The Girls: “I need to tell you something”

0:00Jess Clark:It can be hard to keep up with all the new movies on streaming services. How do you tell the good ones worth watching from the bad? Or the silly ones you can laugh along with or at? On NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, we're recommending some fun movies you may have missed. Listen via the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Kelly McEvers, and this is Embedded from NPR. We've recently been listening to a podcast series that we cannot stop thinking about. It's called The Girls. It's a Me Too story, but it does not take us to a workplace. The allegations are not about what a boss did to an employee.

0:39This is a story about educators and the students they were responsible for. It follows nearly 20 years worth of accusations against the same two people and how the school system and local government responded. We're going to share this series here in the feed. It's called The Girls. It's the latest season of an investigative podcast called Dig that's produced by NPR member station Louisville Public Media. Heads up, this episode has cursing and discussion of sexual assault. Here is reporter Jess Clark. On the seventh floor of the courthouse in Louisville, Kentucky, four women are waiting. They're nervous, nauseous.

1:1821-year-old Alyssa Foster hasn't slept well in days. I'm so scared. Every time the elevator's open, my heart drops. They've been waiting all morning for two men to emerge from the elevator. For almost 20 years, these men were respected educators and football coaches, the kind of people who get featured on the news for handing out turkeys at Thanksgiving, winning football games, and changing students' lives. But the women waiting at the courthouse say behind closed doors, these same two men, two brothers, were sexually abusing girls who trusted them. The elevator opens. Ronnie and Donnie Stoner stride into the lobby.

2:03With the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, I'm Jess Clark. I've spent the last year and a half getting to know a group of women who say they are survivors of child sexual abuse by Ronnie and Donnie Stoner.

2:16Jess Clark:How do you know how to hunt those girls down? Like, you know the ones to, you're the target. I've tracked down documents, witnesses, and former classmates. That is when you say something to all the adults. I've found old football coaches and pestered school officials, state social workers, police, prosecutors, and megachurch leaders. I don't know anything about this. I've tried to talk to all of the adults who had the power to stop Ronnie and Donnie, but didn't. They failed us, just like everybody else failed us. Our babies are the future, and their own school district will not protect them! I should have stopped it, and I didn't.

2:54Jess Clark:And look, now, almost 20 years of victims. You want to use me as a pawn, I'm going to use y 'all too. I'm smart as fuck. There shouldn't be a second occurrence. It should end right there. This is my story to tell. That's another reason I'm afraid to shut up. This is Digg, Season 3, The Girls.

3:16Jess Clark:We flush a lot of things down the toilet. You know, the obvious ones. But drugs like cocaine are also going down the drain and into our waterways. That's changing the animals that live in it. It's definitely present in most ecosystems on Earth now, unfortunately. We're only sort of really starting to scratch the surface into understanding the potential consequences of that. Forget cocaine bear. Learn about cocaine salmon on Shortwave, in the NPR app, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you live around Louisville, you've probably already heard something about the stoners. Their case is getting a lot of attention.

3:49They're not just brothers. They're twins. It's also gone viral on TikTok. But this is a version of that story you haven't heard yet. Over four episodes, I'm going to show you what I found. That schools did little to investigate claims of sexual misconduct when girls and young women came forward. that poor communication between law enforcement, schools, and CPS allowed an alleged abuser off the hook. Altogether, I found a story that might explain why in Louisville so many child sex abuse cases are closed with no charges filed. But in the case of the Stoner twins, there are charges. It took years of fighting by one group of women who are speaking up now for the little girls they used to be and children everywhere who remain vulnerable to sexual abuse by the adults entrusted to educate them.

