Stacey Rutherford, a single mom, found her storybook romance in 2015 when she met medical student Justin Rutherford. They shared a deep connection, fell in love, and became a picture-perfect American family. Over time, the couple added two more children to their family. Justin progressed into a family doctor, and they settled in Pennsylvania, where he started his career. However, in August of 2021, Stacey came home to find her wonderful life crashing down. The Rutherford family would never be the same.
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Stacy, would you please read this document?
Okay? This is a court document affidavit of probable cause from Berks County, Pennsylvania, Honor. About Thursday, January fifth, twenty twenty three, a detective received information that the defendant, Justin Rutherford, was requesting to have someone murder a juvenile.
Mail detectives in Running, Pennsylvania learned that a Justin Rutherford had concocted a scheme to take the life of a teenager who was set to testify against him in a criminal case. Rutherford told his hitman to use gloves and to wear layers of clothing so no DNA would be found.
Rutherford said he could be buried in the forest somewhere, or he could be burned in a barrel. This would be a good way to get rid of any evidence.
Stacy, do you know Justin Rutherford, the man who was planning the murder?
I do?
And who is he?
My husband?
I'm Andrea Gunning and this is Season three of Betrayal, Episode one, storybook Romance A listener Note. Some names have been changed to protect privacy. I'm so grateful to be back for another season of Betrayal. When we started this project with Jennifer Fason's story back in twenty nineteen, we really didn't know where it would go. Thanks to you, we're back for season three, and there's even more big news if you love betrayal. This summer, our podcast will become a weekly series addressing all kinds of betrayal, from relationships, to financial deception and more. There are betrayals you won't believe, but they happened. What we've discovered is that there are people everywhere, millions actually, who are struggling with loss and shame because something that they believed in turned out to be a lie. Sometimes the lie is so egregious it's criminal. Other times it's just too painful to bear. We've also learned that hearing you aren't the only one that has been the victim of shocking deception is comforting. There is something inherently therapeutic in sharing our stories, and that brings me to Stacy Rutherford.
I can talk to my best friends till I'm blue in the face, but not a single one of them have any idea what I feel like, and I hope none of them ever have to know what I feel like.
Stacy heard Ashley Linton's story from season two, and they had a lot in common. Even parts of their story are similar.
It was kind of one of those things that it made me finally feel like I wasn't so abnormal for feeling some of the things that I felt about the situation and about grieving my marriage and everything. It was just for the first time I felt like somebody knew what I felt like.
But there are some very big differences. The stakes for Stacy and her family are not like anything we've ever seen. When she first reached out to our team, it was from her home in a small rural spot called Jared'stown, West Virginia. It's about two hours west of DC. She works in the area as an administrative support for a federal agency. She also spent many years working as a medical assistant. Her story spans three states, two husbands, two courts, four children, and twenty five years in the making.
It's a lot, and not everybody can handle that because it's a wild story. It's nothing like you think you're gonna hear. I found Stacy to be such a contradiction. She's a joyful, spiritual person with a great laugh. It's fun just being around her, but that laugh can turn to tears in a matter of seconds. It's a fragile line. She's holding it together, but not by much.
First, we need to look at where Stacey came from to see how she arrived here. Stacy was still a teenager when she got married and started a family. She still remembers the night she met her first husband back in nineteen ninety eight. We'll call him John.
My high school boyfriend and I broke up right after senior year. I went to a party and just we connected.
John was twenty three, Stacy was eighteen.
He was fresh out the military. I got pregnant pretty quick. You know. My dad will always say, I think he did the noble thing.
John married after an accelerated courtship in their hometown of Decatur, Illinois, but eventually moved to West Virginia. They had two kids together, Mikayla and Tyler.
Honestly, we didn't spend a lot of time together. I know that that sounds crazy, but he loved a fish. He could be out there for twelve eighteen hours a day, so usually I would just stay home with the kids.
Stacey admits that the relationship was imperfect, but she was okay with that.
I knew we didn't have this fireworks and passion and all this. But I was comfortable and I took a vow, and I took that seriously.
They were busy young parents.
He was a forklift operator, but he worked so many hours. He works like twelve to sometimes sixteen hours a day.
It never occurred to her that it wouldn't last forever.
