Adults in the Room: The Price of Belief

On the latest sound politics, why would an Iranian-American in Seattle support the U.S. and Israel bombing their homeland?

We're going to talk to a major Trump fundraiser who does and hear from many people with complicated feelings about the war,

including an Iranian-American Democratic lawmaker who feels what comes next is going to devastate Iran.

Already, the human toll is steep. We'll talk about the future and what Iranian-Americans in the Seattle area hope for

on sound politics wherever you get your podcasts.

This is a serialized story, so if you haven't yet, we recommend first listening to Episode 1.

Focus. From KUW, Puget Sound Public Radio.

A warning. This episode touches on sexual and physical abuse. Please take care while listening.

The condom broke on a Saturday. That was the opening line of the first story I ever wrote for the messenger,

the student newspaper at Garfield High School in Seattle. I was 16 years old. The article was about

the morning after pill, edgy, and sure to get my journalism teacher's attention, which I desperately wanted.

We all did. His name was David Eric. When I went to Garfield in the late 90s,

journalism was like a varsity sport. It was hard to get a position on the student newspaper,

and Mr. Eric rejected me at first. I had to sit on the floor by my best friends' desk in the

newsroom every day to prove I was committed enough until he finally relented.

For those who did make it, the schedule was punishing. We'd stay until 10 pm many nights working

on the next edition. Miss a deadline? Mr. Eric would re-mute you out in front of everybody. Whisper

when he was talking? Beware the pen he threw at your head. Mind you, Mr. Eric gave us a lot of

freedom. We came up with the story ideas. We wrote the editorials, but there was a throne,

and Mr. Eric sat on it. He was king and kingmaker. If Mr. Eric liked you, he'd give you a plumb

roll, and hopefully a strong college recommendation letter. Mr. Eric said he wrote the best ones.

So for super achievers like us, winning him over was a huge deal. But it wasn't just about a

letter. We craved being singled out as special. A misstep could mean the worst fate imaginable,

being ignored. At Garfield, this drive for recognition went beyond the messenger,

and nowhere was it more evident than in post-84, the school's outdoor education club,

which took hundreds of kids into the wilderness every year. They climbed mountains in the Pacific

Northwest and scuba dived in Hawaii. Post-84 was run by Tom Hudson, one of Garfield's most

celebrated teachers. He orchestrated a cult of personality that had kids clamoring to sign up for

these excursions, which sometimes lacked necessary safety controls. I investigated and wrote about the

climb he led on Mount Olympus in Washington State, which left Hudson and several club members injured.

But my story barely made a dent in the reputation of a man who engendered so much devotion at Garfield.

Like Dave Eric, Mr. Hudson created a hierarchy of which he was firmly in control. He incentivized loyalty.

His accolades got to call him by his first name. They even wore fern crowns as they followed

him through the woods. I called them Hudsonites.

This may seem strange to you. High school students seeking out close relationships with their

teachers, but this was the gospel according to Garfield, and we all believed the unusual intimacy

between us made the school great. Until my senior year, when scandal rocked the school,

and my best friend Ella Husagen and I started interrogating that gospel,

we dedicated an entire issue of the messenger to our new found suspicions and asked if this culture

of devotion made us vulnerable to our teachers' darker impulses. It was a bold question, one that a

lot of people didn't want us to ask, because it poked holes in a sacred narrative, the foundational myth

of our legendary high school. We couldn't have known it at the time, but that edition of the

messenger would kick off a chain of events, leading to a tragedy that Ella and I would be blamed for,

a tragedy that changed many of our lives forever, a tragedy that we're only coming to terms with now.

From KuaW in Seattle, this is Adults in the Room, Episode 2, The Price of Belief. I'm

Isolder Aftery.

