JoDee sits down with longtime friend and colleague Amy Derrick, a 22-year prosecutor who now leads the Crimes Against Children, Sexual Assault, Human Trafficking, and Cold Case divisions at the Dallas County District Attorney's Office. Amy breaks down what trafficking actually looks like when it's not a movie plot. She and JoDee talk through how digital evidence lets prosecutors build cases without forcing survivors to relive their trauma on the stand, how Dallas's task forces work together, and why the county's newest Human Trafficking Unit is a direct response to what falls through the cracks when trafficking cases stay siloed.

Key Topics Covered:

• What trafficking actually is, and how it differs from the "kidnapping" narrative most people picture

• Coercion as the defining legal element: debt, threats, document control, addiction — and why for a minor, no coercion has to be proven at all

• The line between promotion of prostitution and trafficking: force, fraud, or coercion

• Why some victims don't identify as victims, and what that means for prosecutors and juries

• Building cases on financial and digital records to reduce reliance on victim testimony

• Dallas's task force ecosystem: SART, HART, and the North Texas Human Trafficking Task Force

• The chronic underfunding of trafficking units and the county's grant-dependent model

• The launch and mission of the new Human Trafficking Unit

• A call to action: what ordinary people and businesses can do when something feels off

Guest Bio: Amy Derrick is Administrative Chief and Assistant District Attorney with the Dallas County District Attorney's Office, where she leads a team of more than 50 legal, investigative, and victim services professionals across the Sexual Assault, Human Trafficking, Crimes Against Children, and Cold Case divisions. Over more than two decades with the office, she has founded and scaled major initiatives including the Sexual Assault Kit Initiative and the county's Cold Case Unit, and has directed more than $10 million in federal and state grant-funded programs in partnership with law enforcement, healthcare systems, and advocacy organizations.

Connect with Amy

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-derrick-04855aa/

Timestamps:

• (00:55) Career Beginnings and Early Inspiration 

• (03:39) Scope of Prosecutorial Oversight 

• (07:55) Why Victims Are Blamed

• (09:10) Understanding Human Trafficking 

• (12:55) Coercion Over Force

• (17:46) Victim Participation Challenges 

• (26:27) Technological Challenges in CSAM Cases 

• (29:44) Multidisciplinary Task Forces 

• (33:17) Funding as a Constant Battle 

• (36:05) The Human Trafficking Unit Vision 

• (40:50) Businesses’ Unseen Role 

• (44:25) Message to the Public and Victims

Content Note: This episode includes discussion of sexual violence, child abuse, and human trafficking. Some references to high-profile cases and broader criminal trends reflect Amy's personal professional observations and are not intended as confirmed case details or legal conclusions.

Stay Connected with JoDee Neil

Website: https://neilnowlegal.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodeeneilattorney/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jodeeneilattorney

Newsletter: https://substack.com/@jodeeneil

Every case Amy described started with someone believing they had no way out. JoDee's Not Here™ Workplace Dignity Program and WOW Protocol™ help leaders build the kind of culture where warning signs get caught early — before they become a crisis.

Workplace and Corporate Consulting JoDee brings her courtroom expertise and deep understanding of human behavior to help leadership teams build that culture.

Bring JoDee to Your Event Whether you need a keynote on communication, leadership, or organizational culture, JoDee delivers with authenticity and power.

Grab JoDee's Book Outcry Witness is a former prosecutor's guide to healing and justice after sexual violence. Available now in hardcover, paperback, and digital formats. Grab your copy today.

JoDee Neil sits down with Cora Black, philanthropist, community leader, and HR professional, for a conversation about what it means to heal while still showing up for a career. Cora shares her story as a survivor of sexual assault and a hate crime during college, and why she chose not to pursue legal action at the time. She and JoDee dig into what HR gets right that lawyers often miss, why documentation matters even outside a courtroom, and what it looks like to give survivors back their sense of control. Recorded on Juneteenth, the episode closes with Cora reflecting on the freedom of finally telling her story out loud.

