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Winter is here, it is freezing, and I've got a way for you to heat things up. Warm up those chilly nights with Dipsy. Picture this, a cozy blanket, a crackling fireplace, maybe a glass of wine, you listening to a sexy fantasy audiobook.
Dipsy is an app full of hundreds of short, sexy audio stories designed by women for women. They bring scenarios to life with immersive soundscapes and realistic characters. Discover stories about second-chance romances, adventurous vacation flings, and hot and heavy hookups. And there's even a growing library of fantasy series with vampires, Greek gods, and fairy smut to explore the bounds of your pleasure.
New content is released every week, so in between listening to your faves again and again and again, you can always find something brand new to explore. They also have soothing sleep stories, wellness sessions, and sexy written stories to read. Let Dipsy be your go-to place to spice up your me time, explore your fantasies, relax and unwind—
or even heat things up with a partner. For listeners of the show, Dipsy is offering an extended 30-day free trial when you go to dipsystories.com slash OPP. That's 30 days of full access for free when you go to dipsestories.com slash OPP.
Winter is here, it is freezing, and I've got a way for you to heat things up. Warm up those chilly nights with Dipsy. Picture this, a cozy blanket, a crackling fireplace, maybe a glass of wine, you listening to a sexy fantasy audiobook.
Dipsy is an app full of hundreds of short, sexy audio stories designed by women for women. They bring scenarios to life with immersive soundscapes and realistic characters. Discover stories about second-chance romances, adventurous vacation flings, and hot and heavy hookups. And there's even a growing library of fantasy series with vampires, Greek gods, and fairy smut to explore the bounds of your pleasure.
New content is released every week, so in between listening to your faves again and again and again, you can always find something brand new to explore. They also have soothing sleep stories, wellness sessions, and sexy written stories to read. Let Dipsy be your go-to place to spice up your me time, explore your fantasies, relax and unwind, or even heat things up with a partner. For listeners of the show, Dipsy is offering an extended 30-day free trial when you go to dipsystories.com slash OPP.
That's 30 days of full access for free when you go to D-I-P-S-E-A stories.com slash O-P-P. Dipsystories.com slash O-P-P. So, yeah. So, okay. So, we'll go ahead and get started. And I'm recording the Zoom here.
Back in episode one of this season, I mentioned that I didn't know a lot about Kansas City before working on this story. And there was a lot that surprised me in a really good way. It's a progressive, diverse, Midwestern city with an impressive art scene, free public transportation, and the best barbecue that there is, if you ask our executive producer, Colin. His wife is from St. Louis. But there's one person on our team who was already full of Kansas City pride.
I have thoroughly enjoyed all of the Kansas City discourse that has happened over the past few months because it is my favorite topic of conversation now as a Los Angeles citizen. Kansas City is my favorite thing to bring up. It wasn't like, oh, I wonder where Kate is from when you started working at Cass because it's just like, no, Kate loves Kansas City.
Who better than our producer Kate to help us dive a little deeper into season two? So we're going to talk about Kansas City some more. We're also going to tell you more about Robert Courtney's family. And we're going to go deeper into the question, could this happen again? From Cast Media, this is The Opportunist, a podcast about regular people who turn sinister simply by embracing opportunity. This is our epilogue episode for our series on Robert Courtney.
I'm Hannah Smith. I just thought it would be good for us to connect and talk for a little bit about the season because you're from Kansas City and you heard about this, you know, you had, you already knew about Robert Courtney and you were the one that suggested this as a season. So I kind of want to hear from your experience as a native Kansas Citian, how it was making this season.
Yeah. So, yes, I grew up in Kansas City and lived there until a couple years ago. I was too young to remember Robert Courtney getting arrested or anything like that. I don't remember what it was like being in Kansas City at the time, but growing up, it was definitely like...
someone whose name I would hear. And then, you know, as I got older, I learned more about who he was and what he had done. And it's kind of just been for me realizing over the years what an impact he had on the people I know and the place I grew up. Someone who I was really good friends with when I was little, his mom died
of cancer. I just remember hearing like my parents talk about how like the doctors had messed up or something like that. And then it wasn't until years later where I was able to put it together. Like, Oh no, like she had breast cancer and didn't receive her full, her full dose of chemotherapy. That's very likely why she didn't make it. So, and, and then, you know, fast forward to now, um,
working on the story, talking about the story with, you know, my friends and family. And if I said Robert Courtney and it didn't immediately register, all I would have to say is he was the pharmacist. And then people would be like, oh yeah. One of the things that impacted me the most about working on this season is how real all of this still is for so many people.