On YouTube, I found this video of Garfield's Homecoming Rally in 1998. The audio is kind of hard

to hear, it's taken from an old VHS recording, but I love it. I remember this rally so well,

I was a junior. The entire school was packed into the gym, more than a thousand of us, a sea

of purple and white. We squished next to each other like teen sardines as the marching band laid

into their horns. The brass was blasting. The tall white dude on the gym floor,

gyrating slowly, that was my buddy forest. He was a cheerleader and the cheerleaders owned the gym.

Within seconds, everyone was standing. The good mood was catching and we were grooving as one.

Black, white, Asian, all together. So what if the room smelled like a sweaty deep fryer?

Our homecoming kings could be proudly gay. Our homecoming queens loud and funny.

We hailed our nerds. We bowed down to the bumping grind.

Welcome to Garfield. Let your freak flag fly.

When ever I watch this video, I lose myself in the moment. The beauty of it all. Kids of different

races and backgrounds dancing, unsolved conscious, happy. Decades before in the Garfield gym,

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave an early version of his I have a dream speech.

According to lore, MLK said that Garfield with its racially diverse student body was that dream.

But it was an illusion. At the assembly, we were together, but in our classes, we were apart.

Garfield is in the central district. Seattle's historically black neighborhood. But I was

bust in from the city's north end for Garfield's advance placement program. We were called

the AP kids for short, most of us white or Asian. In contrast, almost all the black students were in

the quote unquote regular classes. Kids in the regular classes often didn't get textbooks,

but us AP kids got one for our lockers, one for home, and one for the classroom.

The regular class kids got photocopies of our books. I'd be lying if I said I didn't see how

unfair this was back then. As a student reporter, I saw inequities everywhere. Like how

Garfield sports teams got locker rooms and free uniforms, but our cheerleaders didn't.

So I pitched an article about the cheer squad to the messenger. At first, our sports editor felt

the story was too frivolous. What a waste of column inches, he told me. But I thought Garfield

cheerleaders were more than athletes deserving equal treatment. They were stars,

mostly bigger-bodied black girls who moved together like water. And when they danced,

we would lose our minds. I convinced him to let me tackle it.

If you get out there and you're not good, it's bad for you at Garfield, that's all I need.

Christina Mitchell was a senior in 1998 and had just joined the squad. Christina took her role

very seriously. At Garfield, she had to. We let her know if she wasn't bringing it.

You would literally get stuff thrown on, you know, at you and

you know, made fun of the whole year. So I was just like, oh man, if I come out, I got it.

I got to get this together guy. We can't be coming out here halfway like no.

I remember Christina as kind and so pretty. Big brown eyes and lashes out to space.

I was definitely an outgoing person and I guess I called myself a free spirit.

Christina was one of the best dancers on the Garfield squad. I wanted to interview her,

but I couldn't find her. One day, someone mentioned she might be outside. So I went looking for her

in the parking lot. Sure enough, there was Christina. She was sitting in the driver's seat of our

principal's gray SUV. He was in the passenger seat next to her. Is Dr. Jones teaching her how to

drive, I wondered? It wouldn't be surprising if he was. After all, teachers did a lot for students

at Garfield. Plus, Dr. Jones was cool. He was a respected black leader which gave him credibility

in the neighborhood around Garfield. And he seemed to genuinely care about us.

He was always there at all the game with all the cheerleaders and he was helping everybody with

their college applications. He would literally lecture me hours of lecture. Really? Kind of

in teaching, yeah. But it was like that time for seven of them. He's definitely like a super,

super, super educator. At Garfield, these tight relationships between students and teachers

often continued outside school hours. I had friends who slept over at our teacher's homes.

My best friend Ella and I cats sat for one, houseboat sat for another. We did this for free,

like we'd been specially selected for these tasks as though the chores were gifts reserved for

the best and brightest students. Shoveling cat turds. What an honor.