Divorce was impossible to me. I was just like nu uh, you know, like we're going to be old sitting on a porch with our grandkids, because that's what my grandparents were. And my parents were like, divorce wasn't in my family like that. I'd made a post on MySpace or MySpace like thank you God for this life, and I just I'm so blessed and I have two great kids and a husband, you know. And two weeks later, he rolled over in bed and he just said I'm not happy and I haven't been for a really long time. I'm like, what the hell. I was like, shut up, and he was like no, I'm serious, and I just started screaming. Michaela was eight, and she ran into the bedroom and started screaming, Daddy, don't hit her, don't hit her. She thought he was hitting me because I was screaming like agony. He said it was nobody, that he just wanted to be alone, that we got married too young. You know, he was never going to get married again.
Stacy is no fool. She knew something was up.
My sister calls me Angela Lansbar because I won't find it out. Within days, I knew he was seeing somebody. Ended up finding out it was a coworker that was August. I come home one day and I had told him I was going to move back where our family was, and then I changed my mind and I was like, I can do this, you know, we can try to work this out. He was like nope.
Stacy's daughter Mikaela remembers her mom confronting the other woman, though she didn't really know what was happening at the time.
One day, we were waking up for school and we did not drive to school. We went to some random lady's house and my mom gets out of the car and is throwing gravel rocks at this lady and I'm just in the backseat, like I don't know what's happening, and my dad had come out without a shirt on.
Mikaela was too young to understand. Stacy knew exactly what was going on.
It was soul crushing. I said, just tell me what it is and what I can do, and I remember he did tell me, you know, well you got big and I didn't, you know, like to look at you. Then it was like, oh, it's my fault.
This moment. It fractured her. So many people know this feeling not feeling enough that haunted Stacy.
I had no self worth, no self worth. I mean, I had never in my life been suicidal, and I remember I knew I wanted to be alive for my kids, but I just had this attitude of like, I'm not going to take my life because I'm a Christian and I don't you know, but if you don't wake me up in the morning, that would be okay.
Stacy kept her pain hidden. Her children only saw her beauty and strength.
Anything could happen to her and nothing would phaze her. She's great and I want to be her when I grow up. Mom actually worked too jobs and so a lot of the time it would be Tyler and I at home by ourselves, and I'd be watching him. And even when I would go hang out with friends in the neighborhood down the street.
He would always tag along with me.
Although Mikayla is six years older than Tyler, they formed a close bond during those years.
I mean, honestly, I loved it.
I loved being around Tyler when mom was a single mom and it was just him and I a lot.
Mikayla has grown up a lot since looking after Tyler. She's a Master's candidate and a newlywed, but when she was a kid, she admits to being a bit of a wild child, like I was a hot mess express Stacey says. Tyler, on the other hand, was a happy kid who adored his mom.
When my first husband and I divorced, he was two. So Tyler and I have always had a huge bond, and he's always been a MoMA's boy. He loved the Kardashians and he'd be like When's Sister Wives on? And you know there was so much as Si in that house at that time, Like the poor guy had no chance, but it made him the sweetest soul. He will die if I tell you this. But like I am a bath and body works nut. Like my propably need a twelve step program, but I always like have it and so he would lay in bed when he was little and he'd smell my arm and he'd say, oh, mamma, you smell so beautiful.
Seventeen years later, Stacy has acquired the wisdom to view the end of her first marriage with a different lens.
I didn't know what I was doing. You know, I'm a young mom. I'm a young wife, not knowing how to manage money. So I completely accept that I had a hand in the devise of my marriage too.
Still, the loss of her dream left Stacy wounded.
I can honestly say that I've never been the same since my first marriage ended.
Even after the demise of her marriage, Stacy hoped to find love and a partner to share her life with. She was cautious she had to be.
I didn't want to be that mom that just had random different men coming in and out of her home, and then for the kids to like lose that person. That was always my fear.
The divorce was in two thousand and seven. Stacy has had a few long term relationships and some forgettable dates. Stacy's son, Tyler, recalls one boyfriend that left an impression she.
Was a real bad drunk and would just scream and yell. So he wasn't too much of a good guy either. He was just good to us kids. She always kind of had bad experiences with men.
