1846: The Church Bought My Silence - Chelsea Goodrich
Mormon Stories Podcast
Dr. John Dehlin
4.6 • 5.2K Ratings
🗓️ 20 December 2023
⏱️ 235 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this interview, Chelsea Goodrich details years of sexual abuse by her father, former Mormon bishop John Goodrich, beginning when she was a young child. When confronted in 2015, John admitted the abuse to both Chelsea's mother and their Mormon leaders. However, the church failed to act to protect Chelsea, support victims, or warn others. John faced excommunication but no criminal charges due to statute of limitations. In 2017, another victim came forward alleging John drugged and raped her. Despite evidence, prosecutors eventually only tried John for illegal drugging. Meanwhile, John remarried and had access to grandchildren, prompting safety concerns for Chelsea. Desperate, Chelsea and her mother sought help from church representative Paul Rytting only to be offered settlement money and asked to sign nondisclosure agreements.
Ultimately, Chelsea decides to go public to protect other potential victims from a predator still left free. Her story exposes the patterns of coverups, victim blaming, inaction, and secrecy in the Mormon church around abuse.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories Podcast. I am your host for today, John Delinn. Today we are here to talk about something quite important, also quite serious and quite sobering, and I will just give sort of a subject matter |
| 0:15.1 | slash trigger warning at the very beginning today we're going to be talking |
| 0:18.8 | about abuse and specifically sexual abuse within a Mormon context. I am here with my |
| 0:26.7 | partner Margie, hi Margie. And we are here to interview Chelsea Goodrich, whose story has recently been covered by the Associated Press. |
| 0:39.0 | And so without any further ado, Chelsea Goodrich, welcome to Mormon Stories podcast. |
| 0:45.0 | Thank you John. I guess before we begin I'll just say this story we're going to be covering in two parts part one we're going to be covering in two parts. |
| 0:53.0 | Part one, we're going to be just covering Chelsea's story, |
| 0:56.2 | where she will be telling her story of abuse by her father |
| 1:00.6 | and then how the Bishop and the State Presidents got involved in her Mormon ward and steak and then eventually how |
| 1:09.0 | Paul Ridding of risk management from the LDS Church got involved and all of this led to a settlement. |
| 1:16.2 | All of that's been covered in the AP story but the purpose of today is to just allow Chelsea to tell her story long form. That's going to be part one and then part |
| 1:26.0 | two, we have received through a separate source the three audio recordings that were made between Chelsea, her mom, a friend of |
| 1:37.0 | theirs named Eric and Paul Ridding that includes the negotiation talks where which ultimately led to Chelsea |
| 1:48.1 | and I believe her mom receiving a settlement from the Mormon church. In part two of our interview today, we're going to be playing large excerpts |
| 1:57.0 | from those three audio recordings, much, much more than the two one minute clips that were available in the AP article. |
| 2:05.3 | And then we're also going to be releasing those three audio recordings with some minor |
| 2:12.3 | reductions publicly so that anyone who wants to listen to the full audio recordings can't. |
| 2:18.6 | So that's going to be part one and part two of today's interview and and so Chelsea if it's okay thank well first |
| 2:26.1 | all thank you for coming on Mormon stories we're honored to have you here to |
| 2:30.3 | tell your story and I think you wanted to begin by stating an intention and by clarifying some questions |
| 2:38.0 | that you've received in response to the AP article. Should we start there? And any other way you want to start? |
| 2:43.0 | Yes, absolutely. Thank you for bringing me on as well so that I can tell the complete story. |
... |
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