Confronting the Mormon Church Over Our Child's Abuser - Jared and Ashley Jones Pt. 2 | Ep 1768

When Ashley Jones saw the teenage boy standing in her driveway, she felt a knot in her stomach. He was not friends with her children. He had simply tagged along with another visitor, an unexpected presence that triggered a warning she could not yet name. Within forty-eight hours, the Jones family would learn that this same teenager had already confessed to molesting a seven-year-old girl. Within a month, they would discover that leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had known about this confession for months and had told no one. This is the story Jared and Ashley Jones told Mormon Stories Podcast in April 2023, and it cuts to the heart of a recurring crisis in the LDS Church: when religious authority meets child safety, which one wins?

Background: Trust and the Ward Family

The Joneses were not casual members. They were foster and adoptive parents who had brought children from trauma into their home specifically to provide stability within a faithful Mormon framework. They believed in the ward as a sanctuary. That belief shattered when they learned the teenage abuser had been allowed to roam their congregation freely despite a prior confession to his bishop and stake president months earlier.

According to the interview, the abuse was not a secret kept only by the perpetrator. Another family had already reported him. The stake president, a senior leader overseeing multiple congregations and a business associate of Jared Jones, had received the confession. Yet when the Joneses demanded answers, they encountered delay, avoidance, and what they describe as a systematic effort to protect the abuser from consequences rather than protect children from the abuser.

Key Claims: Privilege, Lawyers, and the Protection of Predators

The church’s response, as described by the Joneses, followed a pattern familiar to abuse survivors and their advocates. When confronted, the stake president reportedly cited clergy-penitent privilege, claiming that because the abuser had confessed in a religious context, the leader could not disclose the information to police or to other parents. This legal concept, designed to protect confidential spiritual counseling, became a fortress wall around the perpetrator.