I never did interview Christina, but I wrote about the Garfield cheerleaders and moved on to the next

story. The school year ended and Christina graduated. I spent that summer babysitting my little brother

every day for three dollars an hour. At night, I rode around with my friends and my boyfriend,

Toby Crittenden. Toby was a post-84 kid and close to Mr. Hudson. In August, he went on a scuba

diving trip to Maui with Mr. Hudson and students from the club. When they got back, Toby mentioned

something that caught my ear. He said that one day he was helping Mr. Hudson haul gear across the

island and Mr. Hudson said he was tired. He pulled over to the side of the road, got in the back of

the truck and urged Toby to lie down and nap alongside him, which he did. I didn't know what to

make of that, but Toby didn't seem too bothered. I asked Toby recently if he remembered this.

He didn't, but his mom did, and it struck her as not wrong, per se, but definitely odd.

A week or two later, I heard a second story about Mr. Hudson. A close friend of mine told me Mr.

Hudson had invited him to play racquetball at a local gym. Afterward, Mr. Hudson insisted

they shower together. And in the gym's locker room, while they were naked, Mr. Hudson whipped his butt

with a towel. My friend made it sound awkward, and uncomfortable, but no weirder than seeing your

dad change. Come fall and the start of school, Ella and I began our new jobs as editors at the

messenger. We were ready to have the greatest senior year ever, but then in October,

big news broke. The school district put our principal, Dr. Jones, on leave. Rumors swirled as

we tried to figure out why. Was he inflating test scores, embezzling school funds?

Here's how Ella remembers the school administration letting us know. They put out this announcement

that was very vague. It was like, oh, you know, inappropriate relationship with a student.

An inappropriate relationship with a student. We were hanging out at our teachers' houses,

traveling with them, sleeping over. So what did inappropriate even mean? And who was the student?

A week after the announcement, I found out. I bumped into an acquaintance on the bus. She told me

that Dr. Jones was involved with her big sister. Christina, the cheerleader I tried to interview

for the messenger. I was stunned. Dr. Jones was 54 years old. He had two adult kids of his own.

What the heck? News of the relationships spun the school into chaos. You might assume people

thought our principal was a creep for sleeping with a student, but you'd be wrong. The student

body wanted Dr. Jones reinstated. In a diary entry from this time, I wrote about a school walk-out

in protest of his removal. Students marched down Alder Street and chanted. So DJ, gotta be

J. Who cares? Who cares? I watched from the messenger office. Local reporters stood across the

street waiting to interview the protesters. But the rally accomplished nothing. Dr. Jones was

forced to resign. He left Seattle and Christina seemingly disappeared too.

I never found out what happened to her until Ella and I started working on this podcast.

Garfield had been so focused on losing Dr. Jones. It was like nobody cared how the scandal

affected Christina. She'd been forgotten. But she likely had a lot to say about how Garfield's

culture of closeness could turn exploitative, if she was willing to revisit that time in her life.

I found Christina on Facebook and sent her a message. She replied immediately, and over a phone call

told me what happened. Senior year, Christina scored low on the ACTs and didn't think she'd get

into college. At the time, she was desperate to get away from her dad. He was strict and expected

her to be home caring for her younger siblings. At least cheerleading got her out of the house.

With few options left, Christina signed up for the military, and Dr. Jones, who often hung

around the cheerleaders, found out. And he was just like, oh no, I don't, what are you doing? And I was

just like, I don't think I'm college material because you know, and once I started talking about

all the things I didn't really think capable of doing, he was like, oh no, we're going to make this happen.

Christina said that for a long time, Dr. Jones was just a mentor. He helped her write essays and

apply to schools. And thanks to Dr. Jones, she got into Western Washington University in Bellingham,

North of Seattle. Christina said things became physical with him just before she graduated.

It wasn't really romantic and that's where it made it kind of weird. I just loved him in a way like,

wow, no one's ever done this from me ever. You know, you don't make me so bad for things I don't know.

I would, would make fun of because I was a little slower in school and I would take him longer to

catch on. If a person wanted to manipulate someone or sleep with someone younger than them,

they definitely wouldn't have to do all of what someone said he did.

Christina left for college and then her dad found out about her relationship with Dr. Jones.

