2 | The Ravenous Wolf

Amen. Praise the Lord. Come on somebody. Hallelujah. Yeah. How many redeemed in the house? Anybody redeemed in the house?

There are thousands of street ministries across the country that offer stories of faith, personal struggle, and transformation.

The Lord is good. He's a stronghold in the day of trouble. He knows them to put the trust in him.

This church, along with The Chapel were at first places where Richard Beasley found comfort

And hopefully you're putting your trust in Him. Amen.

Until both places of worship became marks in his con.

Okay. On my way to the Akron Bible Church and I just passed a topless bar called “The G Spot.” Sort of in an industrial area just off of the interstate.

We sent Chris, our producer, to Akron's gritty south side to Pastor Randy Baker's Akron Bible Church so you can better understand why people, especially those down on their luck, are inspired by these ministries.

I don't want your money. I ain't here for your money. I'm here because I got an assignment from God and I got to be obedient to the word.

Alright, I think I am at the church. Christ is the answer. Let's see.

The Akron Bible Church is a rough and tumble evangelical street ministry that at one time fully embraced Richard Beasley and his charity work.

And I thank you, father God for all those here in the church. Every single person here, God, and we ask you Father for your blessing, and it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

The Akron Bible Church is the polar opposite of The Chapel, where Beasley worshiped with his mother. The clergy at The Chapel have master's degrees in divinity, and many of its parishioners are people of means and status. Among them, powerful corporate executives and politicians. Pastor Baker is no buttoned \-up man of God. He's a magnetic personality. An ex-con, an ex-drug addict, a born again Christian.

Big dude. He's a commanding presence. He was wearing jeans and sort of looked like a mechanic shirt Bible in one hand, microphone in the other and a bottle of water

At Baker's Church Street. Ministers or chaplains often straddle Harleys to spread the word.

There were a contingent of guys wearing biker vests who greeted you when you came in, and I could totally see Richard Beasley just being part of this whole thing.

Baker is very much the good man, the redeemed man Richard Beasley aspired to be, or maybe he just pretended that was so. The Akron Bible Church is affiliated with Hope Ministries too, and its popular Hope Cafe. All serve people who need faith the most: people at the lowest points in their lives, folks just getting out of prison, drug addicts, sex workers, the homeless and the hungry. These vulnerable people trust Baker and his army of compassion because they know how desperate life can become.

The bottom line is I wasn't addicted to crack cocaine and all these drugs out here on the street only. That was band-aids over my cancer, which was myself. I was addicted to myself. Can anybody admit that? Hey, I'm addicted to myself! I'm prideful and self-absorbed. Amen?

Beasley, an ex-con and biker enthusiast himself may have worshiped at The Chapel with his mother, but he ministered on the mean streets of Akron. He had the ear of the most powerful and the faith of the most vulnerable. And Beasley, ever the chameleon, slipped effortlessly between both worlds. That was exactly what made him so dangerous.

I'm Carol Costello. This is the God Hook episode two: The Ravenous Wolf.

Of course, Beasley didn't go straight from prison to running his own kind of street ministry. Actually, it was a twist of faith that allowed him to go all in with his career as “Chaplain Rich.” Beasley often volunteered at the Akron Bible Church's Hope Ministries with his little boy mentee, Brogan Rafferty at his side. He delivered food to the homeless, provided transportation to those who had none. But he excelled when it came to Hope Ministry's primary mission too: to spread the word inside jails, praying with inmates, offering Bible studies on the inside and redemption on the outside. It's how Beasley wanted others to see him.

I wish some people who knew me, write the Beacon Journal and make some corrections because man, they just told so many things that were outright lies.

And it's how he saw himself. He wrote letter after letter to local reporters objecting to allegations that he was a religious conman. Those letters sent from jail, where he sat accused of multiple murders.

I wish somebody would write and say, look, Rich Beasley was on staff at Hope Ministries for three years, and he helped other people. His house on Yale Street, he was giving food out to 50 to 60 families a month, every month, all out of his own pocket. He taught a Bible study at his house every week.

Like I told you, a twist of fate allowed Beasley a chance to fully become what he fancied himself to be: a full-blown street minister. Not the fiery kind of pastor who spoke from the pulpit, but a plain-spoken chaplain who worked the streets. In 2005, Beasley's vehicle was hit by a dump truck. It left him with head, chest and spinal injuries. He started taking opiates for the pain and he would walk with a cane for the rest of his life. But the accident also provided a court settlement that allowed Beasley to buy a house on Yale Street. Something Beasley said proved that he was a good man.