4:41How are you? Good, how are you? Amy Jones waves at me from the front porch of her home in a South Louisville suburb. Amy's in her 40s and wears her blonde hair and a high and tight military-style haircut. She lives in this updated ranch with her wife, Tracy, and their dog, Max, a tiny black she-suit with an eye condition. His eyes don't produce tears, so... Has he always been like that? Mm-hmm. We have to give him antibiotic drops. Tracy, that cat you gave milk to is back at the porch. Amy adopted her daughter, Abby Jones, in 2015, along with her older sister. She wanted to give them a stable, structured home life with routine, curfews, and chore sheets.

5:23Abby and Amy butted heads a lot over rules and expectations, but despite the tension, there was love and trust. Abby is the youngest alleged victim of Donnie Stoner. Abby is 20 years old now. In 2023, she was a 17-year-old junior at DuPont Manual High School. I'll note here that we are not going to hear from Abby in the season of Dig. Abby is suing Donnie and administrators at her high school, and her lawyers have advised her not to speak to the media for now. The facts of her alleged abuse you'll hear will come from her mother, Amy, and from court filings in both criminal and civil complaints.

6:01Getting into Manuel High School was a big deal. Manuel is considered by many the crown jewel of Jefferson County Public Schools, the largest school district in Kentucky. It's a magnet school. Students have to apply to get in, and kids work for years to take the right classes, stay out of trouble, and build a portfolio impressive enough to get accepted. Manuel also boasts a storied and celebrated football program. When Abby was in high school, Donnie Stoner was head coach. Donnie Stoner takes over the Crimson's as head coach.

6:33Jess Clark:Now this isn't just a job for Stoner. It's his alma mater. People were excited about Donnie becoming head coach of the Manuel Crimson's back in 2022. Donnie had played for the same team in high school in the late 90s and early 2000s. It was a good story. The star athlete comes back to lead the next generation to glory on the gridiron. Here's Donnie talking to reporters after his first win as head coach. This sports audio comes from local TV stations WHAS and WLKY. Okay, win number one. How's that one feel? Man, now that it's over with, it feels great. These guys are pretty determined and built for this.

7:11Jess Clark:You know, they just laid it all on the line, and it was reflected on the scoreboard. I'm so damn proud of these guys. Donnie was also a teacher at Manuel. Abby would have seen him in the halls and at after-school activities. Like a lot of kids in Louisville, Abby dreamed of going to Manuel ever since she was in elementary school. I mean, that's all she ever wanted to do was go to Manuel, go to Manuel, and we were so excited that she got in. Now, that big shiny dream that Abby worked so hard to make happen is tainted. Amy found out about the alleged abuse in the summer of 2023. Abby had just finished her junior year.

7:48I was sitting out back on the patio and Abby came out white as a ghost And she said, Mom, I need to tell you something. And I said, OK. Abby's best friend's mom was checking her daughter's phone and had found out there was something going on between Abby and Manuel's head football coach, Johnny Stoner. Abby was worried about the 39-year-old teacher and coach getting in trouble, and she was trying to do damage control. First it was he just said some inappropriate things. He made some inappropriate gestures in the classroom. But a few days later, Abby said it went way beyond that. He actually one day in class had her take his cell phone to the restroom to take inappropriate pictures of herself.

8:27On the last day of school, Abby said Donnie wrote her a note to get her out of her last period. They met in his empty classroom where he kissed and groped her. Once school was out for the summer, she said Donnie took her back to his home to have sex on multiple occasions. He also warned Abby what could happen to him if she told anyone about the relationship. Amy says her daughter stopped spending time with Donnie by the time it all came out. She's now in therapy for issues related to the alleged abuse. I almost felt like I failed as a parent, like this was something I should have known or I should have picked up on.

9:01Because I'm very active in my kids' life. I'm very, you know, this is your curfew, you know, share your phone locations with me. You know, I'm very protective of my kids. I just feel like I was just, I put too much trust in JCPS. I put too much trust in the school system and the leaders. and I've just put too much trust in them. What Amy Jones didn't know on the day that Abby finally shared the full extent of what Donnie allegedly did to her is that her daughter is now a part of this larger group of women who say they were abused as girls by Donnie or his twin brother, Ronnie. In spite of numerous and very public allegations against both brothers and criminal charges against Donnie, the Stoner twins were still employed by JCPS when Amy and I spoke in March 2024.