She said her dad got mad at her and told the school district what he knew.

It was like my whole entire family turned out to me.

Distraught, Christina dropped out of college and crashed with a friend in the Seattle area.

But by then, her story had made the news and she couldn't leave the house without someone

shaming her. They would come up to me, they would be like, oh, you're that girl in the news with

the principal and like, I remember staying with my friend and I remember us going somewhere and

they recognized me, you know, we're pointing and talking about me. You know, when it was like

everywhere I went, it was really, it was really bad. For me, you know, and that's what

you're going to stand. It's like, if my dad wanted to punish me, he definitely succeeded.

The public ridicule pushed her closer to Dr. Jones. They decided to move to Memphis, Tennessee,

where nobody would know them. Christina didn't feel like she had another option.

But in Memphis, Dr. Jones blamed her for their situation. Christina said he'd

physically abused her. He was so angry about it that I really didn't know where he was going to go

in terms of where he was mentally, like how angry can he be? Would he be angry enough to

take me out of something? Dr. Jones died in 2013, so we can't get his side of the story.

But Christina said she feared for her life and left Dr. Jones. Christina was homeless for a while,

couch surfing where she could. Eventually, she got back on her feet. Christina returned to college

and became a special education teacher. Today, she lives in New Orleans with her husband and kids.

She thanks God every day for that stability. But Christina's relationship with our former

principal still haunts her. It's easy to take advantage of a 18-19 year-older young. You know,

they have all these issues and problems and I'm coming through the rescue with all these things

and naturally, naturally, they'll gravitate towards you in that way, you know. But I just feel like

in my mind that's taking advantage of someone else's disadvantage. Dr. Jones may have exploited

Christina, but he didn't break any laws. Back then, in Washington State, it was legal for a teacher

to sleep with a student over 18 years old, which meant that their relationship was a question of

morality, not one of law. Ella and I were shaken by the news that Dr. Jones had sex with a student.

So as we debated the theme for the next edition of The Messenger, this line between what was legal

and what was ethical got us second guessing our own relationships with teachers. And we would pose

a question that would rattle our school. Just how close was too close.

Hey, I'm Katie Campbell, host of Meet Me Here, KUOW's Arts and Culture podcast. You've probably heard

you shouldn't judge a book by its cover. Well, I disagree. On the latest episode, I talk to a

cover designer whose job it is to catch your attention. You'll hear about all the work that goes

into it, plus we'll critique the covers of some of last year's most popular books. Listen to Meet Me

here on the KUOW app or wherever you get your podcasts. Each edition of The Messenger had a

four-page spread called Focus. One topic, lots of articles. Ella was the primary editor, but we

often brainstormed together. After Dr. Jones resigned, all we could think about was our teachers

and how we were seeing their behavior in a new light. We did have these really cozy relationships

with teachers that it was sort of like, you know, was that qualifying? Like, is there some risk to

these other teachers or was there something more going on in this relationship?

Ella and I started talking about moments with teachers that unsettled us. Like the time Mr. Hudson

made Toby nap with him on Maui and whacked my friend's butt in the shower. Or when Mr. Eric threw a

chair across the room in journalism class because he was mad that two messenger kids were whispering

during an article brainstorm. Maybe we did know what qualified is inappropriate. And maybe it was

time to start writing about it. Mr. Eric taught us to find relevant stories by taking a topic

everyone is consumed with, poking it, analyzing it, and then zooming out. Principal sleeps with

cheerleader. How does that pertain to the rest of us at Garfield? Ella and I had an idea.

We decided to do like a, you know, a spread in the student newspaper to say like, what is an

inappropriate relationship between a teacher and a student? What does that look like? There was like

maybe three or four articles. Our main story explored the pros and cons of being close with

teachers. Another featured kids and teachers discussing the line between appropriate and

inappropriate behavior. And the third was an editorial which I wrote with full dramatic flair.

They went like this. They have power over us. They develop our minds. We love them and we hate them.

