probably never have reached out to the church higher up. I would definitely never have sued the church. It wasn't. That wasn't my goal or my focus or what I was concerned about. I reached out to Paul Ritting because a few years before, I had made friends with his daughter while I was going to church in Los Angeles. And when all this was happening and I confided some things in her, she said, you know, she actually kept telling me, like, over the period of at least a year, she kept saying, why don't you reach out to my dad? Why don't you talk to my dad? She said, you know, he works for the church. And she said, I think he helps. I don't know all the details, she said, but I think he helps people in your situation.

John Dehlin [02:33:39] So just a total coincidence you would meet his daughter?

Chelsea Goodrich [02:33:42] Total coincidence. Total and complete coincidence. Where I would never have reached out to Paul Ritting or probably Anyone from the church, like I said.

John Dehlin [02:33:52] And for those who don't know, Paul, I don't know, 30 years in risk management for the church. I'm just. That's my memory. I could be wrong about that.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:34:01] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:34:01] Yeah.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:34:05] So I finally took my friend's advice and reached out to her dad, Paul, and I just sent this email. Still have all the correspondence with him where I reach out and just tell him my story of what's happened up to that point.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:34:25] And I tell him that there's now a pending criminal case against my dad. And I tell him that originally Bishop Miller told me that he wanted to testify. But then after Bishop Miller talked to church attorneys, that he changed his attitude about that.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:34:50] And I write this all to Paul. Paul wrote me back. He also called me on the phone. We talked. He said, it sounds like, you know, this is really horrible what's happened. And I felt that he was compassionate towards me, and I had a lot of hope that, you know, he was willing to help and that he was going to try to help. And so Paul actually flew from Salt Lake City into Haley, and we met at the local church building.

John Dehlin [02:35:40] That was in response to that first email?

Chelsea Goodrich [02:35:43] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [02:35:45] And there's three audio recordings. So tell us which of the three apply in the meetings you're going to

Chelsea Goodrich [02:35:52] talk about, if you don't mind. Yes. So this is from March of 2017. That's when the first recording happened.

John Dehlin [02:36:02] Was that the first meeting?

Chelsea Goodrich [02:36:03] It was the first meeting in person. First meeting in person. And I guess actually it wasn't the first recording because I did have a phone conversation before that that I recorded with Paul, but we didn't really talk about anything. We just more were making plans to meet. So we met in March of 2017 in Haley at the church. And. And I really had three. I had written up some points for him, and I had three main questions for him. One was basically, can you unscare the bishop so that he's willing to testify again? Because he was willing. Now he's scared. Is there any way that can be undone? Can you. Is there any way that the bishop can testify about what he knows?

John Dehlin [02:37:08] Because you wanted. What. What outcome did you want?

Chelsea Goodrich [02:37:12] I wanted the bishop to be able to testify as a witness in the case so that the truth could come forward and so that John could get convicted on his sexual abuse of me. That's really what I wanted.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:37:36] And mind you, This is literally about protecting other kids. It's not about, you know, revenge or justice on my dad in that regard. It is about Preventing other children from being abused. Question number two for Paul was. Can you find out what stake president or any of John's other former priesthood leaders, what they knew about the abuse?

Chelsea Goodrich [02:38:23] And the third thing was my mom had recently had a series of mini strokes, had gotten an early onset Alzheimer diagnosis, medical records for all of this, and she was caregiving my 84 year old grandma who was in heart failure. So they were in a really bad situation.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:38:47] And I just, you know, I just wanted my mom and grandma to be taken care of. So as far as any financial requests, there was that, but that was really all. I mean, I explained to Paul my concerns about how the church had handled things.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:39:06] My concerns that stake president, former stake president, that John had confessed to him that he'd known things when I was young, when my siblings and I were still young and in the home. I did express my concerns to Paul about that and the damage that had been done since then due to the fact that it appeared that that stake president didn't handle things appropriately.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:39:32] And so I did address those things. But as far as any financial ask went, it was can you take care of my mom and grandma with what they're going through right now? And in our minds, my mind, my mom's mind, I think that was like help with medical bills, help with rent, that kind of thing. And so because I was really just asking for help from my mom and grandma, I was really surprised because I was not expecting when I got an email from Paul a few weeks after our first meeting with a financial offer that felt like a considerable sum to us and that wasn't expected.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:40:21] I mean, I think that I thought more in terms of helping my mom with her medical bills and rent and all of that, at least you know, until she could get through her more serious health issues and until my grandma was passed and that kind of thing. So I wasn't expecting this like offer of money.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:40:46] And that was surprising. And you know, that I, I didn't really have an attorney, but I spoke to and she just kind of, you know, pro bono gave me some advice and said, I do see women in your situation, I hear from them almost weekly in similar situations. And she said, you know, this seems like more than the church normally offers, so I would just take it if you feel like taking it. And so we were going to do that. But in that interim of getting that offer and communicating more with Paul, apparently I understand that he was having Curtin McConkie interview all of John's former priesthood holders and you can hear on one of the recordings that he does say, you know, for the most part, nobody knew.