9:50While they were reassigned away from roles that had direct contact with children, they reported to work every day to an operations building and collected their full taxpayer-funded salaries and benefits. Amy is very blunt about how she feels about that. Picture your child being raped by someone and you walking outside of your porch every day and handing them money. That's what it feels like to me. These guys are out here raping kids and still getting paid by the system that allowed them to do it. That system has many other similar stories. Headlines have been full of educators and coaches in trouble for sexual misconduct with students.

10:29You should know that both Donnie Stoner and his brother Ronnie deny all allegations. We've tried to talk to them. We've called, sent letters, and showed up at several court appearances to ask for an interview. But they and their attorneys declined to speak. You should also know that you're not going to hear from anyone with the school district. Jefferson County Public Schools. Their spokesperson declined multiple interview requests, citing pending litigation. But you will hear from six alleged survivors who say they were abused by one or both of the Stoner brothers, going back to 2005.

11:06Jess Clark:I went straight over and told them. I reported him pretty fast once it started getting weird. I took it into my own hands and I made a post on social media. I said, no, I'm really serious. This is really happening to me. While a lot of pieces of the story make it extraordinary, the number of local victims, the fact that the alleged perpetrators are twins, the length of time and number of schools they operated in, public and private, it is unfortunately not a unique story. A 2022 multi-state study suggests nearly 12 percent of students will experience sexual misconduct by an adult school staff member before they graduate, usually in the form of sexual comments or grooming behaviors.

11:48But about one percent reported touching, groping, kissing or sexual acts. And when it comes to child abuse in general, Kentucky in particular has a problem. Kentucky's child abuse rates are fourth highest in the nation, nearly double the national average. This is the story about all of that and about how adults in power failed to act and left it to survivors to take matters into their own hands. Abby Jones is the youngest survivor to come forward with accusations against one of the Stoner brothers. But she wasn't even born yet when the stoners met Alexis Crook. We'll go back to the beginning, to Alexis' story at a small Christian high school, where she says administrators turned a blind eye to her abuse after the break.

12:41Jess Clark:This week on the NPR Politics Podcast, President Trump in China. The latest on a summit that was billed as a major meeting on trade and AI, Being overshadowed by the war in Iran, a close ally and trade partner of China. What's happening with tariffs and how is it affecting consumers? On the NPR Politics Podcast. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.

13:08This is Dig. I'm Jess Clark. It's a summer night in 2005 and 15-year-old Alexis Crook is slipping out her bedroom window. She's on her way a couple blocks down to meet up with older boys, smoke weed, and listen to rap. Probably Young Jeezy, her favorite artist back then. I was just rebellious and I did what I wanted. And I was very, I don't want to say troubled, but I had been through a lot that I didn't know how to process at that age. In her short life, Alexis had already survived emotional and sexual abuse by her biological father. He was finally out of the picture. Alexis was living with her mother's side of the family.

13:42But that came with its own challenges. Alexis is multiracial. Her estranged father is Black, white, and American Indian, and her mom is white. I felt out of place because I was being raised by my white family, who I felt like didn't understand what to do with my hair or why I felt like an outsider. Her relationships with her mother and stepfather were strained. They argued constantly. Weed and rap and friends were Alexis's escape. So were athletics. She played just about every sport her high school offered. Basketball, soccer, softball, volleyball. But her favorite? Football. I loved football so much.

14:24And then basketball was a close second, but football for sure. Yeah, getting out more aggression. Yes, because you got to hit things and, you know, be violent. So we love that, like let go of your frustration in a legal, appropriate way. Alexis was the only girl on the football team at Evangel Christian School. It's a small, private K-12 school affiliated with Louisville-based megachurch Evangel World Prayer Center. The team was tiny and new. Alexis joined her sophomore year. Her teammate, Daniel Parrish, a year younger than her, remembers Alexis as quiet but tough as nails. He still thinks about a hit she took when seasoned during drills.