They inspire us and they infuriate us. They are supposed to be our role models. Who are they?

There are teachers. And that's all they should be.

Rosie Bandcroft, the post-84 student we heard from in episode one, was also a reporter for the

messenger. When Rosie learned about the upcoming issue, she had a pitch for Ella. Rosie said a

friend of hers from post-84 had also been coerced by Mr. Hudson to shower with him. He shared even

more graphic details about their teacher's behavior. Sometimes he was aroused in the shower. Sometimes

he was like playing who dropped the soap in the shower. And then it went all the way to like

providing pornography to students watching it together with them. Being out on the boat drunk,

driving the boat around in very rough weather, having kids stripped down naked and like

dance on the deck of the boat. Rosie's friend also told her that during a camping trip, Mr. Hudson had

kicked him. Rosie sat on all of this for months. She didn't want to tell her parents that would

violate her friend's trust. On the other hand, if she did nothing, then Mr. Hudson might continue

hurting her friend and other kids too. But I have no idea what to do about it. Or who to tell or

what would happen if we told anyway. So that's why when that came up about the article, I think I was

like, this, this is the chance. Rosie wanted to write about her friend's allegations, but Ella

wasn't so sure. She just wanted us to come up with a few stories about blurry boundaries for our

next issue, an investigation into potential abuse that was well beyond our scope. I said, I think we

should talk to your teacher. Let's tell Dave Eric about this. Ella asked Mr. Eric to meet with her

and Rosie at the football field. The girls didn't want anyone to overhear their conversation.

Once outside, they revealed what they heard about Mr. Hudson. He basically said, like, keep

this under your hat. Don't tell anyone else right now while I figure out how to handle it.

But when the weekend hit, Ella did what any 90s teen would do. She took the family cordless phone

and called me her best friend. I thought it was distressing to learn this about another

student and about a teacher who was really well loved. I mean, and had tons of access to students.

I also just felt like, you know, as old as you're my sounding board, you're my best friend. Like,

what do I do? Ella thought I would agree with her and let Mr. Eric have the weekend to think about

Rosie's friend's allegations. But that felt wrong to me. She just sort of had this very rational

response, which was like, this is abuse. And I'm telling my mom, who's also a mandated reporter.

She's a social worker and, you know, forget it. I think I felt mad at her that she just, you know,

did that. As a social worker, my mom was required by law to report allegations of child abuse.

I didn't consider that if I told her about Mr. Hudson, I would betray Ella's confidence and

expose Rosie and her friend to inquiries neither of them signed up for. But it bothered me that

everyone was talking about these allegations like they were a secret. I was pretty sure they

were crimes. So I sat my parents down and I told them what I knew. My mom has always been clutch

in a crisis. This moment was custom made for her. She said we needed to report the allegations

and debated whether to call the police or child protective services. My dad reacted differently.

He said if I disclosed what I'd heard about Mr. Hudson, I was destroying a program and a man

many people loved. He said I could be called a liar. Sean retaliated against. Then my dad cleared

his throat and told me something I'll never forget. If you report this, everything will change,

he said. Your life will be separated by the time before you reported it and the time that came

after. Be very, very certain this is something you want to do. I thought Mr. Hudson was on an overnight

trip in the woods with post-84 kids that weekend. We have to tell someone I said,

my mom got up from the table and went to the phone. She called the authorities. Neither of us

remembers now if it was the cops, child protective services, or the school district. The police might

go out there tonight, she told me. I pictured them weaving through backcountry roads, sirens

blaring to find Mr. Hudson. Would they handcuff him? Put him in the back of a squad car?

Would the post-84 kids have to watch? My mom hung up. The house was quiet. And then we waited.

Monday morning, I rode the school bus in. My parents wouldn't let me get a driver's license,

so I was one of two seniors, surrounded by a swarm of allowed freshmen. I felt shaky as I walked

up the steps into Garfield. I expected to enter a school that was frantic with the news that Mr. Hudson

had been arrested. When I got into the building, my eyes started up and down the long crowded hallway,

looking for a sign that something was off. Maybe a friend grabbing my arm saying,

did you hear what happened? Then I saw some kids from post-84 who looked totally fine.