Priesthood Leaders Who Endorsed the Perpetrator

John Dehlin [02:41:53] Which is something that we drew our attention to for sure, because for the most part means that some of the priesthood leaders that he talked with endorsed his confession of sexual impropriety. That's what it means to me.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:42:10] Yeah, for the most part, nobody knew about John's confessions of sexual abuse. So to me it's either they didn't know or they did know for the most part. What does that mean? So, Yeah, I don't know if that's why the church increased their financial offer to us, but it appears like that could be one of the reasons.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:42:43] We were really, my mom and I were really surprised when we met with Paul in July of 2017 for our last meeting that he was offering so much more at that time. And I think at that point I thought, well, this money is going to help my mom and grandma.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:43:17] And I still felt like the church was probably going to do everything they could. I felt from Paul that he was going to try to do everything he could to improve the way the church handles these situations. He made it sound like the church was already making improvements with that in their policies and trainings.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:43:47] And I also felt that if anything were to come up with my dad in the future and kids being in danger, that the church would somehow help with that. And that didn't end up being the case. I think it was the next year that I found out that my sister and her husband had moved in. Their little girl moved in with themselves and their little girl to live with my dad for a while in Mountain Home.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:44:22] And I was really devastated to hear that. I knew that my sister knew a lot, that she knew better. And her new husband, you know, he didn't know as much or understand as much, but I knew my sister did.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:44:41] And I was very concerned about the little girl being abused. And so I wrote a letter, an email to Paul expressing my concerns about my sister moving her child in with my dad and the implications of that. And Paul emailed back and he said the church is very concerned as well.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:45:07] He said, but there's really nothing that we can do at this point except for pray for these people. And he said, and one thing that we can do is talk to Bishop Miller and have Bishop Miller talk to your sister and her husband.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:45:23] And I said, yeah, that would be great. And then I followed up again about this, didn't hear back from Paul. And later I asked my brother in law if Bishop Miller had ever spoken to them. And he said no, no, that never Happened. He said if Bishop Miller had informed me, if he had spoken to me and informed me of the full danger, then I would have definitely moved out sooner from living with your dad with our little girl.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:45:58] And yeah, my brother in law said, yeah, I wasn't aware and I was never told anything by Bishop Miller or anyone else. So it appears that the church really didn't do anything in that situation to protect that child. And then as I explained at the beginning, years have passed.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:46:24] I really wanted to move on with my life, move on past all of this, forget about all of it. But then, you know, I came to learn that. My dad was fighting in my sister's divorce court, divorce proceedings, to be able to have access to his grandkids.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:46:50] And I will say I'm very grateful for the judge in that case. She did look at some of the email correspondence that I had during the criminal case with Ms. And those emails are so strong. You know, they're the same emails that were put before the judge in Sherri Tanner's case, and they were put before the judge in this current divorce case. And after seeing those emails, that judge did rule should make a court order that my dad isn't to be around, he isn't to have contact with his grandkids.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:47:25] So thank goodness for people in the legal system that do try to advocate for kids in these situations and do the right thing. Very grateful for that.

John Dehlin [02:47:37] And to be clear, your dad was never registered as a. A sex offender, correct?

Chelsea Goodrich [02:47:41] No, he was not.

John Dehlin [02:47:42] Y.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:47:42] He was not. Because Ms. Dropped the charges in Mountain Home, the case in Mountain Home, and that didn't go forward into court. He was never sentenced, convicted, anything like that on the sex abuse.

John Dehlin [02:47:56] Okay. Okay. So circling, I guess, circling back to Reading and your negotiations with the church or with Reading.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:48:08] Yeah. So I think, you know, what I'm saying is that when I signed a contract with the church, I still had faith, some faith in. The church being an entity that would want to protect children, that would want to do the right thing.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:48:38] And as time has gone on, I came to realize that, you know, my niece and nephews and other kids could get abused. And nobody's doing anything to try to stop that. That has the power to. And that's why I.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:49:08] Had to tell the truth. I had to speak out. And fortunately, as I explained earlier, I was able to speak out through a deposition and turn over all documentation through a court ordered subpoena. And so that really allowed everything to get out there and for the AP to have access to that information.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:49:40] And you Know, it was somebody else that reached out to the apartment. I don't know who, but the AP reached out to me and said, you know, would you be willing to share all of this? And I think obviously they realized that I was at a point where I'm testifying in court on behalf of my niece and nephews, that I was probably at a place where I'm ready to talk about this for the protection of kids, of other children. So I'm really grateful that I was able to become connected with the ap and I think that they had to be careful as the ap, how they reported things, especially since my dad never was sentenced or convicted related to the child sexual abuse.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:50:50] And so I'm grateful for the opportunity to speak with you, John, because I'm able to share more of the details that the AP story probably couldn't fit into their story and also be more specific about some things that they probably needed to be careful how they worded under the circumstances.

John Dehlin [02:51:21] Yeah,

Chelsea Goodrich [02:51:27] Yeah. So something else I want to add to the whole story of me reaching out to Paul about my niece being in danger because my sister had moved in with John is that, you know, after Paul wrote back and said, we can't really do anything, but maybe we could talk to Bishop Miller. And then apparently that didn't happen.

Reaching Out to Law Enforcement and Being Ignored

Chelsea Goodrich [02:51:55] I also reached out to Elmore county, to the police and prosecutor's office there, and I was ignored there in my concerns about my niece. And then I thought, you know, this is just. This is just going to turn into another abuse case and nobody is willing to do anything about it. So I emailed the Idaho Attorney General's office, and at that time, the Idaho Attorney General was Mormon. I think the new Idaho Attorney General is Mormon as well.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:52:34] I think a number of them in the past decade or so have been. But anyways, I sent this email and I got an email back from the Idaho Attorney General's office from, I think the AG's assistant is his name. Was his name.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:52:53] And he wrote back and said, you know, there may be an issue here of the Mountain Home criminal case having been mishandled. And we understand your concerns in this situation and your concerns for your family. But he said, you know, now works for the AG's office and so investigating this would be a conflict of interest.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:53:26] So I thought, okay, there is nobody. I don't know who to go to. There is nobody that is going to look into this, that's going to care. And I don't think I mentioned earlier that when closed the criminal case, she did so with prejudice, which I've since learned is pretty rare in child sex abuse cases.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:53:53] It basically means that even if new evidence came forward that there's no reopening of that case in Mountain Home. Wow. Yeah. So then she went on to work at the AG's office. And because of that, the AG's office took. Tells me would be a conflict of interest for them to investigate into the situation, which we can take a moment

Margi Dehlin [02:54:15] and appreciate the irony of that. Now they care about a conflict of interest.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:54:20] Yeah. When there was so many conflicts of interest happening within the Elmore County Prosecutor's Office. But, yeah, so that was just all beginning to open my eyes to the fact that, you know, when we met with Paul, when we signed that contract with Paul, that really, I was in the process of signing that contract, joining in with the Pontius Pilate attitude that I mentioned earlier, where, okay, you know, now this is settled. We've got money. Nothing more we can do. We're just gonna wash our hands of it and walk away. And I thought, no, there's no way. There's no way that I'm okay with this. So rewinding back to the meetings with Paul, I just remember that in our first meeting with him, I really did feel that he was probably on our team, that he was there to help us.