Key Topics Covered:

• Why HR is often better positioned than legal teams to catch what's really going on with an employee

• The "wellness check" mindset: reading attendance and performance issues as signals, not just problems to manage

• Building a zero tolerance retaliation policy that actually protects people

• Cora's decision not to pursue legal action after her assault, and why that choice was about control, not avoidance

• Documentation as a healing tool, not just a legal one

• Service and mentorship rooted in family history, including Cora's board work with DIFFA

• Recording on Juneteenth and what it meant to share this story publicly for the first time

  
  

Guest Bio:

Cora Black is a philanthropist, community leader, and HR professional known for her advocacy work and board service, including her role with the Design Industry Foundation Fighting AIDS (DIFFA). She brings both a survivor's perspective and an HR practitioner's eye to conversations about workplace culture, conflict, and healing.

Timestamps:

• (00:01:30) HR as Employee Partner, Not Adversary 

• (00:03:04) The Disconnect Between Lawyers and HR 

• (00:06:04) Advocacy Through Conflict Resolution 

• (00:10:34) No Tolerance for Retaliation 

• (00:12:24) Healing While Building Career 

• (00:19:29) Documentation as Healing and Protection 

• (00:23:17) Allowing Emotional Release in Conflict 

• (00:25:24) Being an Outcry Witness 

• (00:28:12) Public Truth as a Step to Freedom 

• (00:34:52) The Sun on the Skin: A New Vision of Healing 

• (00:38:40) Challenging Workplace Stigma for Male Survivors

• (00:41:16) Service as Survival 

• (00:44:54) Embracing Freedom and Autonomy

Stay Connected with JoDee Neil

Website: https://neilnowlegal.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodeeneilattorney/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jodeeneilattorney

Newsletter: https://substack.com/@jodeeneil

Every workplace has a Cora. JoDee's Not Here™ Workplace Dignity Program and WOW Protocol™ give leaders the infrastructure to catch these moments before they become crises. 

Workplace and Corporate Consulting Does your organization need to build a genuinely high-trust culture where people communicate honestly and conflict gets resolved before it becomes a crisis? JoDee brings her courtroom expertise and deep understanding of human behavior to help leadership teams build that culture. Click here to inquire about corporate consulting services.

Bring JoDee to Your Event JoDee is a gifted speaker who transforms audiences. Whether you need a keynote on communication, leadership, or organizational culture, she delivers with authenticity and power. Click here to request JoDee as a speaker for your event.

Grab JoDee's Book Outcry Witness is a former prosecutor's guide to healing and justice after sexual violence. It blends memoir, research, and practical wisdom to show you that disclosure can spark transformation. Available now in hardcover, paperback, and digital formats. Grab your copy today.

In October 2025, Robert Morris, megachurch founder, author, and pastor to hundreds of thousands, stood in a courtroom and pled guilty to five counts of child sexual abuse. His victim was twelve years old when it started. Her name is Cindy Clemishire. In this conversation, JoDee sits with Cindy in Dallas to talk about what it costs to carry a secret for decades, what happens when the law finally catches up, and what it felt like to stand up in a courtroom and leave forty-five years of shame on the bench behind her. This episode is for everyone who has ever been told that speaking the truth will ruin everything.

Meet Your Host: JoDee Neil is a two-term prosecutor turned keynote speaker and leadership advisor who spent more than two decades in courtrooms, including over 100 jury trials. She is the author of Outcry Witness: A Former Prosecutor's Guide to Healing and Justice After Sexual Violence and the host of Outcry Witness Unspoken, where she talks with survivors, advocates, and experts about the hidden costs of silence, power, and retaliation. Today she helps leaders build cultures where dignity and accountability are not liabilities but assets.

Featured Guest: Cindy Clemishire is an Oklahoma advocate, speaker, and survivor of childhood sexual abuse. She disclosed her abuse as a child and carried it quietly for decades while the legal system gave her no door — until she refused to stop knocking. Since going public, her story has drawn national attention to the realities of childhood sexual abuse, the long road to disclosure and healing, and the barriers survivors face in seeking justice. She has testified before legislatures in multiple states advocating for survivors' rights, including legislation to ban NDAs in abuse cases and end statutes of limitations on childhood sexual abuse claims. Cindy uses her experience to help others understand that healing is possible, truth matters, and the past does not determine the future.