That's because nothing had happened to Mr. Hudson. He was in his classroom at that very moment,

preparing for first period biology. I was stunned. My parents told me to expect backlash.

I wasn't prepared for silence. I found Ella, who was still hoping Mr. Eric would step up.

Not much later, he pulled her aside and told her his plan for Mr. Hudson.

We're going to talk man to man. Man to man, I definitely remember.

You know, I'm going to tell him that he needs to stop. That's how I'm going to handle it.

You don't need to tell anyone else, basically. But it was too late. Ella had already told me

and now the authorities knew too. Here's where I need to pause and tell you something.

Over the weekend, I didn't just share what I knew about Mr. Hudson with my parents.

I also told my aunt Mary, a prominent investigative journalist in Ireland.

In the US, people don't generally know about Mary Raftry. But in the late 90s in Ireland,

she was a household name. Mary had recently exposed how poor Irish children were locked up in

institutions and often abused by priests and nuns. Her reporting caught the attention of US news outlets

and it prompted investigations into abusive priests here. When I told Mary about Mr. Hudson and

Garfield, she said it reminded her of the priests she investigated, respected men who were

trusted by society to be around children, charismatic men who groomed entire communities to look the

other way. As Mary had learned and taught me, a predator wasn't always who you would expect.

A predator didn't necessarily present as a villain. He could wear a priest collar or hiking boots

and flash a winsome smile as he took your kid for a ride on his boat.

Mary assured me I'd done the right thing by not sitting on the allegations.

And she gave me hope that given time, Mr. Hudson would be held accountable.

But as the week went on, Mr. Hudson remained at Garfield. Ella and I obsessed over the situation.

Every day we went round and round, wondering how on earth Mr. Hudson seemed to be getting away

with child abuse. At lunch, I'd find a car to pile into and ramp that no one cared about us kids.

My friends would get quiet. They didn't know what to say to me.

Ella was incessant about Mr. Hudson too. Toward the end of the week, she told her ex-boyfriend

about the allegations from Rosie's friend. His reply shocked her.

It turned out Mr. Hudson had also pressured Ella's ex to strip down and shower with him

after they played racquetball together. Ella's ex talked to me for this podcast,

but he didn't want us to use his name.

So, he's naked and I was naked and the distinct thing that I remember was

you had these big features and the big cheekbones, this big kind of distinct face and

you had these big pushing eyebrows. I remember the water running over his face and then him opening

an eye, like in the water, big eye, looking across the room with me. I remember he's distinctly

looking at me and that definitely felt kind of weird and I guess what I told Ella back

when I talked to her about it was something along the lines of that made me feel uncomfortable.

And that I stopped hanging out with Hudson and stopped doing stuff with that program at that

point for that reason and I don't really remember it being that distinct. I'm really freaked out by

this. I don't feel like a victim of him in any way. I just feel like he's also somebody who

I guess the terminology would be like it's groaning behavior or something like that.

Ella asked her ex if she could write about what he told her for the student teacher edition.

He agreed. Ella knew it would be risky to name Mr. Hudson in an article and since Mr.

Erick could still be planning on that man-to-man talk with Mr. Hudson. Any story that directly

indicted him could be seen as going around Mr. Erick's back. So Ella wrote with extreme caution,

giving her ex a pseudonym and removing the identifying details about racquetball and the shower.

Rosie and I helped her with it. In the end we stated that a boy felt sexual tension from an

unnamed teacher and that this teacher seemed angry with him for taking his distance after.

Not exactly the expose Rosie wanted but it still struck a chord. When the issue was finally

published on November 23rd two days before Thanksgiving it was the talk of Garfield.

Our classmates hounded us to spill the identities of the boy and the teacher but we kept our

source a secret and school adjourned for the long holiday weekend.

