This episode contains graphic content that may not be suitable for all ages.

Listener discretion is advised.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available.

Call or text 988 or chat with someone at 988 lifeline.org.

Those outside of the U.S.

reach out to someone at your local crisis center or hotline.

Please do not suffer in silence.

Florence, Kentucky is the kind of place that feels safe.

It sits in Boone County, in the northern tip of the state, just across the Ohio River

from Cincinnati.

The Florence Yall Water Tower, a local landmark born from a sign ordinance dispute, looms

cheerfully over the interstate interchange.

Florence is not the kind of place where you expect terrible things to happen.

Everything here seems quiet and almost painfully suburban.

On the morning of Sunday, May 29, 2011, Memorial Day weekend,

Beth Stevenson Victor sat in the pews at Union Baptist Church and looked

around for her parents. They weren't there. This was very unusual. Beth's father never

missed church. Bill Stevenson was a deacon. He was the kind of man who organized his

week around Sunday worship, with the discipline

of someone for whom faith was not a hobby, but a foundation.

Her mother, Peggy, had played the organ at Union Baptist for 42 years.

Peggy would occasionally miss a service when her fibromyalgia flared up.

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