And Stacy's daughter, Mikayla, harbored the fantasy of many children of divorce.
I want my mom and dad back together still, So I was also like, who are you coming into my house? I was always mean to like every boyfriend she had, anytime she would tell me she was on a date, something was dying, or my toe nail was falling off and she had to come home because like fat guy. And then like there would be times if she had like a boyfriend over and they were in the living room, I would purposely interrupt and you know, be an annoyance.
Then in twenty fifteen, a new man came into Stacy's life.
My name is Karen, and I met Stacy when my son dated her daughter in high school, and we've been close friends ever since. I met Justin when he was doing like a round or rotations. I worked at a lab at the doctor's office and he was a student there and we just started to chat.
Justin was in medical school.
I knew he was single, and I'm like, I feel like you and my friend were really hit it off. He had a good sense of humor and she had a good sense of humor. So I'm not sure if I gave her his number or if I gave him her number, but either way, he ended up reaching out and they met up.
Him and I met at All of Garden Right off the bat, we started joking. Our whole entire meal was joking, and he just kind of said to me, you know, I'm a poor Med student. I don't have time for anyone. I don't have any money. I can't really take you on dates like this, you know. He actually our biggest joke was he used to coupon on our first date, and he was mortified to bring it out of his pocket. He's like, you know, I got like a bye one get one half off kind of thing going on. And he was just like, you know, so do you want to adopt a poor Med student? And I was like yeah, I mean, like, why not add another kid to it? You know, I'm all for it. Our joke for years was that who once already made family? And he was like whooh me, you know, And that's kind of how our relationship started. Telling me he had no time for me and then ended up. We were together all the time.
He said that she was nice, but I think that he was attracted to her sense of humor because that's what makes her really beautiful, because she's so funny.
Stacy and Justin were vibing. They just loved being together.
I had butterflies when driving home from our first date. I remember calling my dad and I was like, Dad, I think I just met my husband. And he was like, oh my god, did you tell him that? And I was liked, no, I didn't tell him that, Like why would I tell him that. He's like, oh, thank god, because he would have run her.
Dad didn't need to worry. The affection was mutual.
They hit it off and I was pretty proud of myself for being a matchmaker.
All the years I had dated. Between my first husband and him, it was so just ugh a cesspool. Really, people felt like they had an agenda or there was something that they wanted from me, but Justin it was just wholeheartedly. I never felt there was anything that he wanted from me. He just wanted to be with me, and for me, I was like, wow, that's the first time, you know, I've ever felt like that.
When it was time for Justin to meet Stacy's kids, fifteen year old Mikaela had every intention of giving the new guy the same treatment every other man had unwelcome.
They had been dating for a couple of months, and I remember I was at my dad's house when my mom was like, Justin was coming over and I was going to meet him. The whole time I'm talking shit, I'm like, Dad, f him. I already don't like him. He's probably fat and ugly. And my Dad's like, Michayla, be nice, and I'm like, I don't care. I don't want to know you. And then when we walked in the house, it was immediately like Hi, I'm Justin and like open arms, super talkative, asking me like what I want to do when I grow up? How high school is? You know, just like blah blah blah blah blah talking to me. And I was still kind of stand offish because I'm like, can you take the heat.
I remember the first day we met him very vividly.
Actually, Tyler was about ten at the time. He was impressed.
He really just seemed like such a great guy from the start. You came over, We're looking at it oh, mom's got a new boyfriend. Here's another asshole. And then surprisingly he was one of the first guys to ever have an interaction with me and like, I actually played football with me, so to me, I was like, Okay, he's actually a pretty good guy. That was the first time I really saw her with another man, truly happy, and Mikayla thought it too.
I liked him a lot, and I was like, okay, I won't scare him away. Yeah, they had a good relationship. Like I thought they were good together.
We started dating in March and Thanksgiving we went to Myrtle Beach with his family and I was like, oh, this is so great. We spent a lot of time with family and friends.
Time together was precious.
Then.
Medical school was all encompassing for Justin, but they made it work.
I also, you know, would help him when he would study because I'm in the medical field too, so when he was studying prescription med names, we would like go back and forth as kind of like a game.
Stacy didn't need to be wined and dine. She wanted kindness and connection and someone to be part of her family.