That might seem really obvious, but it just became so clear to me. This is not something that happened just in the 90s or in 2001. It's something that for a lot of people in Kansas City still affects their lives every day. Something I think about a lot actually is how one person can have such a negative impact on so many lives.
Early on, I had reached out to a family friend who had a family member die of cancer and who had Robert Courtney as a pharmacist. And, you know, I reached out to them to see if they'd be interested in talking to us. And, you know, they said that they couldn't. It was just, it was too hard. And, you know, so even 20 years later, like...
knowing that there are all of these people who I know who have just been, you know, holding this in their hearts. In spite of this enormous tragedy that devastated so many people in Kansas City, I have to say, I was surprised by how strong the community continues to be. People that I talk to, they're still open, trusting, and appear to believe the best about their neighbors. Everyone that we've talked to from Kansas City has been so nice,
So helpful, so friendly. It's really left a positive impression of the city on me. Good, because I think I can come on a little too strong with the Kansas City. Maybe a little bit aggressive. So I'm glad that we've talked to people, maybe balanced out that representation. Turns out it's not just Kate. This whole Kansas City pride thing runs really deep. Yeah, I've had several people text me being like, it's so cool hearing about Kansas City.
in the podcast and I'm like, yo, is it cool hearing my voice? What did they say? Like, well, yeah, but I hear your voice all the time. So, I mean, I think like it's a pretty, like pretty big consensus that people love hearing about Kansas City if you're from Kansas City. So if someone who's not from Kansas City says Kansas City, it's like,
It's the biggest rush you'll ever experience. So if we want to make sure to just like have a solid Kansas City base of listeners in the future, we just have to mention Kansas City in every single episode somehow going forward, no matter what the story is. That's exactly it. That's exactly it. Mention like the Royals or the Chiefs. Mention a sports team.
One thing I want to talk about that we didn't have time to fully explore in the season is Robert Courtney's family. This part of the story about how much they might have known or might have been involved in his fraud is really interesting to me. Oh, I'm fascinated by the family stuff. Like his dad, Robert Lee, or R.L. We talked about him being a pastor while Robert Courtney was growing up. Well, he played another role in this whole thing.
One of the most shocking things I think that we've learned was that his dad, R.L., was actually his bookkeeper at the pharmacy. So he, you know, was responsible for, I guess, keeping track of all of his finances and stuff. It's definitely suspicious. It's definitely suspicious, yeah. But then kind of like as, you know, we've thought about it more and talked about it and things, I think that...
He had his dad as the bookkeeper because his dad wasn't a bookkeeper, because he was a pastor, and so that he wouldn't maybe question him on sort of like the discrepancies. I asked everyone who was involved in the investigation that I spoke to about R.L., and they all said that as far as the investigation showed,
RL didn't know about anything. We also heard from different sources that Robert Courtney was very controlling, a very controlling pharmacy owner and pharmacist. And so he was controlling over everything that was done.
And someone suggested what you said as well is that it's easier to control someone that you know really well, like your father, who's also not a CPA, as opposed to someone that you hire from the outside who is probably going to ask questions if you're not totally transparent about your ordering or if numbers are not adding up.
And then there's Laura, his wife and the mother of his twin boys. Courtney maintained extensive control over their household's financial affairs, so it's not totally unreasonable to think that Laura might not have known anything either. I mean, I don't know. What do you think? Do you really think that she had no idea? I don't think that she knew that he was diluting people's chemotherapy drugs. But, I mean, yeah. I mean, do you think that maybe it's one of those situations where...
You know, you don't ask questions, but you know that your partner is bringing in a lot of money. But yeah, I don't think that she knew he was doing something as harmful as he was. You know, not judging anybody's choices, or I'm sure she had reasons to do so, but she at that point did not
divorce Robert Courtney even after he was, you know, even after he pled guilty. She filed for divorce in 2006. So some five years after he was arrested, she stayed with him. It's really hard to picture being in their position. You know, having your partner, son, father be, well, Robert Courtney. Yeah.