John Dehlin [02:55:30] This is Paul Ritting.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:55:31] Paul Ritting.

John Dehlin [02:55:32] Yeah.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:55:33] I felt that he was there to help us. And, you know, in that first meeting, it did seem like that to a great extent. I mean, I started to see in what was unfolding that he was kind of acting as legal counsel and a legal representative for Bishop Miller.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:55:51] I could start to see that. But Paul also mentioned in the process of our conversations in that first meeting that perhaps since John had confessed about the abuse to a lot of other people besides Bishop Miller, Paul said, you know, maybe.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:56:10] Maybe this is our loophole into the. Into Bishop Miller being able to testify about what he knows. He said, because if your dad confessed the same kinds of things to multiple people, then the clergy privilege wouldn't really stand anymore.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:56:31] And Bishop Miller, around that time, spoke up again and said, yeah, but I could still get sued. And at that moment, you can't see it on the recordings, but it happened, you know, in the moment that we were all there. Is that Paul kind of reached out and touched Bishop Miller's arm and said, you know, I think that we could probably help with that or figure something out with that. So my understanding was that Paul was saying that he recognized there could be a legal opportunity for Bishop Miller to testify Legally, if my dad had made confessions to a number of other people about the abuse, which was true.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:57:15] And it was also my understanding that if Bishop Miller got sued by my dad for doing so, that the Church would be willing to help defend Bishop Miller in that instance.

John Dehlin [02:57:32] And clearly, Paul, clearly your dad would have a hard time winning against Bishop Miller if Bishop Miller had the Church's backing. Right?

Chelsea Goodrich [02:57:44] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:57:45] Yeah. And we should also mention that it's the Mormon Church and the Catholic Church and the Jehovah's Witnesses, as I understand it, that are behind the priest penitent privilege being in place in the first place. So they work super hard in the state legislatures where there's a high percentage of Mormon legislators and citizens to make sure the, the priest penitent privilege is there, which I think on their part they would argue that's because they're trying to defend their doctrine of repentance and confession, but it just so happens to also protect them legally from liability.

Margi Dehlin [02:58:23] Right.

John Dehlin [02:58:24] As well. And so I just want to note that it's the Church that has this privilege in place that keeps the Bishop from being able to report that's the Church is doing. And still, because the church is a 200 plus billion dollar organization and it has Curtin McConkie, certainly it could decide to just back the bishops in cases where it feels like there's a compelling public interest to protect potential victims, not to mention to get justice for the existing victims that they know are victims.

Chelsea Goodrich [02:59:02] Absolutely, absolutely. And again, it's that situation where the Church has the power to alter the clergy privilege law so that at least doesn't protect pedophiles and protects the children instead. The Church has the power to change that legislation, and yet they've worked against that in the other direction. And again, from the perspective of what Jesus Christ would do, what he taught, you know, it just, it doesn't seem to connect. It doesn't seem to connect.

John Dehlin [02:59:47] So,

Chelsea Goodrich [02:59:51] yeah, in this process that we're speaking with Paul, you know, there's still the pending criminal trial in Mountain Home. And you know, I already told the story of how that ultimately ended, but when that was still in process of happening, Paul was communicating with the prosecutor in Mountain Home, the assistant prosecutor. And I have email correspondence where in that spring of 2017 where Paul emailed me and he said, I spoke with the deputy prosecutor in Mountain Home and she told me that she doesn't need the Bishop to testify, she has stronger witnesses.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:00:45] And I was really shocked by that. So I emailed the assistant prosecutor and I said, you know, Paul Ritting is telling me that. You said that you don't need the bishop to testify, that you don't need or want the bishop to testify.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:01:07] And she said, oh, no, I absolutely did not tell him that, she said, because of course it would be very helpful and needed for the bishop to testify in this case. And so then I emailed Paul back and I still have all this correspondence. And I said, paul, I talked to the assistant prosecutor and she says that she didn't to tell you that she didn't need Bishop Miller to testify, and that's not true. And Paul wrote back and said there must have been some misunderstanding.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:01:48] So that gives you an idea of the fact that. Paul was involved with what was happening with the criminal case and communicating with the prosecutor about it. And I have other emails showing and indicating that. And when the church came out with their public statement last week about Bishop Miller having been subpoenaed and then that subpoena being rescinded or something like that, I didn't really know about any of that. I didn't know that they rescinded a subpoena or whatever, however the wording was. I mean, what I'm saying is that the church knew more about certain aspects of that criminal trial that I knew about were going on.

John Dehlin [03:02:37] And I, and I just want to add, just an observation that when we talk about conflicts of interest, the fact that you know at the time you're a believing member, you want to have trust in your priesthood leadership, you make it clear at the beginning that it's hard for you to trust anyone because attorneys in your experience, if it isn't recorded, the conversation never happened. So even though you're recording Paul ridding, you clearly have faith in the church, trust him. And it's unclear who he's representing because he doesn't claim to be representing the church legally or the bishop or you. He doesn't have attorneys in the room with you representing you.

John Dehlin [03:03:27] And then there's the sort of your love and affection for the church. And it seems like a real problematic conflict of interest for him to be paid for by the church, who's looking out for the best interests of the church to make you feel like he's this loving church person there to help you without your attorney present.

John Dehlin [03:03:47] And then he seems to be communicating with the, the prosecutors in ways that ultimately are undermining your case and communicating with the bishop in ways that appear to be undermining your case, let alone the stake president and other Mormon church leaders. It just, he's everyone by the way several people have emailed me and said he was my stake president.