I messed up, and here's what it comes down to, Bob. I got $125,000 settlement and I spent every penny of it on other people. The only thing I did for myself is I took my daughter on vacation.

The Yale Street House sat on a quiet street not far from downtown Akron.

I am just parked outside of where Richard Beasley's house used to be. There's nothing there now. Just an empty lot.

Beasley's house on Yale Street is gone now, bulldozed into oblivion. Chris is standing on the small lot where the house once stood. It's surrounded by single family homes.

So is it a middle class neighborhood? What does it look like? I would say probably low income, but it's like it's a charming little street.

There's a church a few doors down.

Yeah. The cornerstone of the church says 1938.

Beasley called his new home a sober house, or sometimes a halfway house.

He had this halfway house, right?

Right.

Rhonda Katnick is an Akron public defender, one of the unsung heroes of our criminal justice system. She represented Beasley for a time.

So that is something I don't quite understand. Can you just open a house and call it a halfway house, or do you have to go through some process?

I don't think he went through a process, but the more reputable places have to go through a process. He just did this on his own.

That could be perfectly legal. If Beasley claimed that his halfway house functioned as a sober house, a place to live. Without mental health services, there was no need for a license from the state of Ohio. To be clear though, the house was not affiliated with any ministry. But Beasley kept on volunteering at Hope Ministries and the Akron Bible Church, and allegedly began the process for becoming a chaplain. So the house on Yale Street seemed legit and desperately needed. By 2008, the Great Recession hit, adding to Akron's economic woes. Median household income went over the cliff, opioid abuse soared, and so did overdoses. The jails became overcrowded and Akron needed all the help it could get from that army of compassion, and its foot soldiers like Chaplain Rich.

Doug Oplinger is the former managing editor of the Akron Beacon Journal.

So all the ingredients were there for someone to be desperate, to be trying to be creative in the way they make money. And Beasley already had a history of trying to be creative on the dark side.

With all of that going on, Beasley's Yale Street House appeared to be an attractive place to the people he invited there, a place where recently released inmates who had drug problems could go to find shelter, food, and a job, and of course, take comfort in prayer and Bible studies in exchange for modest rent. One of those people was Amy.

Just so you know that you weren't forgotten.

Thank you.

And it's taken all these years.

Yeah, it’s amazing isn’t it?

Thank you so much for telling your story. Also, if you need to take breaks or anything, you just kick me and say, I need a break.

Okay.

My podcast partner Emily Pelphrey and I connected with Amy in downtown Akron. She's been through things not many of us can imagine: violence, heroin addiction, homelessness, jail, hopelessness. Her children and grandchildren are her everything now.

So you're caring for the two children right now?

Yeah, they've been with me for years now. The guy that I was with for all the years, Mike, passed away a couple of years ago. I met him in the street. He helped me through a lot of things, but he'd taken us in. I was still in my addiction and helped me get clean and helped me with raising her, and he was my best friend.

Amy's been sober for 12 years. She's a devout Christian whose faith in God has never wavered. Amy's faith is a big reason she can now talk openly about Richard Beasley, to share her truth.

After all this time. Why did you agree to come and talk to us?

I think I'm much more healed now than I was years ago. They were going to subpoena me for court at one point, and I did not want that. I was not happy. I was trying to figure out any way I could to get out of it at the time because I didn't want to look at him. I didn't want to face him, and I had no healing yet. And so I feel like I'm just, I don't know. I just wanted people to know the truth of what really happened. And I guess like a redemption type thing there too.

So you believe in redemption?

Yes. Yes.

Yeah.

If you ask me, Amy doesn't need to worry about redemption. She's done more than enough to deserve it. She's waited 15 years to tell the world her story of how she tried to rid the world of a predator. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Amy has long, dark hair and these big, gorgeous blue eyes. She worries she looks world weary.

And can I ask how old you are now? Because you look so young to me.

I'm 48. I feel like I look old. I should look worse though before I've been through in the street. So as many times as I've been beat up and left for dead and stuff. So yeah.

It shocked me at times that Amy could be so matter of fact about her painful past. But Emily, who's worked with trauma victims, wasn't surprised.

Some of these people that have been in these situations have been so conditioned that their environment that we perceive as so dangerous and sad and trauma filled and all of those, I mean that's been their life since they can remember what we see as bad is their normal.

