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Stacey Rutherford believed she had found “a gold mine” when she married Justin Rutherford.
But in 2021, the Pennsylvania mother of four made a discovery that would shatter her life. Hidden inside the bathroom of her family home was a secret camera — planted by her second husband, a respected local physician. For years, it silently recorded, police said. What began as a shocking violation soon unraveled into something far darker.
Justin, 36, pleaded guilty to sexually abusing his stepson and another minor, and was later convicted in a murder-for-hire plot. The disgraced doctor’s twisted double life — and his family’s fight to reclaim their story — are now the focus of the ABC News Studios’ true crime docuseries streaming on Hulu, “Betrayal: Under His Eye.”
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“There’s a lot of shame and guilt,” Rutherford told Fox News Digital. “You always think, as a mom, if you know your kids so well, and you’re so close to them, how did you not see that something was broken? How did you not hone in on the fact that something wasn’t right at home? The feeling gets less and less over time, but it’s also a feeling that never goes away.”
After struggling to find love, Rutherford, then a single mother of two, came across the charming medical student on a dating app in 2015. By the time they married in 2019, he was a practicing physician. They went on to welcome two more children.
“Initially, I really liked him,” Rutherford’s son, Tyler VanScyoc, told Fox News Digital. “My mom didn’t bring too many men in, but I remember when she did introduce us to someone she was seeing, they really didn’t speak a word to us. But this was different. He was actually interested in getting to know us. He asked about what we liked, what we wanted to do with our lives. He would throw a football around with us. I thought he was a good guy, a good match for my mom.”
Rutherford believed she had the perfect home life. But that all changed in the summer of 2021 when a teenage friend of VanScyoc’s discovered a hidden camera disguised as a phone charger in the family bathroom. The friend immediately informed his mother, who called the police, according to investigators.
According to the docuseries, Justin captured thousands of photos of people showering, using the bathroom and changing their clothes.
During the investigation, a friend of VanScyoc’s told police that Justin sexually assaulted him during a sleepover while the friend was under the influence of alcohol, GMA reported. VanScyoc later confessed that his stepfather had been sexually molesting him since he was 11.
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“Initially, I didn’t think there was any courage there in my speaking out,” VanScyoc explained. “I felt like I had to. And I think the more that I shared what happened to me, the more I was no longer letting it eat me alive.”
In the docuseries, VanScyoc described the deep shame he felt after coming forward. He recalled that whenever he tried to resist, his stepfather’s demeanor would change. His anger surfaced quickly if VanScyoc didn’t do exactly what he wanted. But once his friend spoke out, VanScyoc realized he couldn’t stay silent any longer.
“When everything first came out, I didn’t really hate him yet or anything,” VanScyoc explained. “I didn’t really feel many of those feelings. It took a while for it to turn into that. But there was a lot of guilt there.
“I just thought, ‘Man, I took this whole guy’s life away.’ But he did take a lot away from me as well. And I was still connected to him in the aspect that he was my father for all those years. He was still my father. And when he wasn’t doing what he did to me, or wasn’t in his, I guess you would say, monster mode or whatever, he would act like a good dad. He treated me like any good dad would treat their kid.”
“He built a connection with me,” the 20-year-old continued. “I think that’s a lot of what he used against me. He built that connection with me, made me trust him, and made me love him as well. And I did. I loved him, cared about him, trusted him — all those things. It was hard to learn that all of that was years and years of manipulation.”
Rutherford said she never noticed any red flags — nothing that made her suspect the man she loved was hiding a dark secret.
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“When I was dating, my big fear was that somebody was going to hurt my children, and I would’ve been the one to bring that into their lives,” she said. “I didn’t introduce them to somebody right away. Knowing that I brought him into their world, knowing that the only reason he was in their world was because of me? Yes, I carried a lot of guilt. As parents, we’re supposed to be able to protect our kids from anything. And when you can’t, it feels like it’s your fault.”
“I had no idea what any of this stuff was,” the 47-year-old reflected. “I wasn’t abused as a child. I didn’t know any friends who were abused. That just wasn’t something I knew about. I was 30 when I met him. I should have known about those kinds of things, but I didn’t. … Guilt has been the silent killer.”
Justin managed to flee to Europe. But when he returned to Dulles International Airport in Virginia, he was arrested. While awaiting trial, he attempted to orchestrate VanScyoc’s murder through letters to a close family friend, police told GMA.
“I was completely devastated,” said Rutherford, fighting back tears. “I knew he wasn’t who I thought he was, but this was something I could never have imagined. It changed all of our lives. It made me realize just how ugly this world is. I don’t like to go to a lot of places in public. Sometimes when my kids walk in, I jump. I don’t think I’ve slept the same since all of this happened. How do I know he’s not in there, still trying to take revenge on my son? All it takes is for one person there to believe him, to think he’s a doctor with a lot of money.”
“I’m always looking over my shoulder,” she admitted.
In 2023, Justin was sentenced to 26 years and 10 months to 70 years in prison, the Berks County District Attorney’s office announced. He later received an additional concurrent sentence of five to 10 years for attempting to arrange VanScyoc’s murder from prison, GMA reported.
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“When I had to go through photos for the documentary, it was very difficult,” said Rutherford. “Tyler was always a big snuggler, and he would snuggle on the couch with me. He’d snuggle on the couch with Justin. … Looking at the photos now, it makes me sick. When I initially took them, I thought they were very sweet photos of my children being loved by a stepparent.
“Tyler always had friends over for games or to get in the pool with us. And Justin wasn’t throwing himself at the kids. It was like the big brother wanting to play video games, and they didn’t want him there. I saw those things as innocent. But I’m trying not to take every single memory and twist it. I’m trying to let it be what it was for us at the time.”
Following Justin’s conviction, the family kept tight-lipped about what happened to them. But now, they’re coming forward in hopes it will help other survivors speak out and for parents to be vigilant.
“Have conversations with your kids,” said Rutherford. “It’s not only creepy weirdos who molest kids. This stuff goes on inside good homes. It can happen anywhere. It can happen inside your home. I never thought something like this would happen to me.”
“Betrayal: Under His Eye” is streaming on Hulu.
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