Key Takeaways

• Grooming is not just about the child. It is about the entire family. Trust is the weapon.

• The words survivors use to describe their experience, abuse, molestation, rape, can take years to apply to themselves, because predators rarely use force. They use love.

• An outcry witness is the first person a child tells. Glenda, a family friend with no professional training, sat with Cindy in a closet, held her hands, and said: "You have to tell me." She changed the course of Cindy's life.

• Refusing a $25,000 NDA in 2007 was the decision that made everything else possible. Cindy knew that her right to speak about her own life was not for sale.

• When Robert Morris pled guilty and was led out in handcuffs, Cindy described standing up and feeling like a costume of shame she had worn her entire life stayed behind on the bench. That moment is what justice can look like: a truth finally named by the state.

• Shame attracts shame. Silence is a multiplier.

Episode Timestamps

• (00:03:26) A Confusing Form of Abuse

• (00:06:00) The Predator’s Position in the Family 

• (00:14:23) The Night That Changed Everything

• (00:35:09) Facing the Accusations

• (00:35:09) The Power of an Outcry Witness

• (00:46:14) Leaving Shame Behind 

• (00:54:06) Advocacy Against NDAs 

• (01:00:45) Protecting the Next Generation 

• (01:05:00) Finding Purpose in Pain 

• (01:06:18) Honoring a Hero 

• (01:07:30) A Message of Strength

Ready to Take Your Next Step?

Grab JoDee's Book Outcry Witness

Workplace and Corporate Consulting

JoDee brings her courtroom expertise and deep understanding of human behavior to help leadership teams build that culture.

Stay Connected with JoDee Neil

Website: https://www.jodeeneil.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodeeneilattorney/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jodeeneilattorney

Newsletter: https://substack.com/@jodeeneil

Connect with Cindy Clemishire

Instagram: @cindyclem30

YouTube: @cindyclem30

Facebook: Cindy Clemishire

LinkedIn: Cindy Clemishire

Women have done everything they were told to do — they negotiated, advocated, and leaned in. And many of them paid a price for it. In this conversation, JoDee sits down with award-winning journalist and author Stefanie O'Connell to examine what Stefanie calls the ambition penalty: the documented backlash women face when they advocate for themselves at work, and why that backlash is so difficult to name, prove, or fight alone. Listeners will leave with a clearer understanding of why the problem was never them — and what it looks like when women stop carrying that weight in silence.

Meet Your Host: JoDee Neil

JoDee Neil is a two-term prosecutor turned keynote speaker and leadership advisor who spent more than two decades in courtrooms, including over 100 jury trials. She is the author of Outcry Witness: A Former Prosecutor's Guide to Healing and Justice After Sexual Violence and the host of Outcry Witness Unspoken, where she talks with survivors, journalists, and experts about the hidden costs of power, silence, and retaliation.

Featured Guest: Stefanie O'Connell

Stefanie O'Connell is an award-winning journalist and the author of The Ambition Penalty: How Corporate Culture Tells Women to Step Up — and Then Pushes Them Down. Her work dismantles the myths that keep women from equitable pay, leadership, and power, one data point at a time. She is the creator and host of the Webby Award-winning podcast Money Confidential, and her reporting has appeared in Bloomberg, Slate, Newsweek, CNBC, Glamour, and USA Today.

Key Takeaways

• Negotiating for yourself is not legally protected activity — and the backlash women experience when they ask is extraordinarily difficult to prove as sex discrimination.
• The ambition penalty is documented and systemic, not personal. The problem was never the women.
• Women have been told to ask louder, negotiate harder, and lean in further — while the structural incentives punishing that behavior remain largely unchanged.
• Shame and isolation are features of the system, not side effects. When women believe the problem is them, they stay quiet. That silence protects the system.
• Collective awareness and truth-telling may be more powerful levers for change than individual advocacy alone.