John Dehlin [03:04:12] Apparently he was a stake president up in the Olympus Cove kind of area, Mill Creek area, up until relatively recently. And I don't know if you know this, but he was just magically reassigned to like New Zealand, Australia just a few months ago.

John Dehlin [03:04:28] And now after, I don't know, decades working for the church and risk management, all of a sudden he's in like New Zealand Australia, totally gone from his job. We have no idea whether that was planned or unrelated or connected. It is weird that he's just gone, but by all accounts, everyone says he's super nice, super kind, super loving. Glowing reports.

John Dehlin [03:04:55] And how can this not be a real significant conflict of interest between the ecclesiastical spiritual organization that he represents and your legal case and whatever would be in your best interest. I just, I have to share at least my thoughts on that. And maybe you have more to share.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:05:19] Yeah, I mean, I don't have any judgments on Paul as a person in his personal life or his other relationships or dealings outside of this. I believe that Paul was doing his job as an attorney for the church in the way that the Church wants him to do. And that's what he was doing at the time. And I think that. I imagine that he may have been torn. I don't know, he's been doing this for a long, long time. But I would imagine, I felt that perhaps he was torn in the process at times. I mean, even the fact that he was struggling to try not to lie on the second recording, the one that happened, I think, in May.

John Dehlin [03:06:11] Ish.

Margi Dehlin [03:06:11] In May.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:06:14] Our phone conversation with him, you know, when he says, I've got to be careful how I say this. For the most part, nobody knew. Even the fact that Paul said that much to me indicates that he may have been torn between telling the truth and between doing his job as the head of risk management for the church.

John Dehlin [03:06:43] And I guess I wanted to ask, do you feel like his involvement in any way impaired or hindered justice, the justice you were trying to seek with your dad or not?

Chelsea Goodrich [03:07:04] You know, I think that Paul is kind of a pawn in a bigger game, in a bigger process here, so to say anything about the effect of Paul's actions directly. I think that there's a much bigger issue here at hand, a systemic issue of the way that the Church is handling these types of things and the way that they are working hard to keep intact the clergy privilege laws throughout this, you know, the United States.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:07:51] I think Paul was doing his job. I think that he was in a tough position. I think that he was doing his job as the church wanted him to do, as I said before. And I think that the way that the church wanted him to operate and tends to operate in these types of situations.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:08:18] Is different from what should be happening and is different from what I, as a victim, wanted to happen ultimately and what I want to happen for other victims. I think that I would really plead with the church to look seriously at what they have done and continue to do in the handling of these types of these sexual abuse cases.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:08:56] I would ask the church to please stop holding things in the darkness and secret that need to come out into the light for the protection of children and other innocent people. I mean, look what happened to Sherri Tanner. But for the protection of the children.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:09:16] We know what Christ taught about the children and about predators of children. It is clear. He was very clear about it. And again, I would ask the church to not in a Pontius Pilate manner, give money to victims, but then walk away without taking larger measures, whether that needs to be the change of legislature or other steps to actually protect the children.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:09:46] Don't just wash your hands of the whole thing and walk away and let these children get crucified emotionally and spiritually through more sexual abuse. Because that is what happened to me. I mean, I have to continue to live to this day with severe sleeping disorders and relationship problems that are directly related to my sexual abuse and the PTSD that that caused. And I'm still, as someone who's now a mental health therapist specializing in trauma from abuse, I'm still trying to figure out and understand and unravel the complexity of my own trauma and to help others do the same.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:10:43] But it is serious and it's real and it needs to be taken seriously the damage that sexual abuse causes. And, you know, the other day my brother said something to me about, you know, that it would almost. It's almost worse to sexually abuse a child than to murder them.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:11:09] Because he said, you know, it's a kind of murder of the soul that you have to live with and try to sort through, through the rest of your life. And I would really ask the church and all Christians, all whoever, decent people out there with any kind of decency or desire to do the right thing thing to just be transparent and honest. And when you see something, we can't stop all the pedophiles. I get that. I think Paul Ridding says something about that on the recordings. He says, well, do you expect the church to stop all the pedophiles you know, my message to everyone would be, if you're aware of abuse in your little circle of awareness, your family, your church congregation, your work, whatever, if you're aware of especially child sexual abuse within your circle of influence, do the right thing about that,

John Dehlin [03:12:07] which is

Chelsea Goodrich [03:12:11] tell who needs to be told. Tell the legal authorities, don't involve the church in it. They won't probably handle it the way that it really should be handled. They're not set up for that.

John Dehlin [03:12:24] And, you know, and they might prevent justice from occurring.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:12:26] They may even obstruct justice. And the criminal system is not perfect either. Look what happened to me. But I can tell you that I would go through all of that all over again to know that it is not on me if more kids get abused, that I did everything I could to try to let the appropriate people know the truth, that there were children in danger. And if people dropped the ball after that, it wasn't on me. And so I can live with myself. And I don't know how a lot of other people can live with themselves that cover these things up. I don't know how you can. It's time to stop and do the right thing.

John Dehlin [03:13:16] Well said.

Margi Dehlin [03:13:17] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:13:17] Thank you. I do have a couple quick questions, but I want to make sure you have a chance to say everything else you want to say. We're going to, we're going to talk about the mayor needing to sign. Oh, you know, the.

