The Girls, Part 1: 'I need to tell you something'

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Louisville Public Media

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4.6 • 954 Ratings

🗓️ 11 November 2025

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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.

Hearing stories like this one can bring up painful feelings and memories, especially if you're a trauma survivor yourself. If you need to talk, you can reach the RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE, or visit RAINN.org and click get help now for free, 24/7 support. If you’re experiencing a mental health crisis, call or text 988.

Learn more about preventing sexual misconduct and abuse by K-12 school employees (PDF)

If you have information about this case, or you think there’s something we should know that we haven’t reported here, please contact Jess Clark at [email protected] or 502-814-6541.

Our work is community funded. To help us keep digging, visit kydig.org and click donate.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From LPM, Louisville Public Media.
0:04.3	Support for this podcast comes from LG&E,
0:07.7	with a reminder that the warning signs of a gas leak
0:10.0	are the smell of rotten eggs,
0:12.0	dead plants near healthy plants,
0:13.8	or a hissing sound.
0:15.5	Leave immediately and call 911.
0:18.3	More gas safety tips at LGE-kU.com slash gas safety. A listener note, this story contains accounts
0:26.5	of child sex abuse. On the seventh floor of the courthouse in Louisville, Kentucky, four
0:33.3	women are waiting. They're nervous, nauseous. 21-year-old Alyssa Foster hasn't slept well in days.
0:40.5	I'm so scared. Every time the elevators open, my heart drops. They've been waiting all morning for two
0:45.5	men to emerge from the elevator. For almost 20 years, these men were respected educators and
0:52.1	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.
1:03.1	But the women waiting at the courthouse say behind closed doors, these same two men, two brothers, were sexually abusing girls who trusted them.
1:14.3	The elevator opens.
1:17.1	Ronnie and Donnie Stoner stride into the lobby.
1:21.6	With the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, I'm Jess Clark.
1:26.5	I've spent the last year and a half getting to know
1:28.8	a group of women who say they are survivors of child sexual abuse by Ronnie and Donnie Stoner.
1:34.5	How do you know how to hunt those girls down? Like you know the ones to, you're to target.
1:39.3	I've tracked down documents, witnesses, and former classmates. That is when you say something to all the adults.
1:46.4	I've found old football coaches and pestered school officials,
	...

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