Episode Timestamps

• [02:13] - The Ambition Penalty Explained

• [05:01] - Challenging the Meritocracy Myth

• [08:25] - Extensive Research Foundation

• [11:23] - Why Gender Inequality Persists

• [12:10] - Historical and Cultural Context

• [19:04] - The Impact of Asking for More

• [22:44] - The Impossible Tightrope

• [23:52] - Decoding Workplace Double Standards

• [27:53] - The Cycle of Shame and Silence

• [33:28] - Power of Transparency and Solidarity

• [42:08] - Women in Leadership: Tokenism vs. Scale

• [46:35] - A Net Benefit for Everyone

• [48:10] - A Call to Collective Action

Grab JoDee's Book

Outcry Witness is a former prosecutor's guide to healing and justice after sexual violence. Grab your copy today.

https://www.amazon.com/Outcry-Witness-Prosecutors-Healing-Violence/dp/1965766196/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2MW8PURZZ7OEZ&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.O0tz_NQoUPmG5Lw5To52Ag.qdF73Dl8Z8Ca7iOlsW16qAXOGdx7EJZxFp1LAYRhvhg&dib_tag=se&keywords=jodee+neil&qid=1781735892&sprefix=jodee+neil%2Caps%2C304&sr=8-1

Stay Connected with JoDee Neil

Website: https://www.jodeeneil.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodeeneilattorney/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jodeeneilattorney

Newsletter: https://substack.com/@jodeeneil

Connect with Stefanie O'Connell

Book: The Ambition Penalty https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/stefanie-oconnell/the-ambition-penalty/9781541705210/

Substack: https://tooambitious.substack.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stefanieoconnell/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanieoconnell/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@StefanieOConnell

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@stefaniemoconnell

Threads: https://www.threads.com/@stefanieoconnell

About This Episode

More than 87,200 people filed abuse claims against the Boy Scouts of America. Most will never stand in a courtroom. Most will never receive a verdict.

Today's guest is one of them.

Shannon Ray Cooper is a Navy veteran, historian, author, and survivor of childhood sexual abuse. In this conversation, Shannon shares how writing Monsters in My Tent helped him reclaim his voice and why preserving other people's stories has become part of his own healing.

Together, we explore what happens when justice never arrives, why voice is often the most powerful form of accountability available to survivors, and how one man turned decades of pain into a life of service.

Meet Your Host

JoDee Neil is a leadership advisor, keynote speaker, attorney, survivor, and author of Outcry Witness: A Former Prosecutor's Guide to Healing and Justice After Sexual Violence.

After more than twenty years in courtrooms and more than one hundred jury trials, JoDee now helps leaders create cultures built on trust, communication, and accountability. Through Outcry Witness Unspoken, she gives voice to survivors and explores the systems that shape how we live, work, and heal.

Featured Guest

Shannon Ray Cooper is a Navy veteran, historian, and author of Monsters in My Tent. He is also one of the 87,200 survivors who filed abuse claims against the Boy Scouts of America.

Through his writing, historical preservation work, and annual visits to children's hospitals and schools dressed as Santa, Shannon has dedicated his life to making sure stories—and people—are never forgotten.

In This Episode

✔ Why more than 87,200 Boy Scouts survivors may never receive a courtroom verdict

✔ Why voice—not vindication—is often the justice survivors can control

✔ How writing can become a powerful tool for healing

✔ Why preserving history became part of Shannon's own recovery

✔ How one man transformed unimaginable pain into decades of service

Episode Timestamps

• (00:00:00) Opening the Silent Wounds

• (00:02:15) A Survivor’s Early Struggles and Service

• (00:03:50) Writing History with a Personal Touch

• (00:05:18) Claimant Realities in the BSA Bankruptcy 

• (00:09:48) The Harsh Reality of Silence in Bankruptcy

• (00:11:13) “Monsters in My Tent” — Naming the Pain 

• (00:13:40) Initiation Tent Atrocities

• (00:20:07) The Secret Files and Institutional Cover-Up

• (00:21:40) Survivor Advocacy and Legislative Success 

• (00:39:34) Challenges of Male Disclosure and Social Stigma

• (00:33:51) Forgiveness and Moving Forward 

• (00:34:49) Hope in Storytelling: The Next Book “Stolen Innocence” 

• (01:04:46) Faith and Gratitude in Survival

• (01:06:16) The Call for Justice Reform
  

Resources

Outcry Witness Strategy Session

For survivors seeking clarity, resources, and guidance, JoDee offers a private ninety-minute Outcry Witness Strategy Session.