Amy had a troubled childhood. She told us she was raped by someone known to her family at 13. Her mom was a caring woman who loved her daughter deeply, but Amy said she struggled with alcoholism. Amy had an addiction problem too, and it wasn't long before she was working the streets just trying to get by, and she did for a time. It's not the life Amy wanted for herself, but as she spiraled deeper into addiction, she lost everything. The only thing she had left to sell was herself.

I’ve been stabbed like three times. I been raped – I lost track of the rapes, and beatings and things like that.

Amy was arrested countless times in her twenties and thirties, mostly for prostitution and minor drug charges. By her late thirties, she had seven children, five of them lost to adoption or foster care. If you're shocked, you shouldn't be. If you're an addict with little money and no hope, life on the streets is brutal.

I mean, it is pure survival.

Jennifer Rausch represents women like Amy.

It is living in unsafe places, if they even have a roof over their head. It is looking for services that are out there. It is no medical care. It is being sick. It is not being healthy at all. It is potentially multiple sexually transmitted infections at a time. It is no food. I mean, it is miserable. It is miserable. So anybody that provides any way to solve any of those problems is going to look like a godsend.

So It's not a matter of wow, a person like Amy, why couldn't she just go find a legit job?

That's a question that's asked a lot, and I think that people don't always think about logistics. So how's she going to get there? Does she have a car? Does she have any money for a bus? How long does the bus take to get there? Does she have a place to shower? Does she have clothes to wear to work? Does she have clothes that are work appropriate? If she's addicted, how does that work with a job? A lot of places you have to have a driver's license or an id. Do you know how many of our victims don't have that for one reason or another? And then, okay, they want to get an ID? Well, they need their birth certificate. If they don't have an ID, do you think they have their birth certificate? So I mean, it is just obstacle upon obstacle upon obstacle. Even when they try and get out of the life, these are things they face too.

In September of 2010, Amy was in jail again, this time on a probation violation.

So when did you first really engage with Rich Beasley? When was that time?

I was in jail. I was incarcerated in Summit County.

Do you remember what he said?

He said that if I would agree to come to his program, that he could definitely help me. That Jesus hadn't forgotten me and that I would be, he knows he could help me. He felt the Lord had sent him to me.

And Amy had reason to think that Chaplain Rich Beasley might help her. She'd heard about him from other women on the street for years. He worked with the Akron Bible Church's Hope Ministries. He'd dressed just like Pastor Randy Baker in jeans and a biker's vest, and with his girth and white beard, he resembled Santa Claus. He looked and sounded like someone who helped people like her.

I had known about Richard Beasley for years because he had been taking girls off the street. So I knew that Rich was out there doing this. I knew that he picked girls up. I knew that there would be girls that would come into the drug houses and say, oh yeah, Rich Beasley took me out to McDonald's and bought me 10 cheeseburgers. And they would bring the food into the house and say he bought it for everybody here. So he had a good rapport with people in the street, especially the girls.

And even beyond his good reputation, Richard Beasley was selling something that Amy desperately wanted: redemption.

Every time I’d go to prison or jail, I would get in the Bible because it gave me hope, because I felt like God was still here for me and He still cared for me. Because at times I felt like I wasn't even good enough for God. I thought if I walked into a church, it would probably burn down.

Amy had become so ground down by life, she truly believed she didn't deserve God's love. And Chaplain Rich was one of the few people who told her that wasn't true.

Yeah, he would be very, very nice, very almost like jovial. Like, “Hi!” and he'd hug you and start talking to you about the Lord. There's a different way to live and you don't have to live like this, and he'd start trying to give you hope.

A part of Amy knew Beasley was too good to be true, but he was a man who could talk the talk. He could quote the Bible. He'd spoken on behalf of dozens of people in open court, both men and women, and he could walk the walk. He had experienced prison. He knew what Amy was going through. Amy wanted to believe.

That's another thing that got me – he was so good manipulative-wise, because I was manipulative. And so I've been out there a long time and I was pretty good at what I did, and I could usually see right through that stuff. So it bothered me that I didn't see it at the time. He was very, very good at that. I did. I believed him.