15:04And I mean, I hit her hard. I remember it. That's 18 years ago, at least. Oh, my gosh. and I was like, she's done. And I walked off like literally like you're done. But Alexis got right back up, ready to keep training. She never quit. Right before Alexis's junior year, Evandel snagged a new head coach, Dave Thomas, who had helped coach Manuel High School's football team. Thomas brought with him two of his former players as assistant coaches, Ronnie and Donnie Stoner. In the summer of 2005, Ronnie and Donnie Stoner were both 21 years old. They were tall, fit, and good-looking. They also looked almost exactly alike.

15:44Parrish says he and the other teammates saw the Stoner twins less as authority figures and more as peers. One time, Parrish says, the twins bought cigarettes for a few players when they were out of town for an away game. They all snuck out of their rooms late at night to smoke outside the hotel. They were funny. They were goofy. They were not strict disciplinarians. In Parrish's garage, he shows me a framed photo of the team, lined up and posed in their blue uniforms. Here's a picture to kind of leak everything together. Oh, wow. This is from 2006 or 2007. Pictures don't lie, right? So you have both of them there.

16:23The stoner twins are on either side. Do you know who's who? So...

16:33the one this one yeah because the other one was stockier so this is the one that was the coach at fern creek right so ronnie that's ronnie and that's donnie okay yeah donnie's a little stockier at the time okay at the time he was well so this one had gold teeth and braids okay and this one was bald and a little stockier. So we call this one braids and this one baldy. As kids, you know what I mean? Because they did look a lot alike, and if you caught them at a certain angle, you didn't know which one was which. Yeah. Actually, Parrish was a little mixed up the day we talked. Donnie was the one with the braids and open-faced gold grill, and Ronnie was a little stockier.

17:14But you can't see those clues in the photo. They're both wearing ball caps, matching outfits, and neither is smiling. So I had Alexis weigh in. She knew immediately who was who. Donnie was the twin standing right next to her. He always posed them that way for photos. Alexis says the abuse started the summer she met the twins. Alexis was 15 and they were 21. Donnie in particular would make like comments about me, like my body or my face being too pretty to play football and stuff like that. And it didn't really make me uncomfortable, honestly. I mean, I can kind of remember back to my thought process.

17:54I was like, oh, he's older, he's handsome or whatever. Alexis says it made her feel good about herself, desirable at a time when she was struggling with her self-esteem. And then that led to kind of like touching and stuff that I would say was like unwanted, but I didn't say anything. Like he would touch my, like slap my butt or something like that. But then I guess that kind of justified it as like that's what's done in football. You see that in football all the time. She says Donnie would give her rides home from practice. They would flirt and sometimes have deep talks. He asked her about her family issues.

18:28She says that progressed to oral sex and touching in his car, in the school, and sometimes even the coach's office at Evangel. Daniel Parrish says he once walked in on them, kissing in the locker room. And then the next day she seen me in the hallway. and I don't forget this because I was like, I'm not going to say nothing to her until she says something to me. And she V-lined it for her and came right to me and was like, you didn't see nothing, did you? And I was like, oh, you and the coach kissing in the locker room? And she goes, yeah. I was like, no, I didn't see nothing. Parrish didn't tell anyone.

18:59Today, he wishes he had, especially now that he has a teenager of his own. Now you tell yourself, if I could grab myself and say. That is when you say something to all the adults. That summer, Alexis started spending the night at the apartment Ronnie and Donnie shared, telling her mom she was at a girlfriend's house. I was a kid and he made me feel like it was okay, like there was nothing wrong with it. It gave me attention I was lacking, so I was all for it. And I think he was very strategic, like as an adult looking back now, I think he was very strategic with like how it happened and how I progressed and like genuinely asking me like, what is your home life like?