And I haven't been in that position, but I was very surprised when Robert's COVID, his request for a compassionate release, when I read that because it basically said I could live with this daughter or I could live with this daughter or, you know, like he has, he had like this whole, his whole family is still
like supporting him. And, you know, again, not here to judge anybody for how they respond to these things. But that was that was also pretty surprising to me. Oh, and while we're talking about Robert Courtney's family, I have to mention one more thing. It's this bizarre little detail. I'm just going to say it. Both of the sons were named after
So Robert Courtney had twin boys, both named Robert Courtney. So Robert Courtney and Robert Courtney. They had different middle names. One of them was like Robert Ray Courtney Jr. or something. And then the other one was like Robert something Courtney. So only one of them was technically a junior. And then the other one. Oh, wow. That's kind of weird too. Only one of them's a junior? Yeah.
It's so weird that he named both of them Robert Courtney. He certainly thought highly of himself. He really did. To name two of your twins, both, two of your children, your same exact name is, yeah, takes a certain kind of personality. I was going to name my cat Kate Jr., but then I thought that that was too self-centered of me, too narcissistic. So I decided against it.
Can you imagine having two cats, though, and both of them are named Kate? On a more serious note, I want to address something that I think is really important. I want to talk about regulation. Now, if you're worried that this part is going to be incredibly boring, well, I thought the same thing at first. I sort of begrudgingly started researching the laws that regulate medicine production and oversight in the U.S. because I felt that it was really important to answer the following question first.
With our current regulation, could something like Robert Courtney's dilution fraud happen again today? I wanted a really simple yes or no answer to that question. Actually, I really wanted a very clear no. Like, no, this is very unlikely to happen again because there have been appropriate changes made to the laws in order to protect us. Well, it wasn't that simple.
Instead, I fell down this rabbit hole and became somewhat obsessed with pharmaceutical regulation, which is just really unlike me. I'm usually obsessed with things like cults or murder stories or, I don't know, healing crystals, not Senate debates and the nitty gritty of pharmaceutical law. So why am I so intrigued?
Well, my initial question, could this happen again, had very quickly turned into a different question. Have I consumed unregulated medication without even knowing it?
It's a complicated truth about a real threat that actually hurts people. I'm sorry if you don't want to hear that, but it's just a true thing, and my job is to tell you that true thing. This is Jason Deren. I spoke with him after reading his book, Killshot, A Shadow Industry, A Deadly Disease. I highly recommend this book if you are interested in healthcare fraud. It's both thrilling and terrifying.
Dearin spent over three years researching for this book, and the book covers the case of the New England Compounding Center, or NECC. In 2012, NECC shipped 75 shipments of contaminated steroid shots to doctors' offices across the U.S., which caused an outbreak of fungal meningitis. One hundred people died, and many others still live with awful complications.
Doctors had actually never seen this type of fungal meningitis inside the human body prior to this event. Healthy people died within days and weeks of receiving the shots. These shots, they're supposed to be made in a sterile clean room. But the clean room at NACC was not kept at the correct temperature or cleaned properly. There are even reports from ex-employees that the clean room regularly had rat and fly infestations.
NECC was operating as a compounding pharmacy. It's really, it's this great American tragedy of a story. You know, it happened across all these different states. A lot of the victims were, you know, working class or elderly folks living in the South Mid-Atlantic and the Midwest. Most of the victims were in Michigan, Indiana, Tennessee.
Dieran spent time with many of the surviving victims, as well as the family members of those who died. He sat down with them and recorded their stories. That was one of the most heart-wrenching parts of the whole thing, is just seeing firsthand kind of what, when there's a mistake at one of these places, what it really does. And it really ruins everything.
If it doesn't kill you, it ruins your life. And then even for the ones who died, their families, of course, are just, you know, destroyed. And their faith in our healthcare system is forever changed. I mean, you know, they go to the doctor now and thinking in a completely different way.
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Commercially manufactured drugs are required by law to go through a rigorous FDA approval process, and typically it takes years for a drug to be approved. Compounded drugs, on the other hand, do not have to go through that approval process. Pharmacists can make drugs from scratch on-site for a customer as long as they have a doctor's prescription.
The way this was explained to me was that this is necessary for people who have unique needs. Like if someone has an allergy to an ingredient that's commonly found in manufactured drugs, they can go to a compounding pharmacist to get their medication. Or maybe a kid has trouble taking medication. A pharmacist can add flavoring to it to make it more palatable. The thing is, quality control is difficult with compounded drugs.
If a drug is made on site, there's really no way to test it before it goes out to the consumer. So there aren't requirements for FDA approval of compounded drugs. But also compounding was originally thought of as this very small percentage of the drugs being made in the U.S., really just for people with very unique needs.
