It’s in January of 2016 that I, Alexander Clemence, son of Kevin Dodd, find to be the best place to begin telling you this story. 

I was 18 years old and still living with my parents. At this time also living here were my parents, Kevin and Teri Dodd, one of my biological sisters, Brittanie Dodd, my cousin Guy, my three adopted siblings and Sydney. 

Sydney had been living with my family for three and a half years. She moved in when Steffanie still lived there, who since then had gotten married and moved out. 

Her decision to move in was one of practical benefit; she wanted to help coach a volleyball team with Brittanie and driving from Joplin as frequently as she would have to wasn’t tenable. Having had the impression that my family was a trustworthy Christian family, neither she nor her parents had any inkling of risk posed to her by any one of the Dodd’s. 

Sydney had forgotten her phone in the bathroom, I was the one who found it and I knew the passcode to unlock it. I chose to look into her messages with my father, and I found a string of texts and replies between them, arranging a secret meeting behind a gas station. 

I brought this to my mother, who, seemingly enraged, called for my father whose first instinct was to lie by trying to show how the messages weren’t present on his phone. Immediately it was obvious he’d deleted them on his end. Within the hour the other two elders of our church got to the house to guide us in this situation. These two elders were Brandon Dodd, my fathers first-born son and Jonathan Betancourt who had been frequently claimed as another son by my parents. There was nothing said of the questionable nature of these two men being the ones to handle this situation – in fact, there were no questions asked except those that were harshly rebuked.

At one point with only Sydney and the young children absent from the room, I asked my father a question about how physical things had been. At the time I remember feeling guilty when my father quietly indicated that it wasn’t just hugging or being handsy. Not guilty because of his response, or because of the fact that my mother seemed angry with him. I was made to feel guilty by my brother, who angrily reminded me that no one was meant to ask questions but he or Jonathan. 

Very little information made its way out at this point. It’s ironic because this was in my opinion the first and last point that my father felt a modicum of guilt. Guilt that I now see for what it was; someone cowering in fear of the consequences about to rain down on them.

I was quickly denied being present in any other conversations, which left me to simply observe the activity. The Elders spoke with only my father to confirm details, neglecting to speak to Sydney at all until initial consequences were being put in place. 

Sydney’s phone and car keys were taken; the line of reasoning being that they didn’t want to risk her communicating further with my father. 

Neither my father’s phone nor his vehicle access were removed. Likewise when the elder’s decided to put an application on Sydney’s phone to monitor her messages, my father refused this as well. 

Kevin faced no consequences while Sydney was banished to live with another young couple in the church, Savannah Stargell and her husband Zack, my sister and her husband. Sydney was also forbidden to speak about the matter with anyone, but absolutely not with Savannah or Zack.

My father was so fully spared anything past a slap on the wrist that my mother – in what was purported as grace but I see as compliance – let him sleep in the same bed as her that same night. 

Kevin deserved – if nothing else – brutal scrutiny, and was instead treated as a man who slightly erred and deserved nothing but compassion. While the church elders shunted a young woman off to an unfamiliar home with no outside contact or means of escape, they spoke to the family of her abuser to implore them to be mindful of his state, fearing he might do something to harm himself.

No such concern was spoken in regards to Sydney.

I had one other conversation with my brother that night before he left. Because in the last year I had made clear intentions that I was fully intent on marrying Sydney; intentions she didn’t have any notion of. 

So I simply asked my brother and church elder how I handled those feelings and that intention in lieu of what I now knew had happened. 

I’m sharing his response with you because I feel it is telling of the wicked perspective of my brother, a purported man of God. 

“Everyone has dirt, you just have to ask yourself if she’s going to be too dirty to you now.” 


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