It just never felt complex. We spent a lot of time with like family and friends, and if we weren't we were studying. You know, we didn't do a whole lot in our first year.
Justin was also willing to be a father figure and wanted to be involved in the kids' lives.
He was really nice to me and would do stuff with me. He was a big video gamer. He helped me build my first like big gaming computer, which was really cool, and he was very tech savvy.
If I wanted to play games, he was a guy to play games with.
So I was happy to have what I thought would be a father figure.
It was like the dad and best friend in one.
It was now twenty sixteen. Stacy and Justin had been together about a year, but he was on the medical track and to relocate to continue his training. Stacy and Justin's relationship was getting serious. Sometimes he'd stay at her place for several days at a time, or she'd spend the weekend at his apartment. It couldn't imagine being a part, so the couple decided that Stacy and her kids would move with him for his residency. It was the last stage of training before becoming a doctor.
It was just kind of like our not really silent deal, but our deal that he was going to take care of me and I was going to take care of him.
Justin matched with a hospital system in Pennsylvania, so Stacy, Mikaela, and Tyler packed up their life and moved with Justin. This was the beginning of their next chapter as a growing family. Stacy's sister Heather, it was.
Like the story book Growing My sister one of more children having children. He loved her kids.
And Justin wanted kids too. A year after the family moved to Pennsylvania, the couple had a baby girl together, and shortly after Stacey became pregnant again. She shared an amazing family moment with me a video where Justin opens a gender reveal envelope.
Oh God, thank you Jesus.
That.
Oh wow, I was about two seconds away from actual job into.
The ground love.
Their baby boy was born in twenty nineteen.
He delivered both of our kids my ob Right when the baby was about to come out, she stepped to the side and let Justin deliver the babies.
I remember I made a Facebook post like after it and I said, I didn't think I could love this man anymore, but when I saw him with his babies, it made.
Me love him in a whole different way, you know, on a different level. He was just so happy, Like you could tell, he just was so excited to be a dad.
They had their love, their children, Their family was complete. As they set their sights on the future, Justin received a full time job offer. It was official they were staying in Pennsylvania.
After residency was over, he accepted a position with their family med office in Exeter, Pennsylvania.
My sister worked extremely hard to bring in enough money to take care of her kids and still try to give them the life that they deserved. But Justin offered her a sense of freedom, I mean the salary.
And Stacey also had support. When the family moved to Pennsylvania, Justin's godmother moved with them. Her name is Deborah and she helped Stacy with the little ones.
We called her Nanny mcdee like the Nanny McPhee movie.
She was a part of our family.
D was living with Justin's mom since he was a baby.
When his mother died tragically during his college years, Nanny continued to maintain a close relationship with him. Here's Justin's college friend, Stacy Hayden.
Justin's mom got cancer and passed away, and her best friend was d and she had promised to always take care of Justin. As soon as they moved to Pennsylvania. Dee was living with them in like a taking care of roles, so she was a living nanny and helped around the house.
The extra set of hands made a huge difference. Dee could watch the kids while Justin and Stacey worked. Although the couple were financially comfortable, Stacy learned a lot from her first marriage. Finally, those hectic years would pay off.
He made basically like what I make right now, So we lived tight during that time, and then once he ran graduated from residency, I was going to continue working for the next five years instead of being a state home mom like. He gave me that option, but I was like, no, I want to work.
Stacey carried a lot of baggage from her divorce an old debt, so Justin stepped in to help get control of her financial life.
He was real focused on making sure that I was out of debt and that I was in a good financial position. He paid off my student loans, He got my credit score back up to where it was actually a normal decent credit score.
Justin didn't just look out for her well being, he looked out for the kids.
He was more active in my life than my biological dad, and I felt closer to him Stacy's father, Rodney.
I saw a good impact Justin had on Mikayla, because Mikayla was not a great student in school. You know, I hope Michayla doesn't mind me say that. But the joke of the family was always saying, God, she's cute. If you and have told me she was going to be going for her master's degree, I would say, well, I don't know what you're smoking, but I'll take some of them. And I think Justin helped her, inspired her even to go farther than even I think she thought she could go.