But that is not what's happening. That is so far from where we are today. Compounding is no longer this niche sliver of the industry. There are tons of drugs being compounded in the U.S. today. For example, many steroids, hormone therapy medications, and topical pain creams are compounded.
And these aren't just being sold at compounding pharmacies. They're being shipped to hospitals and doctor's offices. Sometimes doctors don't even know that they are using compounded drugs. So how did this happen?
From my understanding, back in the 1800s, it was like everything was compounding, really. And then came commercially manufactured drugs, and that sort of became the standard. But then in the 90s, when big box pharmacy was taking over, the independent pharmacy came.
started to compound again as a way to sort of compete. But that's really like my very crude, basic understanding of what the situation was. Maybe you can kind of give us a few more details. Yeah, and that's all pretty accurate. I think, you know, it goes a little deeper and it's a little more insidious. The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 was started after a terrible accident.
basically a pharmacy error. It was a pharmacist chemist who made a poisonous cough syrup that killed a bunch of kids and adults across America. And that caused such a huge
outpouring of rage that FDR ended up getting a bill and he signed it that completely overhauled the way drugs were made in American. So it's like most drugs in America are going to be made now by FDA approved manufacturers, but there's still a need for customization for people with allergies. And so that's where pharmacy compounding kind of legally sat for most of the 20th century.
But as time went on, the pharmaceutical industry changed, like so many industries. Perhaps partially as an unintended result of the rigorous FDA regulations, drugs became more expensive to manufacture. And then, slowly, fewer and fewer companies took over the majority of the drug manufacturing in the U.S.
Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, these big companies that have those FDA approvals and have the money that results from that basically take over medicine making in the world. Pharmacies essentially became distribution hubs for big pharma products. And some pharmacists didn't like that. And so they started to look for ways to change it up and honestly, for ways to make more money. And one way was by compounding drugs.
The big companies like Pfizer don't compound drugs. All of their drugs are FDA approved. The small guy, the independent chemist or pharmacist, saw an opening in the market, a way to compete with big pharma. They have access to chemicals, which are called APIs, active pharmaceutical ingredients. And so they have these chemicals on their shelves and they can compound legally.
But then in the 1980s and 1990s, a couple of big companies figured out that they could legally manufacture drugs without FDA regulation, simply by calling it compounding. This is what the New England Compounding Center was doing. The only problem? They needed a doctor's prescription for every drug that they compounded. But
They came up with a workaround. They created order forms with thousands of prescriptions and then obtained one doctor's signature on the form. And that became...
A super lucrative business in the 90s, a new business, totally under the radar because no one had ever done this before. But FDA caught wind of it in like 92, 93 and issued its first guidance at that time that warned the public and the industry, hey, we've got our eye on you. And you're making and mass producing drugs that aren't FDA approved. And there's a lot of inherent danger.
In 1997, Congress enacted the FDA Modernization Act of 1997 that would limit this growing industry, specifically by preventing compounding pharmacies from advertising their services. But by that time, there was a powerful compounding lobby and the industry sued. And after that, basically, FDA's supervision role was peeled back.
And in the 2000s, you see FDA basically throw their hands up and say, we can't do this. And so states are left as thousands and thousands of these new
entities called compounding pharmacies, but really drug manufacturers, but they call themselves compounding pharmacies. They proliferate and make more and more drugs. And there are an untold number of patient deaths, injuries, maimings due to these hastily made, sometimes shoddily made drugs.
After the NECC incident of 2012, there was a new bill signed into law by Congress, the Drug Quality and Security Act. It limited the ability of compounding pharmacies to sell drugs across state lines. Initially, the law was written so that it would require every compounding pharmacy in the U.S. to report to the FDA, which included reporting adverse events as well as information about what they were compounding.
Again, the compounding lobby was able to have this removed. That means that compounding pharmacies have to choose to report to the FDA. It's a voluntary program. It's not required. And a major downside to that is that no one actually knows how many drugs are being compounded in the U.S. There is zero data on this.
In 2020, a study funded by the Pew Charitable Trust identified over 1,500 adverse events associated with compounding errors from 2001 to 2019. For example, in 2017, at least 43 people lost their vision from a contaminated injectable antibiotic that is administered in the eye. That same year, 41 people got septic arthritis from contaminated injectables.
