Dig

We're still following the Stoner case, and we'll bring you an update when we have one. In the meantime, check out this new investigative podcast from KUOW:

Seattle, 1999. At Garfield High School, Mr. Hudson is a legend. With a thundering voice and imposing stature, Mr. Hudson — or “Tom” as select students call him — teaches biology and leads an elite outdoors program. But when teen reporters at the school paper start exploring a rumor that he sexually abused students, all hell breaks loose. Adults close ranks, and schoolmates turn on the young journalists. And then one day, a voice on the school intercom announces that Mr. Hudson is dead.

Isolde Raftery is one of the students who first hears about and reports allegations against Mr. Hudson. Three decades later, she is an investigative journalist in Seattle. In Adults in the Room, Raftery re-reports the story to understand what really happened in 1999. Was a whole school community groomed by a charismatic predator? Or was she part of a whisper campaign that cost the life of a great teacher?

Alleged victims of the Stoners find each other online and band together to demand justice. But they find themselves running up against police and prosecutors who want them to stay quiet.

17-year-old Aryalle Stoner runs away from home and tells the police that her father, Ronnie Stoner, has been sexually abusing her for years. The cursory investigation that follows is representative of a larger issue with child sex abuse investigations in Louisville.

Over the years, two girls and one young woman report Ronnie Stoner for sexual misconduct and rape in a public middle school and high school. But Child Protective Services declines to investigate, and the school district, Jefferson County Public Schools, continues to promote him.

In 2023, 17-year-old Abbie Jones and her family accuse her high school football coach, Donnie Stoner, of child sex abuse. Another Louisville woman, Alexis Crook, says she was abused by Donnie too, and his twin brother Ronnie, when they were coaches at her private Christian school almost 20 years earlier.