These confidential sessions help survivors explore next steps, understand available options, and connect with appropriate support and resources.

Book Your Session

Get The Book

Outcry Witness: A Former Prosecutor's Guide to Healing and Justice After Sexual Violence

Part memoir, part guide, and part invitation to reclaim your voice, Outcry Witness offers practical wisdom and hope for survivors navigating life after trauma.

Available now wherever books are sold.

Get Your Copy

Leadership Consulting & Keynote Speaking

Drawing on more than two decades as a prosecutor and trial attorney, JoDee helps leaders strengthen communication, navigate conflict, and create workplaces where people and performance can thrive.

Through keynotes, workshops, and executive consulting, she helps organizations address the issues that too often get pushed to next quarter.

Learn More About Leadership Consulting & Speaking

Stay Connected

Website: https://www.jodeeneil.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodeeneilattorney/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jodeeneilattorney

Newsletter: https://substack.com/@jodeeneil

The average workplace harassment lawsuit costs $250,000 to defend. The average jury award is $600,000. And 95% of cases that reach trial end in plaintiff success. This is not a culture problem. It is a business problem.

About This Episode

Most C-suites believe they are protected by an anti-harassment policy. They are not. In this episode of Outcry Witness Unspoken, JoDee Neil makes the case — directly, financially, and without softening — that Business As Usual has failed American business to the tune of $14 billion a year. She names the manipulation playbook most companies are running on their own employees, explains why HR was never structured to stop it, and lays out what real infrastructure looks like.

Meet Your Host: JoDee Neil

JoDee Neil is a former prosecutor, survivor, author, and fierce advocate for women and children. She served two terms as a prosecutor including as inaugural Chief of Crimes Against Children at a Texas District Attorney's office, then spent decades on the civil side representing survivors. She is the author of Outcry Witness and the founder of the Outcry Witness for Workplace program — a custom-designed Standard Operating Procedure built to replace hollow policy with real infrastructure.

Episode Timestamps 

• [02:19]  - The $14 Billion Retaliation Problem 

• [02:51]  - Double Down DARVO Explained

• [07:48]  - The Costly Defense Cycle

• [11:21] - Retaliation Claims Overshadow Harassment 

• [13:33] - Flawed Independent Investigations

• [19:46]  - Trauma-Informed Expertise 

• [23:25] - HR’s Role in Retaliation

• [26:01]  - Prevalence of Perpetrators in Workplaces

• [27:52]  - Hollow Policies and Enforcement Gaps

• [30:21] - The Need for Real Infrastructure

• [31:31] - The Silence of Distrust

Key Takeaways

• Average workplace harassment lawsuit costs $250,000 to defend — average jury award is $600,000
• 95% of harassment cases that reach trial end in plaintiff success
• 52% of all EEOC cases are retaliation claims — more than any other single category
• 7 in 10 harassment cases produce a retaliation claim on top of the original
• The original incident is rarely what bankrupts a company — the retaliation is
• DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) is a documented manipulation tactic coined by Dr. Jennifer Freyd in 1997 — and most corporate harassment responses execute it precisely
• HR is structurally conflicted: it works for the company, not the employee

TAKE YOUR NEXT STEP

🏢 Bring Outcry Witness for Workplace (WOW) Into Your Organization JoDee installs a custom-designed Standard Operating Procedure tailored to your workforce, jurisdiction, and risk profile. Lunch and learn. Workshop. Certification. Full SOP installation. Start where you can. 👉 https://jodeeneilcom.as.me/StrategySessionForVistageMembers

