05/07/2026
I’ve stayed silent about this for far too long, and I’m done protecting people who helped create, enable, ignore, or hide this kind of evil. Over time, I plan to call out every person who played a role, looked the other way, or protected reputations over children.
I need to air this out publicly because carrying it in silence nearly destroyed me. Protecting the truth has done far more damage than exposing it ever will.
For years, Johnathan Bryce stood in front of families pretending to be a mentor, a leader, and a man people could trust.
He was my family’s small group leader, our children’s youth pastor, and someone our family “did life” with. Our kids were around his family. We trusted him spiritually, personally, and emotionally. He wasn’t some distant acquaintance — he was deeply integrated into our lives.
Behind closed doors, he was something else entirely.
He embedded himself into families, gained trust through faith and mentorship, and hid behind the image of a “good man” while lives were being destroyed underneath it all.
My family trusted him.
I trusted him.
And that trust came with consequences my family will carry forever.
There is a different kind of evil in people who use religion, leadership, and mentorship as camouflage to access victims. Predators like that don’t force their way through the front door — they are invited in because they manufacture trust first.
That is what makes this betrayal so sickening.
He didn’t look dangerous.
He looked helpful.
He looked trustworthy.
That’s how predators survive for so long.
What was done to my son and to other victims was not a mistake.
It was not “poor judgment.”
It was calculated manipulation carried out by adults who knew exactly what they were doing.
And the damage didn’t stop with the crimes themselves.
The betrayal, the guilt, the anger, and the weight of everything that followed nearly destroyed me too. It fueled years of mental health struggles, anger, isolation, depression, and addiction. I spent a long time trying to numb pain I didn’t even fully understand yet.
That’s what people don’t always see.
Predators don’t just create victims.
They leave destruction in every direction around them.
Families fracture.
Trust disappears.
Mental health collapses.
People turn to alcohol, substances, rage, or self-destruction trying to survive what was done to them and the people they love.
I know that personally.
There were days I hated the man in the mirror.
Days I felt consumed by darkness.
Days I wondered if I would ever feel normal again.
But I also refuse to let evil have the final word over my family.
I stayed quiet longer than I should have.
Not anymore.
I refuse to protect the comfort and reputations of predators while survivors and families spend years trying to heal from what was done to them.
If this post makes people uncomfortable, good.
The truth should be uncomfortable.
And if you’re a parent reading this:
Stop assuming predators look evil.
Many hide behind churches, mentorship, leadership, community respect, and carefully crafted public images.
That mask fooled a lot of people.
Including me.
But the mask is gone now.
This page documents my sobriety and mental health journey, one day at a time.
