Sandy Rusk
Appearances
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
Oh, no. She was in conversation with me during that time. She told me that. What else did she tell me? Oh, my gosh. It was just craziness after craziness. She got arrested once during that time. This was something about when she wrecked that car. She drove that car through a sift or something. And I get a call from the Madison County Jail or somewhere.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
And it was, you have a call from an inmate, blah, blah, blah. And it was her. She was in jail and she wanted me to try to help her. And I'm like, girl, I can't help you. At this point, things had already gotten crazy enough that I didn't believe anything that she said.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
Yes. I'm sure you probably know this, but it turned out that that Tesla was not hers. And I'm sure that people have already talked to you about this, but she claimed that she worked for the governor, right? The night I met her, when I pulled up in the driveway, the Tesla was in front of me. And truthfully, I just noticed it was a dark blue car.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
I didn't even really pay attention that it was a Tesla. When I was inside and her and I were talking, and I was kind of asking her, I was like, so what do you do? And she goes, oh, I work for the governor. I work for Eric Holcomb. And we're like real buddies. And she made it sound like him and his wife kind of like took her under their wing and
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
I don't understand how she could have gotten away with so long telling people that she worked for the governor and the governor not coming forward and saying, I don't know this chick. But she told me that he bought her that car. I did just remember something else that she did one day. Again, I'm a realtor. I know a lot of realtors in my community. I've been doing this a long time.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
And so she called me one day and she goes, oh, guess what? And I said, what? And she goes, I'm dating a realtor now. And I go, what? What do you mean? And she goes, yes, I was at this event and he bought me a drink. And, you know, and I'm thinking, and I said, so what's his name? And she told me and I pulled him up on Facebook and he was this young, cute guy.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
And I'm looking at his Facebook page and he's married, like with a cute young wife. And I go, Megan, this guy you're talking about, he's married. And she goes, I can't believe that. Oh, well. And then she just changed the subject. But I'm like, how do you get I'm dating a realtor out of running into someone that was maybe pleasant to you at a networking event? I think it highlights her delusion.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
What she would do to keep me engaged is she would, it was almost like she was catfishing us. Because she would contact me and she would say, oh, I found out something about my daughter. And I would be like, okay, what? What did you find out? She makes it sound like she's got the in with certain people that are upset there, but they don't want to leave because they're afraid, but they talk to her.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
That's what she made me think. And then the final, you want to hear the final thing that she did? This was it. This was when I was done. So this would have been sometime around the end of April of 21. So her and I were talking on the phone and she probably called me like really late, maybe around midnight.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
So I'm talking to her and she's telling me that my daughter had trouble with her car and she's like stranded. and that this other person that she had talked to had talked to my daughter, but she couldn't go and help her for whatever reason. So she made it sound like this other person was talking to my daughter, who was then talking to Megan, and then Megan was talking to me about it.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
And she would be like, oh, wait a minute. I think so-and-so is going to go help her. Let me hear. Let me look and see what she just said. Oh, she said that she can't go yet, and she created this whole situation. And I go, you know what? I'm going to go. I thought if my daughter is stranded on the side of the road somewhere, I'm going to go save my daughter. I said, okay, where exactly is she?
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
And she tells me the street and it's like a half an hour drive from where I live. I get up and I get dressed and I'm like, I'm just going to go and I'm just going to pull up and to my daughter, I'm just going to say, get in. You're stranded, get in and just go and get her. And so I drive up there and where she told me she was supposed to be, there was no car there.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
I went from that location and drove to where my daughter's house is. While I'm driving there, I'm still on the phone with Megan. And I drive there and guess what? My daughter's car is sitting safely in her driveway at the back of her house and all of her lights are off in her house. So she's obviously home and safe, not stranded on a road somewhere. I said, Megan, her car is at her house.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
She's safely at home. And I just hung up on her. Because at that point, I'm like furious knowing that this whole evening of me being worried about my daughter was all just fake. Well, for two days, I think it was, I didn't talk to her at all. And then she finally got me on the phone and I just said, Megan, it's not true. My daughter was at home safely.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
And I don't even remember what her comment was, but I just basically got off the phone. And that was really the last interaction that I had with her.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
Yes, I did. It was so believable what she was telling me. As a mom, you're going to be like, oh my gosh, my child is stranded in the middle of the night out in the middle of nowhere in the dark. Go help your child. Then, of course, I'm sure Megan was figuring out that she was getting ready to be caught because she was on the phone with me the whole time.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
Yeah. And I think that she latches on to one person and takes it as far as they will let her take it. And then whenever they realize that they have to get this person away from them, then she will latch on to the next person.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
Hi, my name is Sandy Rusk, and I created the private Facebook group, The Truth About Itown Church, and also the TikTok page of that same name. And I met and became involved with Megan Stoner at the end of 2021 and was in communication with her all the way through the end of April of 2022. So for about five months, I was in communication with her.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
She shared a lot of things with me and she's quite a piece of work. She's quite a piece of work.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
Well, my whole situation with iTown has been something very devastating. I'm a single mom, and I was raising my daughter alone. And 13 years ago, she was 14 years old. She's 27 now. I didn't grow up in church while I was raising her in her younger years. We attended church some, but we were not really entrenched in a church environment.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
And so when she was 14, she just came to me and said, hey, mom, do you mind if I go to church with my friend Sunday? And I'm a realtor, so I work a lot on the weekends. So I thought, church? Yeah, that sounds great. What's the church? I allowed her to go that first Sunday. And from the minute she walked in to iTown's doors, she was hooked. Hook, line, and sinker.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
I thought, wow, how great is this? I've got this teenage daughter and she wants to be in church all the time. She's not out getting into trouble and she's not trying to drink or have sex or, you know, any of those things that you worry about as a mom. Soon after she attended for the first time, I went and attended services and I thought, wow, this all looks pretty cool.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
And I didn't see anything that I was too worried about. For seven years I was attending Now, keep in mind, being a realtor, I worked a lot on the weekends. So at the time, I worked in new home sales. So I had a model home that I had to go and open up on Sunday afternoon. And so she would go to church, and I would maybe pop in, watch the service. Didn't feel like anything was wrong.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
And then I'd go to work, and she would end up volunteering. She went from volunteering almost immediately to then being hired part-time to work. After she turned 18... She went on staff there full time. In the last several years, I've been able to discover what all is going on behind the scenes. Five years ago, in the first part of the year, at least five years, they totally separated her from me.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
And I've not been able to even see or speak to my daughter since February 28th of 2020. So it's very difficult, to say the least.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
It's more modern, yes. Well, here's how I describe it because I've had to figure all this out in the last four years. If you took the old style Pentecostal teachings but wrapped it in a very cool, trendy exterior, that's what you've got there.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
And Julie Roy's mentioned ARC, the Association of Related Churches. That's what ICANN is a part of. And there has been numerous scandals. And Julie's reported on almost all of them. And is that how you met Megan? Well, yes. Yes. And I even looked back because I was friends with her on Facebook. It was about five months that I had an association with her. So it started in December of 21.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
So almost two years after they totally separated me from my daughters. At that time, there was a lot of people from iTown who had bad experiences or were hurt there, but nobody would talk about it. And even today, they still have control of my daughter, 100%. And so I was trying to find, are there other people who have been hurt? Did they do this just to me?