I guess, you know, a question that came to my mind as a consumer was, is it possible that I have taken a product, a drug that's been compounded without my knowledge? Absolutely. One of the kind of most frightening things I learned in reporting my book, and what you're learning reporting your podcast, is that doctors often don't know
if they're prescribing you or administering to you a compounded drug rather than the FDA-approved version.
And the only way you can learn that is by asking. And so there's no labeling requirements on a lot of these compounded drugs too. And you know, it's easy to get really worked up about this stuff, and I'm not trying to scare anyone. But I was just really surprised by what I learned, especially the fact that with the new Drug Quality and Security Act, sometimes compounding pharmacies are making near replicas of existing FDA-approved drugs.
They just have to change one ingredient and then they can say it's compounded and they make so much more money not going through the FDA regulation process. I would like to know that someone somewhere is checking that the medicine that I put into my body is safe.
You know, I always liken it to like you go to a market to the organic section and you get an avocado. There's a sticker on it that says this is certified organic. It's from Mexico. Like, you know where it's from, that it's been certified by regulators. There's some sort of like...
supply chain tracking of that. And there's just none of that for drugs that are injected into your body, all these drugs made at compounding pharmacies. And so for me, I would love to see some sort of mandatory registration and mandatory reporting of how many of these drugs that they're making and where they're sending them. And I think that would be a good starting point.
Even pharmacists agree with this. Remember Dennis Hendershot from episode one? His pharmacy has a soda shop inside of it. And he's kind of an old school pharmacist kind of guy. Like when I told him that I'm a podcast producer, he wasn't really sure what that meant or how to listen to a podcast. But he was incredibly helpful and he seems like an upstanding guy. And he's a compounding pharmacist. But he told me that Missouri has increased their regulation since Robert Courtney.
He thinks it's probably a good thing, but he also said that it has made his job harder. There are so many things that we have to do now. And I'm talking more now about compounding as opposed to just traditional pharmacy. Right. Compounding could be anything from making topical creams,
to hormone therapy replacement to IVs, whatever it might be, internal therapy. All of those things have become
Doing all the paperwork prior to actually making the product is the biggest portion of our time spent. Wow. And so, therefore, the prices have had to go up. Dennis said he used to be able to make a compounded prescription in about seven or eight minutes. Now it takes him about 40 minutes because of all of the record-keeping and paperwork that's now required to track compounding in Missouri.
But that extra time has really cost him. He tried to cover the cost of that himself initially, but it would have put him out of business. So he had to pass it along to his customers. Okay, so you've probably heard of microdosing. But if not, just know that all sorts of people are microdosing to feel healthier and perform better. Microdose gummies deliver perfect entry-level doses of THC that help you feel just the right amount of good.
And I love how helpful these gummies are. For me, half a microdose gummy during the day helps me stay centered and fresh as I get everything done on my list. They also help me relax at night and be really present in the moment instead of worrying about things from that day or worrying about what's coming tomorrow.
It's a feeling of mind and body relaxation and focus that I absolutely adore. They really do taste amazing and feel so good. I've used them to help me get in the zone when I'm doing creative work at night, and they help me wind down, chill out, also sleep like a baby, which is the best.
All around, it's a 10 out of 10 for me. Right now, you can get 30% off your first order, plus free shipping today at microdose.com, promo code opportunist. It's available nationwide. That's microdose.com, promo code opportunist, for 30% off and free shipping. microdose.com, promo code opportunist.
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I also spoke with Kevin Kincaid. He was the executive director of the Missouri Board of Pharmacy from 1984 to 2006, meaning he was the executive director of the Missouri Board of Pharmacy when Robert Courtney was caught. At that time, inspections were probably...
At best, once a year, because we had about five inspectors and we had over 1,300 pharmacies. And it takes several hours to go through a pharmacy and hit everything that you need to look at. After Robert Courtney, Kevin Kincaid reviewed the regulations in Missouri to see if there was anything that they could do to prevent this from happening again. But to a certain degree, if you have a corrupt player like Courtney, there's only so much you can do.
And unless you would be standing right there seeing that, or somebody else turned him in that worked with him, unless something like that would happen, even with additional laws, it's very difficult to really catch something like that when it's going on. Someone usually has to let the agency know that something's wrong. Missouri has made some changes since 2001.
Sterile product regulations were enacted. We also increased our inspection staff so we had more inspectors and all of our inspectors in Missouri are pharmacists. So that way they have an expertise level already as to what to look for. But we also provided additional training because even some of the inspectors before Courtney didn't have any experience with sterile products.