High-Status Offenders and Community Blind Spots

Chelsea Goodrich [03:13:34] Yeah. So, you know, I think that there is a. There's a piece here related to my dad having been considered, you know, high status, at least in our community and obviously in society at large as far as being like having a doctorate degree and things like that.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:13:58] So something that was surprising to us was that when the police were going to arrest my dad, they told me that there was some kind of, I don't know, statute. I don't know if it's just in Mountain Home in Elmore county or if it's throughout Idaho, but if there's a high profile individual, then in order to arrest that individual, the police have to have the police and prosecutor have to have the mayor sign off on that arrest warrant. This is my understanding of it. I could be stating a little bit, but they did have to have the mayor of Mountain Home sign off on being able to arrest John because they considered him a high profile individual in the community.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:14:49] And, you know, when you think about that, it's just so strange. Like, why would they have to have the mayor sign off on arresting someone like my dad, but not have the Mayor have to sign off on arresting.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:15:08] I don't know, the local mechanic who isn't important in the community. Like, that's just very strange to me. And it kind of reminded me of a story that the AP did a few years ago, something about privileged professions.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:15:24] And they were showing that, you know, people who are doctors, dentists, attorneys, these kinds of things that they tend to get away with crimes that people of lesser status don't get away with as often and as easily. And it kind of reminded me of what the original prosecutor, Tina Shinley, told me when she said, you know, just be aware that the prisons aren't full of, you know, wealthy, well connected pedophiles. They tend to be the more of the poor ones. The other ones seem to have a way through our current system as it stands to kind of get themselves free.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:16:07] And so, yeah, I think that that's something important that we look at as a society as well, is why are we giving special treatment to these people? And, you know, in 2017, I think it was that the Idaho Statesman did a story on the Sherry Tanner case.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:16:35] They said some things about my mom and me as well that were false. But something they stated was something along the lines of that John had been excommunicated for bad thoughts. And I feel like now the story's been kind of elevated in the news too, that he was excommunicated maybe for arousal, you know, the way almost said it's been presented. But obviously it was a lot more than that. But the Idaho Statesman in that same article said that they had spoken to the Idaho Dental Board, Dental association, and the Idaho Dental Board said, yeah, we're going to remove John's license to practice dentistry as soon as he gets the felony on the Sherry Tanner case.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:17:22] Well, John got the felony. The Idaho Dental Board did not remove his license to practice dentistry. Instead, we found out that he was sent to some kind of like sensitivity training, some weekend seminar in Texas for dentists with boundary issues. So that's what happened instead of them taking his license, as far as, you know? Yeah, I think that that's confirmed.

John Dehlin [03:17:49] Yeah. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:17:53] So I think we have to ask ourselves through looking at, at this whole story, a lot of questions. I guess that there's a lot of corruption on a lot of levels perhaps happening in this situation.

John Dehlin [03:18:11] Yeah, okay.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:18:12] It's coming out.

John Dehlin [03:18:14] I mean, I do think there's something to kind of mention about the vulnerability of women and children in, I guess, patriarchal systems. But in Mormon Church, particularly when I don't know if that's what you mean. But like when a Mormon couple gets married and the wife immediately is investing in the career of the husband so they can become a doctor, a dentist, an orthodontist, you know, whatever, a lawyer, an engineer. She often doesn't get her degree. She often doesn't get educated.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:18:50] Yeah, my mom.

John Dehlin [03:18:51] Yeah, right. And then she's helping him get his graduate degree, degree, become powerful and wealthy, and then she's immediately having as many babies as she can. I think there's something to be said for how that sort of structure leaves women and children very vulnerable.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:19:09] Yeah, I mean, that is a huge part of this. My mom and I were both left very vulnerable in this situation. My mom, yeah, she had financially supported my dad to help him get through dental school and didn't finish college herself. She just supported him through getting his education. And so when all of this happened, yeah, my mom was completely at his mercy. And he had been controlling all the finances for years.

John Dehlin [03:19:37] And Eric mentions in the audio how much your dad was making. Do you remember how much he stated,

Chelsea Goodrich [03:19:43] I want to be careful saying that because I'm not really sure. I think. I think it was somewhere around 40,000, something like that. A what, a month? And I think sometimes it was more. But, yeah, my dad was doing very well, and my mom didn't know how much money he was making. And she really.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:20:05] He did all the taxes and financial management. And there was even. There was some forgery stuff that came out in the investigations in Mountain Home as well, related to financial forgery, where my dad was just signing my mom's name on, you know, all kinds of things, major financial decisions where, yeah, she wasn't involved. And she had said for several years that she didn't know how much tithing my dad was paying because he would avoid having her be a part of the tithing settlement process and all that kind of thing. So I think that, yeah, my mom was in a very vulnerable position when everything happened.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:20:52] It's been very overwhelming for her. And, you know, the way that we were treated at times in the process, it really did feel like as women, we were to be less believed, less supported, less important, less credible. I mean, that's just.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:21:15] That's just the reality of it. And it took us a while, I think, to fully realize that and to be in reality about that. And I think that I'm still trying to understand the deeper cultural reasons for why things to do with sexual predators, their victims, women and children, are handled so poorly so frequently within the church. I'm still really trying to understand how that happens. But what I witnessed was that there were a lot of people like Bishop Miller that. That initially had a gut instinct to do the right thing and to even treat us decently as women. But that there was.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:22:07] There's an organization in place, a structure in place that took over. Took over what Bishop Miller was doing. Thinking, saying, allowed to think and say. And that whatever that higher organization and chain of command is that's directing things is where things seem to go really, really wrong.

John Dehlin [03:22:40] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:22:42] And I would also add to that that that exists in your experience with the judicial system, too.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:22:49] Yeah.

Margi Dehlin [03:22:49] That there were these moments where there was hope, where you felt like your case landed in the right hands, like your initial prosecuting that then didn't get renewed for a second. So then it switches to. And whatever overwrote that human's, you know, sense of justice or mercy in both, in that moment to act the way they did. It's a similar. You know, it feels similar to me.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:23:21] You know, I totally agree. I think that when you bring in the human piece, that it can get really complicated and people have their own. Their own agendas, their own. Their own fears, their own. Their own. Whatever human motives that come into play.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:23:51] And I think that that's all the more reason why it would be so important for there to be certain in the church, policies intact, in the criminal system, certain laws intact, that regardless of someone's personal human position that just wouldn't allow for certain things to take place or not take place. I think that there needs to be less, you know, ultimate power given to prosecutors. I've done more research on that since then, and it's. There was a law passed a while back that really gave prosecutors ultimately power, too much power.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:24:35] And I think within the church, there's clearly, it seems, abuses of power happening that are not good either. And I don't know about the church side of it, but I know that I feel motivated now to look into how we can change and improve the legal system. I feel more hope for change there than I do really, within the church. But a few years ago, I felt more hope for change within the church.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:25:14] You'll hear on the recordings with Paul Ridding that Eric Alberti brings up the speak speeches of Chieko Okasaki from the past. And Chieko Okasaki was. I don't know what her exact position was. Years ago, I believe she was in

John Dehlin [03:25:34] the Relief Society presidency.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:25:35] Okay. Okay. There you go.