The Tuesday after Thanksgiving was November 30th 1999. Seattleites may remember this as the

infamous day when protesters marched against the World Trade Organization which was meeting downtown.

Ella, Toby and I skipped school to check out the demonstrations. I planned to report on them for

the messenger. It was like a carnival at first with protesters dressed as sea turtles decrying

unsafe fishing practices. But then things spiraled. We watched as people dressed in black

marched through the city streets smashing windows and setting cars on fire. With little warning

the police responded forcefully all around us. We inhaled pepper spray. I got hit with a rubber

police bullet. I have to admit I was thrilled to be there. I knew that history was unfurling before us.

But when Ella and I came back to school on Wednesday it was immediately clear that something had

changed. Our classmates faces were heavy and our teachers were terse. Word traveled through the

hallways and finally reached us. Mr Hudson had been placed on leave.

I felt a way lift off me. Finally something was being done about Mr Hudson. He was out of the

classroom and away from post 84. But my relief was soon eclipsed by anxiety. By that point my mom

had talked to people at the district office about Rosie's friend's allegation. Did her calls or

our anonymous story prompt the school to take action? Would our friends now blame us for Mr Hudson's

suspension? At first our classmates directed their anger at the school just like when Dr. Jones was

suspended. The sort of general vibe in the school was like a grown like a collective or another

one. Oh no like what's happening and not really like what's happening that all these adults are

inappropriate. More like what's happening at the school district is like targeting all of our

best people. I kind of think that was the energy. Ella and I were on edge as we waited to find out

what the school district would do next. Then on Thursday Mr. Eric called a mandatory messenger

staff meeting at the end of the school day. Ella and I had a bad feeling about it.

He had really like a short fuse. You never wanted to get on his bad side. Ella had a hunch that Mr.

Eric was upset about our article. Unfortunately she was right. He did not identify any of us by name

but he said you know some of the journalists on this paper have acted unethically and they need

to step down and and tied us directly to Tom Hudson being placed on administrative leave.

You know they ran a story that was inappropriate and full of rumors and now a teacher is like

facing professional consequences for it. We had never seen Mr. Eric so angry and he was not going

to stop until he took his pound of flesh from Ella and me. He said and I want them to step down.

They need to step down from their positions on the paper. I'm asking for them to resign.

I still remember how crushed I was hearing this. The messenger was everything to me. I put every

ounce of energy I had into that paper and I couldn't imagine my life without it. Only now Mr.

Eric was forcing me and Ella out and he was intent on humiliating both of us in front of our peers.

My mind swirled. Had we really betrayed our school and one of its most popular teachers?

Were we unethical an embarrassment to journalism or were Dave Eric and Garfield High School defending

a pedophile? Fired or not there was no way either of us would go silently and there was no way

we were going to let Tom Hudson off the hook. That's next on Adults in the Room.

On episode three of Adults in the Room the investigation into Tom Hudson begins and it stretches

on for months. Like the whole investigation was in this position where like okay there's plenty

that we can't just let this go but there's not enough that we can act on it. But then it's

disrupted by a terrible tragedy and suddenly Ella and I are in everyone's crosshairs.

My mom says I like was grinding my teeth waking up with night terrors. I don't remember any of that.

Like I truly just was trying to survive. That's coming up next.

Adults in the Room is part of focus a dedicated documentary channel from KUOW public radio

in Seattle, a proud member of the NPR network. Original reporting for this project was done by me

as older after a Jeannie Yandle and Will James. Our producers are Will James and Alec Cowan.

Our editor is Jeannie Yandle, music by BC Campbell, additional music by Alec Cowan.

Logo designed by Alicia Via, Amelia Peacock manages our marketing and promotions.

KUOW's director of new content is Brendan Sweeney. Our director of marketing

is Michaela Gianati Boyle. KUOW's chief content officer is Marshall Eisen.

I'm Azul D'Araftery. Thank you all so much for listening.