🎤 Invite JoDee to Speak to Your Leadership Team JoDee speaks directly to C-suite audiences — CEOs, COOs, CFOs, General Counsel, and Board Members. No softening. No generalities. The data and the case for change, delivered as a peer. 👉 [email protected]

📖 Grab JoDee's Book — Outcry Witness The foundation of the entire program. Available now at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Interabang Books in Dallas. 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1965766196/

🎯 Book an Outcry Witness Strategy Session For survivors navigating the aftermath — a private ninety-minute session to move forward with clarity and professional guidance. Investment: $1,500. 👉 https://jodeeneilcom.as.me/OutcryWitnessStrategySession

An Instagram account could rack up 16 violations for sex trafficking before being suspended on the 17th. That is not a glitch. That is a policy. This is the conversation Meta does not want you to hear.

About This Episode

Haley McNamara has spent more than a decade inside the rooms where tech companies are asked to protect children — and where they quietly refuse. As Executive Director and Chief Strategy Officer at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, she has written the recommendations, engaged the companies, and testified under oath. This episode is where that decade lands. JoDee and Haley walk through the 17 strikes policy, Section 230, the Dirty Dozen list, and what it means that for the first time this year, NCOSE named a person — not just a company.

Meet Your Host: JoDee Neil

JoDee Neil is a former prosecutor, survivor, author, and fierce advocate for women and children. With over twenty years in the courtroom and a deeply personal journey of healing, JoDee brings rare expertise and real compassion to every conversation. She is the author of Outcry Witness: A Former Prosecutor's Guide to Healing and Justice After Sexual Violence.

Featured Guest: Haley McNamara, Executive Director & Chief Strategy Officer, NCOSE

Haley McNamara is one of the most knowledgeable voices in the country on how tech platforms enable sexual exploitation. She has worked inside NCOSE for over a decade, led the organization's corporate engagement strategy, and was deposed as an expert witness in the New Mexico Meta trial. She is not theorizing. She has been in the room.

Episode Timestamps 

• [00:00] — Introduction
• [02:59] - Scale of Exploitation Amplified by AI
• [04:01] - The Vast Hidden Problem
• [04:55] - Tech Companies Prioritize Profit Over Safety
• [09:46] - Section 230: The Legal Shield for Big Tech
• [13:48] - A First Crack in Section 230’s Armor
• [15:35] - Internal Meta Data Reveals Massive Abuse
• [16:42] - Meta’s Tolerance for Exploitation
• [17:46] - Section 230 Protects Dating Apps Too
• [27:51] - The Overwhelming Burden on Parents
• [35:56] - Google Chromebooks and School Safety Failures
• [38:43] - Envisioning a Safer Online World
• [40:28] - Global Tech Regulation Examples

Key Takeaways

• An Instagram account could accumulate 16 trafficking violations before being suspended — sourced from sworn deposition testimony unsealed in November 2024
• As of 2020, Instagram had no dedicated report button for child sexual abuse material — engineers said it was too much work to build
• 500,000 children are targeted daily on Meta platforms
• Big Tech spends approximately $200 million per year lobbying Congress — roughly ten times the gun lobby
• The bipartisan Sunset Section 230 Act, introduced December 2025 by Senators Durbin and Graham, would repeal the law two years after passage

TAKE YOUR NEXT STEP

🗓️ Book Your Outcry Witness Strategy Session A private, ninety-minute session with JoDee designed to help survivors navigate healing, understand their options, and move forward with clarity and confidence. 👉 https://jodeeneilcom.as.me/OutcryWitnessStrategySession

📖 Grab JoDee's Book — Outcry Witness A former prosecutor's guide to healing and justice after sexual violence. Part memoir, part practical guide, entirely for survivors. 👉 https://www.amazon.com/dp/1965766196/

🔗 Follow Haley McNamara's Work Visit endsexualexploitation.org and search the Dirty Dozen List to see which platforms and products made the list this year.