John Dehlin [03:25:37] She's from Hawaii.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:25:38] Yeah, yeah.

John Dehlin [03:25:38] Brilliant legend of a woman who we could still learn from today?

Chelsea Goodrich [03:25:44] Absolutely. And when I was still active in the church, I found her talk online, and she was saying basically that part of a victim getting justice. Well, that part of a victim healing was for them to get justice and to do everything that we can, including in the church, to help victims get their justice in order for healing to take place.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:26:17] And only part of her talk was out there. She said she had three things she wanted to address, and we could only find part of that talk on there online. And so that was one of the things we asked Paul about, was could he find the rest of that talk or how could we access that? And he never got back with us about that, and we never have been able to find that. So I don't know if there were other things that. That Chieko said that the church didn't really want out there. I'm not really sure why that's so hard to find. You know, everything that she said about victims.

John Dehlin [03:26:55] But I'll put out a call to listeners and viewers. If anybody has the information on that original talk and all of it, we would love to share.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:27:03] Yeah, please let us know what. What's out there from Jaco. Yeah. And I think a few years ago, I had watched her talk, and I thought, you know, there's got to be more people out there in the church, more church leaders that kind of hold her views.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:27:24] There's got to be those who would want to change the way that the church, or at least the church's legal team seems to handle these cases in general. Not handled well, in my opinion. I thought, there's got to be, you know, a chance for change in the church.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:27:48] And in 2018, I learned that Elizabeth Smart was coming to speak in Boise. I was really excited about that. She said some really powerful things about, you know, her experience as a victim and speaking about victims in general. That had been very inspiring to me.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:28:09] And I went to go hear her speak, and I actually had written her a letter, handwritten letter, telling me or telling her about my story and asking her if she could use her influence that I'm sure she has with with the church to help change the way the church handles sexual abusers and their victims.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:28:40] And it was kind of just like a plea to her because obviously, I had gone to a lot of places for help and wasn't feeling that change. I mean, you'll hear on the recording, Eric says to Paul at one point, he says, paul, I don't feel like we're the second recording. I think.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:29:02] He says, I don't really feel like we're making any progress here with like our deeper concerns and goals. And really, you know, we weren't, other than getting the financial support, other than getting the financial support, there wasn't really follow through on the other things that we talked about with Paul. So I don't know if you're interested, I could read the Elizabeth Smart letter,

John Dehlin [03:29:33] maybe we'll record that as its own thing. How would that sound?

Chelsea Goodrich [03:29:37] Yeah, because it really does sum everything up.

John Dehlin [03:29:39] Okay, so we'll do that for sure either today or tomorrow morning. Before you go, couple just quick closing questions. So if there is no evidence of a cover up that John Goodrich, that the leaders didn't know about the abuse, that the Mormon Church leaders didn't know about the abuse, then why do you think the church made reported by the AP a $300,000 settlement? What were they, what were they paying that large? A third of a million dollars. What do you think? If you had to guess what their concerns were, why were they offering a third of a million dollars?

The Church Settlement and Non-Disclosure Agreement

Chelsea Goodrich [03:30:27] Well, that's the golden question. That's the golden question. I have my own thoughts on it, obviously. I do think that, I feel that when they research further into the situation that they did learn that there was people who knew priesthood leaders who knew when I was young about the abuse. And I don't know that for a fact, but it appears from what Paul states lined up with what my dad stated lined up with, you know, how much money they did give us, that it appears to be the case.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:31:21] And obviously the way things went in Mountain Home as well with the church leadership there was pretty atrocious and my mom in the process had had her strokes, had an Alzheimer's diagnosis. There was a lot of trauma and damage through the whole experience. And I don't know what all factors that the church weighed out before giving us that money, but there were a lot of things at play. And I know what it looks like to me, but I guess everyone else can decide what it appears to be to them.

John Dehlin [03:32:12] What seems likely based on my listening and thinking and processing, is that the bishops and stake presidents knew a lot about your dad over a long period of time and chose to do nothing. And that was discovered by Ridding and others. And they worried that especially if the story came out that there might be a liability and or strong embarrassment to the church that your dad was even called as a bishop, let alone he confessed multiple times and nothing was done about it. And so my speculation is that they just wanted to keep the story from coming out and absolve themselves of any liability for the way they handled your situation. Like the way they bungled the Arizona case and the West Virginia case.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:33:03] Yeah, it would look that way. I mean, someone knew because, you know, for the most part, nobody knew means somebody knew. So now, because that was, again, not transparently communicated, now everyone gets to speculate. If multiple people knew, if one person knew, we'll probably never know. But at least one person seemingly knew about at least some degree of the sexual abuse. And according to church policy, that church leader should have informed my mom so that she could take the necessary action steps and at least get her kids out of the home.

John Dehlin [03:34:01] And we covered this in our panel discussion earlier this week or last week. It's already together. But the hotline that we've discussed reportedly has a policy of destroying all notes at the end of each day. But in spite of that ridding, reportedly told you guys that he would check to see, you know, what, what notes were kept, implying that even though the word is that they destroy the notes, there's a possibility that there are notes about what was spoken at various points to the hotline that's just possibly potentially intentionally not being provided.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:34:49] Yeah, I mean, that's what Paul states on the recordings that Eric Alberti has now put out there. So that's what Paul states on the recording. I don't know what the truth is. I know that I was very hopeful when he said that they could check records that, you know, that we were going to get the truth and then we never really got the truth. But I, like I said earlier, feel like the degree to which Paul even admitted that somebody knew. I wonder if that was Paul's conscience coming through a little bit and kind of trying to at least give us a little piece of the truth. Because he did.