I had two dads, like they were both great, and I loved them equally. But I mean, he was a great dad, like I called him dad, I didn't say stepdad.
I had everything that I wanted. He took care of us.
He gave us the life that you know, I always wanted my kids to have.
It was the life they both wanted.
It wasn't a card or something like that where he said something to the effect of thank you for giving me the family that I never thought I would.
Have, andally they manned an official.
Our plan was get married this year at the courthouse, and then the following year on our actual anniversary, have a big reception.
In twenty eighteen, Justin and Stacy were married in a civil ceremony with just family and attendance. She had waited so long for this moment.
I remember just saying to him, if I knew that I had to go through eight years of shitty relationships and devastation to get to you, I would do it all over again. I would tell him that all the time, I would walk through every bit of it again to find you. And you know, when I was single, I would think of like I wonder what his name's going to be, you know, and like I remember I tell it him one time, like I just love saying your name because I wondered for so long, like what.
Your name would be.
She finally knew her person and she was now missus Justin Rutherford. Life got even sweeter when they bought their five bedroom dream house, complete with a pool. The kids were in heaven. They had made it. Cynthia worked with Justin and went to his home for parties They seem like the best American family.
They had a beautiful home. They had a pool, they had the space for the kids to run around.
They had a beautiful life. The Rutherford House was always a hub for social activity. Tyler and Michayla's friends spent a lot of time there. The pool, a movie theater, and all the video games. It was a big draw, and Stacy thrived playing hostess.
I loved when Tyler had all of his friends over in the summertime. He never had to ask I had friends over. It was just all such and such as stand the night four of them are, and you know, here I am cooking eight pounds of.
Food, you know. But we loved it.
I joked that I was going to claim some of his friends on my taxes because they were there so much.
Their homeline is something that I strive for. Pure happiness.
For the better part of six years, That's how Stacy viewed her life too, pure happiness. That was until August tenth, twenty twenty one, when she returned from work in the afternoon.
When I first walked up to the house, I just saw a bunch of like vans and SUVs, and I thought that he had like a bunch of Tyler's hockey people over.
But there were no cars she recognized. Stacy quickly learned that these were unmarked police cars. Her house was being raided.
The detective came out. He was like, ma'am, calm down, your family's okay, just come with us. I walked into the house. He was sitting at our kitchen table. The cops were on each side of him guarding him. Detective Weaver said, well, I'm sure you know why we're here, and I looked at him and I was like, no, I absolutely don't know why you're here. There was such a deep feeling of knowing this is going to be bad and our life is never going to be the same.
The police then wanted to meet with Stacy privately.
I went downstairs into the man cave with the detectives and Detective Weaver had kind of laid everything out on the couch. I was sick. It was a sickness that I felt as soon as I saw it.
Why were the police surrounding Justin and what did they show Stacy?
It was just like, what is going on here? What in the world is going on?
That's next time on Betrayal. On this season, of Betrayal, a family is thrown into chaos.
I mean, I was going to shoot to kill if he was coming after me and my kids.
A husband, doctor, and father shocks his family. There's no way that he could have done this and his patients.
It was a totally different man.
I said, I don't know who that idiot was, but it clearly was not doctor Rutherford.
As they learn who Justin Rutherford really is and what he is capable of.
He to me is scarier than Jeffrey Dahmer. You know, the level of manipulation was like a serial killer.
If you would like to reach out to the Betrayal team, email us at Betrayal pod at gmail dot com. That's Betrayal pod at gmail dot com. We're grateful for your support. One way to show support is by subscribing to our show on Apple Podcasts, and don't forget to rate and review Betrayal. Five star reviews go a long way. A big thank you to all of our listeners. Betrayal is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by Nancy Glass and Jennifer Fason. Hosted and produced by me Andrea Gunning, written and produced by Kerry Hartman, also produced by Ben Fetterman. Associate producers are Kristin Melcurie and Grace Bollinger. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and Jessica Crincheck. Special thanks to Stacy Rutherford, Tyler and the rest of Stacy and Tyler's friends and family. Audio editing and mixing by Matt Salvechio. Editing support from Nico Ruka. Betrayals theme composed by Oliver Bains. Music library provided by Mybe Music and For more podcasts from iHeart, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.