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
I'm trying to figure it out, but not having very much in the way of information because no one wanted to share what they experienced there. And so all of a sudden it popped up on one of our local groups. I found where I had originally reached out to Megan. Now, this was on November 30th of 21. I wrote, hi, Megan, I saw your post about iTown in the Noblesville Chatter Uncensored group.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
I also had a horrendous experience there. I was curious what happened to you and what happened when they asked you to remove your post. I was thinking of coming out publicly with my story. As soon as I sent her that, she sent me back, hi, I'm actually starting a podcast about iTown. And she said, would it be possible to talk to you on the phone today?
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
I thought, wow, finally someone who is maybe taking notice of what's happening at iTown. I thought maybe this is someone who might have some information with me about my daughter. So that started her communicating with me. She seemed very odd, but I was just looking for information about my daughter. How do I find out what's going on behind those walls? How do I get to my daughter?
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
So I had a different kind of motivation meeting her, especially when she said that she was basically getting ready to come out about ITAM. And I'm thinking, oh, maybe there are other people who have had bad experiences that will now start telling their stories. Very quickly, she just kind of latched on to me.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
Because I think that she liked the fact that I needed something that she wanted me to feel like she might be able to provide it. She was constantly creating drama to draw you into her story to either gain attention or for you to view her as a victim so that you would support her in some way.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
And like most people have said, in the beginning, you feel like she's a little bit different, but you don't feel like she's a malicious type of person. And no one said this on your podcast yet, but Ashley, she could be very funny. Like sometimes she would come up with something that was just hilarious. So she's very entertaining at times and very engaging at times too.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
I'm quite a bit older than her, obviously. And She seemed to almost need someone to kind of guide her a little bit, maybe be a little bit of a mentor to her. I never gave her money or anything like that. I never let her come and stay at my home. Nothing like that, but emotionally she seemed to just, I don't know, attach to me for some reason. I'd been struggling with it for two years.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
She used that as an opportunity to make me think that she could help me, almost like dangling a carrot in front of me. You know, she made it seem like, oh, well, I have contacts with certain people that are still there and I can find out stuff. And she was just making it all up. Basically exploiting your pain for your attention. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Yes. That's the best way to put it.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
You hit the nail right on the head. The more that you would get to know her, the more of these things that she would share with you, like the people from iTown were showing up at her house and, threatening her and running her off the road. And as those kind of things started coming out, I'm like, no, wait a minute. This doesn't make sense. She just had such a way of like sucking you in.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
The whole thing about when she started saying that she received these sex toys in the mail and these really big designer cookies that are quite expensive. She would send me a picture of boxes of these cookies that she said that someone just randomly sent her. And she felt that maybe there was something in the cookies. I mean, just all of these crazy stories.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
And then it just kept escalating into more craziness. At one point, she claimed that her mother got shot by someone from iTown.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
Yes, several. I went back and I looked at these messages that we had through Facebook Messenger back then, and I realized that she was messaging me constantly. I think maybe I was hoping for tidbits of truth about things that were happening with my daughter. Maybe that was part of it. Why I kind of let her go on so long with these things that you just knew couldn't be true.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
Like I remember once she told me that she was asleep in bed and all of a sudden she woke up and this guy was in her bedroom with her. And I'm like, what? What did you do? You know? And she made it sound like the police came and took him away, and that was it. And I'm like, that could not have happened. There's no way. I mean, she didn't say he was in bed with her, but that he was just in her room.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
She had a ring camera on the door of the house. Now, keep in mind, this is that house that she was renting, but she was trying to rent it to other people and took money from them to rent it to them. And she didn't even own the house. And that's the house that I went to when I first met her. And, I mean, it looked normal. She had nice little furniture in there. She had a dog.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
You know, it's a little 1,200-square-foot ranch in a cute area in Fishers. And everything looked and seemed normal. She had the Ring camera on her door, and she would take videos of people that came up to the door.
Something Was Wrong
S22 E4: Apparently All I Do Is Lie
I don't know what these people were coming up to the door, but then she would take these videos, and she would claim that these people were all from iTown, all these people coming up to the door to harass her about iTown.