🏢 Corporate and Workplace Consulting 👉 https://jodeeneilcom.as.me/StrategySessionForVistageMembers

🎤 Inquire about JoDee Speaking 👉 [email protected]

Some stories stop you cold. Colette Martin’s is one of them.Nearly three decades ago, Colette survived an act of violence that most people cannot even comprehend. Stabbed 37 times and left for dead, survival itself became the first miracle. But what followed was something even more powerful: a decision to turn that survival into purpose.Today, Colette uses her voice to stand beside other survivors, helping women who are navigating trauma, fear, and the long road back to themselves. Messages arrive from across the world from women searching for hope, guidance, and proof that healing is possible. Colette shows them that life does not end with violence. In many ways, it can begin again.The work has not been easy. Trauma does not disappear overnight. The impact of violence echoes through years, relationships, and even physical health. But Colette’s story shows something essential that survivors often need to hear: there is still light after the darkest moments.Advocacy became part of that path forward. Colette helped push forward legislation in New Brunswick that gives people the right to ask about a partner’s potential history of domestic abuse. That effort, born from lived experience, has the power to help protect others before violence escalates.This conversation moves through the reality of trauma, the long process of healing, the strength it takes to keep speaking, and the purpose that can grow from surviving the unimaginable. It also explores faith, resilience, and the idea that survivors can become a light for others who are still searching for a way forward.The message at the center of this conversation is simple but powerful. Survivors deserve to be heard. Survivors deserve support. Survivors deserve hope.Watch now and hear why Colette’s voice matters.

More than 82,000 survivors reported sexual abuse connected to the Boy Scouts of America.What followed was not a courtroom.It was bankruptcy.In Episode Three of Outcry Witness Unspoken, survivor and advocate Curtis Garrison explains what that process has meant for the thousands of men who came forward expecting justice.Instead of testimony before a jury, survivors were placed inside a bankruptcy system designed to protect the institution.Inside that system:Survivors were labeled creditors.Claims worth millions were reduced to tiny percentages of their value.Thousands waited years for answers with little transparency.For many, there was never a moment to stand in court and say what happened to them.Curtis Garrison has spent years inside this process. His advocacy work has focused on exposing how the Boy Scouts bankruptcy has handled abuse claims and what it reveals about how institutions respond to mass sexual abuse.This conversation goes beyond the Boy Scouts.It raises a larger question about what happens when organizations facing widespread abuse claims use bankruptcy to resolve those claims outside the traditional justice system.Across the country, survivors are now pushing for reforms including:• Eliminating nondisclosure agreements in abuse cases• Removing statutes of limitations for sexual abuse• Strengthening mandatory reporting laws• Preventing institutions from using bankruptcy to limit survivor testimonyFor survivors, this fight is not about headlines or settlements.It is about being heard.Because when abuse is buried inside legal processes designed for corporations, the people who were harmed can disappear from the story.The question now is simple.Will survivors ever be given the space to tell the truth about what happened to them?

Spiritual abuse is about power. It uses God, hell, obedience, and fear of eternal punishment to force compliance.This episode exposes how religious authority is used to control children and adults, shut down dissent, and protect institutions that refuse accountability. These systems are built to isolate, intimidate, and silence. Once obedience is enforced, abuse follows.Spiritual abuse creates access. It removes outside oversight. It trains submission. It punishes questioning. That combination allows physical abuse, sexual abuse, and exploitation to continue unchecked, especially in churches and religious schools that operate without regulation.Growing up inside an unregulated Christian school in Texas reveals how these tactics operate in real time. The same mechanics appear in larger, more visible religious organizations, including the Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints under Warren Jeffs. Different scale. Same structure. Absolute authority. Total obedience.Spiritual abuse overlaps directly with trafficking dynamics. Both rely on isolation, fear, and the destruction of autonomy. When eternal consequences are weaponized, resistance becomes nearly impossible, particularly for children.Investigative reporting connected to the leadership discussed here can be found in these articles:God’s Man: Savior or Seducer?https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1988/september/gods-man-savior-or-seducer/Terry Smith: Guilty, But Who Cares?https://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/1989/october/terry-smith-guilty-but-who-cares/Spiritual abuse is not faith. It is coercive control. And it causes lasting harm.