19:42You know, what was your childhood like? And just making me feel like there was a genuine connection. What do you think he was actually doing? Grooming me. Like textbook. We could read a textbook and it would, all the things that he did would be in that textbook. Alexis says one night when she was 15, she and Donnie had intercourse on the couch at the townhouse the twins shared. It was her first time. Alexis remembers reaching up and feeling the braids in Donnie's hair. All the lights were out. And he said, hold on, I have to use the bathroom. And he walked upstairs. And I'd never had sex before.

20:17Like, I was, I mean, I'd done other things, but I never had sex. And he walked downstairs, like, started having sex with me again. And I reached up to, like, grab his head or something. And it wasn't braids. She realized it wasn't Donnie. It was his twin, Ronnie Stoner. She screamed for help and tried to claw his face. And Donnie came downstairs. But instead of helping her, she says he held her down against the couch by her shoulders so that Ronnie could continue to rape her. Alexis says Donnie coerced her into having sex with Ronnie many times after that. And he would say, like, if you love me, you'll do this.

20:57So I thought it was normal. She says the twins also coerced her into having sex with the 31-year-old man they were friends with, named Zach Kilgore. He had been in a relationship with the twins' sister, and they had a child together. The twins considered Kilgore a brother-in-law. Alexis says Kilgore raped her one night, a night when she was deeply emotionally vulnerable. She was 17. Her grandfather had just died. And Donnie, Ronnie, and Kilgore came to pick her up from the hospital in Kilgore's van. They got me alcohol first, so I got very drunk. I mean, I was not well. I was probably suicidal.

21:33old. That was like my father. Donnie started having sex with her in the van, and then, she says, he forced her to have sex with Kilgore. Alexis says the abuse continued until shortly after she graduated at age 17 in 2007. She says at one point she got pregnant. Donnie wanted her to get an abortion, but it went against Alexis's beliefs. When she refused, she says he choked her and threatened to kill her. She got the abortion. Alexis considered Donnie her boyfriend. They spent a lot of time together. Donnie took her to massive alcohol-fueled ragers at a warehouse in South Louisville. I met Alexis there one afternoon.

22:15She was in her medical scrubs. I was trying to get out the house and see my patients. Today at 36, Alexis is a doctor. The warehouse is at the back end of a parking lot behind a family dollar store and looks like it's seen better days. Like the front was right there and so there would always be like a line. Where was it? It would be like this way? It would be like going around this way, like going around to where it says Club 502. And Donnie would always like walk out and grab us and take us in. Alexis brought some photos with her. There's a Polaroid, a little underexposed. I think that's a cool one because it was actually in the club, like the photographer did the backdrop.

22:51A young Alexis is wearing one of those hip-length going-out tops girls wore back then, and a short, shiny, pink puffy coat with fur on the hood. In another photo, a baby-faced Alexis is smiling towards the camera with her hair straightened. A handful of dollar bills are captured falling around her, frozen in midair. Alexis says Donnie's friends and family knew they were in a relationship. She says they had dinner with the twins' father, Fred Stoner, and spent the night at homes that belonged to family members and friends. Alexis says a lot of people knew about the relationship and never intervened.

23:33Many people. Too many people. I talked briefly with Fred Stoner at the courthouse one day. He says he doesn't remember Alexis.

23:42Jess Clark:I don't know anything about this case. My two sons, they know I don't. I'm just here to support. It is what it is. Did you ever see Alexis Croke and Donnie together back in 2005? I don't know who nobody is. That's what I'm saying, ma 'am. You're asking me questions that I don't know. I don't know anybody. Alexis says school officials knew as well. She says the principal of Evangel Christian School, A woman named Ann Shively called her into her office one day for a lecture about tattoos. Alexis was always in trouble for tattoos. Her first one was her name in a curling script circling her wrist.