John Dehlin [03:35:36] Yeah. And we kind of started with this, but I want to end with it as well. The apologetic and even the church official response to this AP story was, hey, we didn't silence her. She's free to tell her story. Number one, is that true? And number two, since we know that, that they did put an NDA in place where you weren't allowed to talk about, I guess, the church parts of the story? You know, again, why are they. Why are they, number one, trying to silence that part? And number two, why are they having you sign an NDA and then. And then claiming that they're not silencing you? Right.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:36:26] I don't know. It's confusing. But I would say that that statement is partly false and partly True. Because, you know, in my understanding, from conversations with Paul about the contract, I can tell my story that doesn't involve the church part of it, but. But to me, the church aspect of things, you know, my dad was a bishop and he said he wouldn't confess to someone. And then the church's handling of things, when it all came out to me, I can't tell my story without telling the church aspect of it, because the church aspect of it is a huge part, and it's kind of inseparably entwined, intertwined with.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:37:17] With the story of John. So I don't know how I could tell one part of the story without the other and actually tell my story. So that's what I would say to that. And I would say that also I appreciate the church saying that I can tell my story without any caveats or qualifications that they gave to that. So if that's really true, then I appreciate that. And that's what I'm doing now. I'm telling you. Telling the whole story.

John Dehlin [03:37:44] Okay, excellent. Well, thank you. And so courageous. I don't know if you want to end here, but I know that you have. You know, some may want to know how you're doing, where you are now, how you've healed and grown. Some would want to know where you are at the church. It may or may not be important, or you may or may not want to disclose this, maybe end with any of that that you do want to talk about, but also what you're hoping to do in your career and your profession going forward. If you want to end there and with any other messages of hope you want to share for other victims, just the floor is yours.

Final Reflections, Thanks, and a Message to Survivors

Chelsea Goodrich [03:38:31] Yeah, absolutely. I think I just want to reiterate that this all started because I really just wanted to protect my niece and nephews and, you know, any other kids that I could. And it grew into something much bigger than I ever really wanted it to. But it seems like sometimes, even when we don't really want to tell a story, that sometimes a story wants to be told and is determined to. To be told. And that's kind of what I feel like happened here. Information got out through other means, not related to me directly. And through that, the truth has been able to come out. And I think for some reason, I do still believe in God and Jesus Christ.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:39:22] I have a strong faith in them, and I really believe that. I really believe that something, someone out there, some higher force and power, that God essentially wanted this story to come out. As difficult as that is, because there's just a lot of discomfort and actually horror that comes from this level of personal exposure.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:40:03] And it's a lot to bear and to process. This is not something that someone does for attention. I can tell you. It's very rare that a sexual abuse victim has a sexual abuse story that isn't true. It happens, but it's rare because it's not the kind of thing that people want to be defined by and identified with. And.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:40:40] That's part of why I'm going to keep telling my story, too, because there are a lot of other people who have been through sexual abuse and also have been through having that sexual abuse minimized and covered up by their families, by their churches, by their communities.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:41:03] And I'm so sorry for those people. To all of you out there who have been through anything like what I've been through, and it doesn't have to be rape. There doesn't have to have been ejaculation. I'm sorry for being a little crude, but you know what I'm referring to with that.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:41:21] Sexual abuse can be very real even without those technicalities. And I think that then when on top of that, there's spiritual and religious abuse because of the abuse of power related to religion, related to positions of power, that it just. It compounds the trauma and the pain. And I am still trying to process through all of it myself. I'm still in the healing process,

Margi Dehlin [03:42:07] But

Chelsea Goodrich [03:42:07] I am getting stronger. The fact that I can sit here, talk to you, John and Margi, is a miracle compared to where I was when everything first came out. And I didn't want anyone to know. And I couldn't talk about it without breaking down and shutting down.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:42:30] And through the process of testifying against my dad in court in a criminal trial, in a civil lawsuit case settled in my behalf. Sherry also, by the way, Sherri Tanner brought a lawsuit that was settled in her behalf against John for the things that happened to her and her daughter.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:42:53] And. I've gotten stronger and stronger the more that I've told my story. And this is a whole nother level, because this is public. But I just want to tell the other abuse victims out there that they're not alone.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:43:23] You are seen. There are people who care, who will believe you, who will stand with you. And if you need someone to talk to, I'm here as a friend. Or if you want to work with me as a therapist, then I'm here for you, too.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:43:50] But this is. This is. This is big. This is huge because so many people have been sexually abused and so many People have been. Not heard and not seen and not loved. And that's wrong. And we need to do better in our society, certainly in our churches, in our families.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:44:18] We need to do better for our sexual abuse victims and we need to do better to take the steps to hold the predators accountable too. Because I can tell you that that is the most loving thing for them. Also, I do this in part out of love for my dad too. As strange as that may sound. I know that it has done him no favors to have so many different people and organizations, entities not hold him account accountable, let him go free.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:44:51] That has allowed him to continue to create a narrative that is false, continue to create a lot of division within our family and destruction. And there are a lot of people along the way that could have loved my dad more than to just let him go free without accountability. And that that would have done, would have done more good for him

Margi Dehlin [03:45:22] to

Chelsea Goodrich [03:45:23] hold him accountable to. And it would now. So yeah, I guess that's my heart, that's my message to everyone out there is let's start handling sexual abuse differently, better to the LDS church. Please, please stop covering up. Please be transparent. Please use your power and influence to change the clergy privilege law so that it doesn't protect pedophiles and so that it does give a greater chance at protecting our children

John Dehlin [03:46:11] and NDAs. Do you have feeling opinion about NDAs or. And you don't have to answer if you want.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:46:16] I do, I do. I understand that a while back that the UCLA was working on. I'm sorry, the aclu, not ucla. UCLA is a great school, but it was ACLU and they were working on trying to push forward legislation that would essentially.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:46:46] Not allow for what they called unconscionable non disclosures and that is essentially non disclosures. Where there was child sexual abuse, that type of thing that really shouldn't ever. There should never be an NDA where there has been child sexual abuse type of a focus.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:47:13] So I would highly, I would stand behind that kind of a movement, behind that kind of legislation of creating a category of unconscionable non disclosures where non disclosures just can't happen in certain instances. NDAs just cannot be allowed in certain instances because it is unconscionable. I mean even think about now, if I am aware that a child is in danger, would the church really want me to be limited in what I can say or express about a child in danger in the church or anywhere else because of an NDA?