At one point as she sat behind bars, she did share her suspicions with police about a big guy who called himself Chaplain Rich. But Beasley won her over and she stopped talking to detectives, because Chaplain Rich offered her what the cops could not: a ticket out of jail, a safe place to go. And for Amy, who was always deeply religious, comfort in the church, Beasley visited Amy in jail multiple times. He bragged about his work at political rallies on behalf of judges, of how he cured favor with local politicians through his work at The Chapel, the Akron Bible Church, and Hope Ministries,

He seemed very sincere. He seemed like he cared. He seemed, he went by the book. He seemed like he was going by the book. He told me these rules and that if I left, I can go back to jail. I mean, he told me all this. So I thought, okay.

Here's criminologist Volka Topalli.

It's a kind of an automatic hook. If two strangers meet, and the likelihood is that they both have some religious belief. Establishing yourself as a religious person or a pious person is a great way to engender trust. And I think he understood this, and I think that his knowledge of scripture of the Bible of religious practices really supercharged his ability to be manipulative and to sort of control other people.

Chaplain Rich visited a lot of women in the Summit County Jail, many of whom had three things in common, a drug addiction, a prostitution charge, and no place to go after they completed their sentence. Maybe I should say four things: they were young. Beasley, a man in his fifties at the time, mostly prayed with women decades younger than himself. Here's Jennifer Rausch.

So this old guy calling himself Chaplain Rich, sitting down with all of these young women with histories of drugs and prostitution on their records, that would've seemed A-OK to jail officials?

That doesn't surprise me really at all because most jails will allow religious visits, they'll allow visits. They don't necessarily have approved lists. You don't necessarily have to give lists. Some places do, some prisons do, but other jails, especially local smaller jails too, you don't have to put somebody on the list for them to show up and speak to you. And him using this title is just another way to manipulate now, not just as victims, but also the court system and the jail system to try to get access to the women.

What we do know is that Chaplain Rich's presence at the Summit County Jail back in the early two thousands was ubiquitous.

At Summit County Jail way back in the day. There was an open visitation area on the second floor, and it was just separated by plexiglass. So if you've ever seen a picture of Rich Beasley, he's very noticeable. I mean, he's just a bigger older man. And he was always there. He was just always at the jail with I guess a client of his, we call him a client, a female-male, and he was bible studies or whatever he was doing.

So he would visit the jail and talk to these inmates and he would teach them about God?

Bible studies, right.

Beasley also called on public defenders and offered to speak in open court on their client's behalf. And many of those attorneys overwhelmed with cases, picked up the phone. And then there were the letters handwritten by Chaplain Rich himself.

Did he write a note to a judge on your behalf to try to get you out of jail early?

Yes, he did.

Do you remember who that judge was and what the note said?

I think it was Judge Unruh, if I'm right, was it Unruh? I think it was.

If you missed that Chaplain Rich wrote letters to Summit County Judges on behalf of his clients. One of them, Amy. And police say sometimes that did the trick. Twelve days after Beasley wrote that letter to the judge, Amy was released into his care. She would live at his halfway house on Yale Street. He would find her work as a maid, and best of all, he would help her get clean. At least that's what he told her.

It was not what I thought. It was a house. It was set up where he had living quarters, and then the other side of it had some rooms upstairs, but they were not even, some of 'em weren't even done yet. They were being remodeled, some of them. And then he didn't let me go into a couple of the rooms yet, but when I did go into those rooms, they were drug – one was methamphetamine being made and one had marijuana growing with lamps and stuff.

So there was no maid service job, there was no counseling services, there was no help?

There was nothing.

Did he provide the women with drugs including yourself?

Yeah, that's what I was going to say the first day I was there, he offered me Oxycontin because he knew that my drug was heroin. And he had needles, and he had crack, and he had pills, and everybody there was on drugs.

There were other women in that house too, all with the same needs, all with similar criminal backgrounds involving sex work. And Chaplain Rich? Detective said he was no man of God, but the definition of a man who trafficked women. Samantha Salomon is an attorney who represents victims of sexual trauma. She advocates for victims' rights in Ohio.

Traffickers are smart human beings. They're not dumb. Despite how immoral they might act and the amount of corruption that they present to our society, they're smart human beings and they prey upon vulnerabilities.

Vulnerabilities like addiction.

So why would he continue to give these young women like yourself drugs? Why do you think that was?

Because he said we had to prostitute and give him every visit money we made. He said that every dime would go to him. If it didn't, and he found out that you’d held back, that he would turn you into the judge.

Amy said that judge was Brenda Unruh. The same judge Chaplain Rich had written a letter to on Amy's behalf. Did you get it, Chris?

Yep. Got it right here.