Chelsea Goodrich [03:48:07] Would they want me to be limited on the Truth that I can share that could potentially help protect a child. I would hope not. I would really hope not. Beautiful.

Margi Dehlin [03:48:25] Thank you for telling your story and thank you for all that you had to experience and think of to do it today.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:48:36] Thank you, Margi and John, thanks for sitting here for hours and listening.

John Dehlin [03:48:41] Thanks, Chelsea. Again, thank you for your courage and your poise and grace and all that.

Margi Dehlin [03:48:48] We honor your strength.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:48:51] Thank you. Well, I'm grateful that there's people like you who are doing the work you're doing, that it's, you know, it's a perfect match together, so we can work together. You can get more of the truth of my story out there, John and Margi, and I appreciate that because, you know, I've come to learn this. When you turn your story over to the press, they're going to kind of do. They're going to have their own take on things and they're going to have their own even agendas and.

John Dehlin [03:49:21] Or limitations.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:49:22] Yeah, our limitations. Yeah. Yeah. So, no, I really appreciate this.

John Dehlin [03:49:26] I do want to give a thanks to Eric Alberti just because if he hadn't shared those audio files with me, I don't think the ap. Well, I don't think the AP might have done the story at all. But then also I wouldn't be able to provide the. Learn from them and then provide them to my viewers and listeners. So, Eric, thanks both for sharing those and also for your advocacy for Chelsea and her mom, Lorraine.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:49:51] Yeah. And can I add to that and just say thank you to Eric for that as well, and that I hope that people looking on and following this story and listening to what Eric has to say on those recorded conversations with Paul.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:50:08] I hope that there are men out there who follow in Eric's footsteps with the way that he treated us in the process. He was like, really, you know, the only priesthood holder at the time, the only man at the time who we really felt like was advocating for us, was treating us with respect, who cared and who was doing the right thing. And I don't really know what it was in Eric. It made him so different from the other men involved. I know that he was a convert to the church, formerly Catholic, and I know that he also had been really inspired by the movie Spotlight around that time and had his eyes opened to realizing that maybe there was a similar problem in the Mormon Church as was in the Catholic Church. And whatever all the reasons Eric was, he was great. He did the right thing, and I'm forever grateful for that.

John Dehlin [03:51:20] Yeah. And I guess while we're at it. I want to thank Michael Rosendez and Jason Deeren for covering the story and bringing so much attention. And Michael was part of the spotlight deal, part of the spotlight story, and now he's covering us. And so Michael and Jason, thank you for your work as well.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:51:36] Yes, thank you, Michael and Jason, so much for covering the story.

John Dehlin [03:51:40] Super quick, are you a licensed therapist now in Idaho? Okay. Is there a website and an email if people want to reach out to you? I want to share that really quick.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:51:50] Yeah, I'm kind of working on the website right now, but It's Resilient Wellness llc.com and they can email me at cgisilientwellnessllc and yes. And yeah, my other email is chelseagoodrich1gmail.com okay, perfect.

John Dehlin [03:52:15] Perfect. And then for those just, just know this is not. We're not done. We're gonna come back, we're gonna be sharing all three, three of those audio recordings of the negotiations between. Oh, my gosh, I'm spacing out his name between Paul, Paul Ritting, head of Risk management for the Mormon Church, and Chelsea and her mom and Eric. We'll be sharing those three audio recordings, slightly redacted just to protect some confidential things. Things.

John Dehlin [03:52:50] But you'll be able to hear the full, you know, basically almost the full recordings of those three instead of just the small excerpts. And then I'm also going to be having an episode where I bring on an attorney, possibly Colby, possibly rfm, I'm not sure yet, to discuss and process sort of attorney's reactions to those three discussions. So that's all to come. And we're going to get a recording of you reading your letter to Elizabeth Smart as a separate episode and release that as its own short. So that's gonna all that's gonna be coming up. So please know that as powerful and as comprehensive as today was, viewers and listeners, we've got more to come on this so that it can be a full record of.

John Dehlin [03:53:40] For the Mormon Church to improve and for people to kind of to know, have some transparency into at least one case, which I'm sure is one of tens of thousands that haven't been covered or won't get covered to this level. But this will be at least one that will get some coverage.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:53:59] Yeah.

John Dehlin [03:54:00] Yeah.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:54:00] Thank you so much, John and Margi.

John Dehlin [03:54:02] All right, thanks, Chelsea Goodrich. Thanks, Margi. And thanks again to everyone who, who Julia did a great job helping me prepare and producing this episode. And again, thanks to Gerardo and Maven and all those at the Open Stories foundation. Our board that make all this possible. Couldn't do without you. Thanks to the donors who make all this possible and to our viewers and listeners. Please share this far and wide. Please like this episode, Please subscribe and please get the word out so that we can protect more children of the future. And I have to thank Sam Young. Sam Young fought hard to protect LDS children. What he received was excommunication for it. So final shout out to Sam Young. This episode is in part in honor of you and what you've done. Thanks, Chelsea.

Chelsea Goodrich [03:54:48] Thank you so much.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.