The copy of the letter is dated September 13th, 2010.

At the top right underneath Judge Unruh’s address, it says regarding Amy.

So detectives found it in the Clerk of Court's office?

Yeah, I think that's where it came from and this is the real deal.

Okay, I'm ready. You got to read it to me.

Okay. And just keep in mind, part of it is cut off at the end, so just bear with me here. I'm going to just try and fill in a few words here that I'm not seeing, but you'll get the idea.

Dear Judge Unruh, Hope Ministry is a non-denominational street oriented ministry with a 20 year history working with the courts and the jail and on the streets of Akron. Amy requested our help at the time of her original arrest. She was tired of her lifestyle and believed that she was having a positive change in her then negative behavior. Amy has been in constant contact with Hope Ministries and has undergone spiritual instruction during this time. It is the opinion of myself and others that she has developed a more positive thought pattern regarding her previous behavior. And at this time, I believe that she's unlikely to recidivate. Hope Ministries is in the process of opening a women's transitional housing facility. I'm requesting you consider early release in order that Amy may be placed in that facility. Hope Ministries has bed space and employment available for Amy. I believe this is her best chance for successful reintegration into society. Finally, Hope Ministries has a well-proven support network and has appeared in the Summit County Court System on a regular basis for clients over many years. From experience. I believe that if Amy is given this chance, she will succeed. Sincerely, Chaplain Richard Beasley.

Wow. Okay, so it looks official and everything, right?

Yeah.

But as far as I know, Chaplain Rich, I guess he volunteered for Hope Ministries. But did they even have a women's transitional housing?

As far as we know, no, they didn't. He's presenting himself as if he's part of the people who run the church, and I don't know that that was ever the case.

We could find no evidence that Beasley was ever involved in running anything for the church.

I believe this is her best chance for successful reintegration into society. Wow. I mean, just the balls to say that in a letter like this.

That is, I don't even know what that is. Wow.

Knowing what we know now, it's hard to understand why any judge would read this letter by a twice convicted felon and believe it. Emily, a former prosecutor, knew Judge Unruh.

Like, you knew Judge Unruh. Why would she believe him?

I think Judge Unruh really did believe in forgiveness, and she believed in redemption, and she believed that someone could turn their lives around.

I wish I could ask Judge Unruh about Beasley, but she passed away a few years ago.

I'd met her through my mother and she was nothing but absolutely lovely. I heard she was hard with sentencing, but she was just a glowing presence. She always had a smile. She was always kind. She knew her stuff. She was an intelligent woman. And even though she was tiny, she had a big presence about her, I don't see her and did not see her as someone that was easily intimidated.

Here's the thing: Chaplain Rich volunteered at a well-known street ministry, affiliated with the Akron Bible Church. He attended services at The Chapel. He was a constant presence at the jail and in the courtrooms, and the judges knew him or had known of him for years.

I think he was believable.

And Judge Unruh, some of those judges believed that faith-based community groups, like any group attached to the Akron Bible Church or Hope Ministries or The Chapel made a difference. Chaplain Rich seemed a man redeemed.

I think they believed that he made changes. He made changes because he was putting himself out there. He was going back to the people and then trying to help them. So he actually wasn't just saying the words, but he was actually, they believed he was actually doing good things in the community.

And for a few years, Beasley seemed to make changes. He was a charitable man until something triggered a return to criminal behavior. Court documents hint at a number of factors: Beasley's opioid use after his car accident, brain damage, a series of mini strokes. Or maybe it was just plain old fashioned desperation. It was 2010. The nation's economy was in the tank. Akron's unemployment rate had soared to 12%.

Yeah, like a part of me, this is all just conjecture. I don't know what's inside Richard Beasley's head, but maybe he was sincere for a while and wanted to be that, wanted to be that good person that people admired, wanted to sincerely help others until the bottom fell out for him, and his dark side returned.

When you think about it, he is in Akron when the worst recession since the Great Depression hits.

Again, Doug Oplinger.

Everybody is feeling that. Everybody's a little bit desperate. Even the white college educated are beginning to scratch their heads and ask, what's going on here? Something's not right. So the whole community is kind of pulling back in to take care of their own. And how does that enable someone like Beasley? When everybody's moving down Maslow's hierarchy of needs from thinking about community to survival.

And let's face it. Desperation can lead to all kinds of justifications for bad behavior.

He had two things that were sort of juicing up his behavior.

Criminologist Dr. Volkan Topalli.

One was he had this encyclopedic understanding of the Bible far, far greater than the weekly Sunday goer. Far, far greater than even someone who consistently studies the Bible. Probably I would say that his knowledge is probably at the academic level. That's someone who's read it backwards, forwards in and out, knows every single line of the text, and has learned how to connect different parts of the text to other parts of the text. And within that, there's a lot of complex language stories. Inconsistencies, inconsistencies. There's enough of that. He took the scripture and he decided to pluck from it what he needed, not just to justify the behavior to himself and not just to deal with the potential shame of what he was doing to an outside audience, but actually to use it as a tool of manipulation.

The well-respected Judge Unruh may have appreciated Beasley's knowledge of scripture. Her grandparents founded The Chapel in 1934. She not only attended services there, but led Bible studies for members of the legal community on her lunch hour.

She was known to be a religious figure, and I knew that she prayed, but I don't recall her ever trying to impose religion upon me. And I don't recall her trying to impose religion in the courtroom, but I did know that she was heavily involved with The Chapel.

And Beasley certainly knew of Judge Unruh’s ties to the chapel. Amy said he weaponized her devotion.

So you said that you would go to church with Richard?

I went twice.

And did you see Judge Unruh at all when you were in church?

I saw her the first time.

How did she react when she saw you guys?

She hugged him and was happy to see him and said she knew I do well. She said he has a good program and I know you can do this, Amy. And so I knew she was very much for him.

If you could just describe even what going to a mass at The Chapel is like. It's not a small building, is it?

Huge.

So how many people?

Hundreds. I mean, maybe. I don't know if it's a thousand or not, but it's a lot.

Yeah. So out of all of the people there, the fact that you saw the judge and–

He made sure I did. He walked me up, sit there, see her, and then he sat behind her.

Okay.

Yeah.

How did you feel when he introduced you to her? Or said, Hey, look who I'm with today.?

I was intimidated because he had threatened you with her. He threatened you with her many times. If you don't do what I say, I'll call Judge Unruh and tell her that you're just not listening to my rules, not doing the program, and you'll go back to jail. And you know you will.

Amy felt trapped, betrayed, angry, and watched as Richard Beasley pretended to be a full blown chaplain in his phony halfway house. She watched as Beasly bullied not only the girls, but a boy around 14 years old who was big for his age. That child was Brogan Rafferty, the boy from the troubled family that Beasley once took to The Chapel every Sunday for Bible studies.

Is it fair to say he was kind of a staple over at the house? He was a frequent visitor?

Yeah, he was frequent.

That's awful.

Because even all the girls were there just laying around half naked and doing drugs.

Did Brogan's mom have a relationship with Rich?

Yeah. They supposedly dated back, because she was into motorcycles and stuff, and he was in a biker's thing. And they dated and she said that he was like a father to Brogan.

Were you ever around him where you noticed he was not being nice to Brogan? Was he ever abusive to him?

There's a time I was driving with Rich and Brogan, and he did this a lot to Brogan. We were driving around Akron and he said, Brogan, he said, that right there, that’s the corner your mom stands on him and she sells her body. And you could see Brogan, tears were welling up, and his fists were getting like this, and he was shaking, and I was like, what is he doing? He kept going on and on and on about it, about his mom and the corner and prostituting. And he's like, I know. I know how bad it hurts you buddy, and that's why I'm here with you and I'm here for you and stuff. And I was like, wow.

Over time, what went on in that Yale Street house became unbearable. Beasley constantly urged Amy to recruit girls for him all the while supplying her with drugs and threatening to turn her in because who would believe a convicted sex worker over Chaplain Rich?

At some point, is it that you just had enough of this and you decided to tell police about Rich Beasley? What was it that sparked you to do that?

Yeah, I was tired of it. I was just sick and tired of the control and him following me around, and I just could not figure out how to get out of this. I tried everything. I always thought I tried to think of anything I could. I had talked to everybody, bounced ideas off. I just didn’t see any other way out. I didn't want to stay there anymore.

So Amy decided to do something once unthinkable. It would mean trusting people she normally played to catch a break, and it would mean possibly risking her life. But none of that mattered anymore. It was time to take a predator off the streets. Amy became a police informant.

Next time: Pulling Strings.

He would check you for wires sometimes, he got paranoid. He would say, if anybody tries to wear a wire on me or tell on me, or anything like that, trust me, I will find out. I will kill you.