The most effective change Missouri has made is the implementation of random anonymous testing of compounding pharmacies. Do you think that this random testing that Missouri has put into place, do you think that's a good safeguard against anything like Robert Courtney happening again in Missouri? I do. I would never sit here and say that anything we did
would ensure 100% that nothing like that could happen again. First of all, I would like to think as a pharmacist myself, that he was an aberration, that he was a person that we'll never see again anywhere that would try something like this. - But the real question is, would Missouri's current inspection process have caught Robert Courtney?
Well, that's probably the hardest question of all, but one I was expecting. I don't, if you're talking about a routine inspection, even with the rules we have now, I doubt if we would have caught him right away because he did all of the work himself. He had other people working for him. He had technicians and other pharmacists.
But there was no evidence ever garnered in their investigation that showed any of those folks were ever allowed to do the compounding. He came in, Courtney came in, and did all that himself. And so whatever procedures he used to dilute those medications, no one else knew about it. Kevin said that in all of his time working on the regulatory side of pharmacy, he's never encountered anything even close to the Robert Courtney situation.
But since Missouri implemented randomized testing, they have had many instances in which compounding pharmacies are just not up to code with their sterilization.
But you do have situations out there, even unbeknownst to the people who are compounding these products sometimes, that their quality control measures aren't where they should be. And then something happens. And we do see that. And I think that made a big difference in how often or how much that would occur because pharmacies then paid a lot more attention to quality control and quality assurance issues.
And I might say most pharmacists welcomed it. They wanted to know if their products were in fact, you know, up to the standards required under USP or under the law. That sounds like a great system. Just to be clear, that is just for Missouri, right? That is just for Missouri. Okay. So that's not, not every state has that same random testing. No. And, yeah,
I was a little surprised that more states didn't, even though Courtney was our problem here in Missouri, that obviously it had even, it was international ramifications as far as the coverage of the case and what pharmacy as a profession had to deal with at the time. And I gave several talks on what we did in Missouri where other states were present and listened, but
To my knowledge today, Texas is the only other state that I know of that has opened a random testing program. For the most part, pharmacies are regulated by state pharmacy boards. They're not regulated so much federally.
And there's no law in place that requires state boards to test compounding pharmacies. Every state is different. The FDA has made some changes nationally. For instance, there's now a list of medications that are illegal to compound because they're deemed too risky and too hazardous if something were to go wrong. I have to say, I spoke with multiple pharmacists who specialize in compounding, as well as investigative reporters who have looked into this topic and lawmakers, and I asked all of them the same question.
With our current laws, could something like this happen again? Unfortunately, the answer across the board was yes, absolutely it could. One person who previously worked at the FDA but wishes to remain anonymous answered this question by saying, not only could it happen again, it is likely to be happening right now. We simply lack the infrastructure to detect.
Kevin Kincaid told me that he would like to see every state implement random testing of compounding pharmacies. But in the meantime... What would you recommend people do? I guess my advice for consumers, and this would be for any compounding, not just sterile product compounding, but...
You know, like anything else, educate yourself on what you're getting and make sure that the pharmacy that you're taking this to knows what they have that is involved in this type of compounding and knows what they're doing. Ask questions about
Do they commonly compound this prescription? Do they have people who know how to compound it? And in some states, you can even ask to see inspection reports to see what they've been cited for, if anything, in those states. Now, that's not always available, but sometimes it is.
And then also not just talking to your pharmacist, but talking to your doctor. For instance, why are we using... I'm a real advocate for compounding. I think it's an important service. But you can also ask your prescriber, why are we using this product instead of a manufactured product? I guess the silver lining in all of this is that there are people who are paying attention. People like Kevin Kincaid, people like Jason Deren, and many others who...
There's much more awareness on the topic now than there used to be. And with awareness comes change. The Robert Courtney case rocked the foundation of trust that people once placed in pharmacists.
For those who were personally affected by Robert Courtney, even 20 years later, they're still experiencing the repercussions of his actions, still mourning the premature loss of loved ones. And I think for a lot of the family members of victims that I've spoken with, you know, a lot of them feel like, yeah, just that, you know, justice was served, but they're worried that this could have happened and it could happen again.
And I'm curious what your thoughts are on that. You're asking that question of someone who spent his entire professional career chasing after bad guys. This is former U.S. Attorney Gene Porter. We heard from him a lot this season. And so my answer is framed by that experience. And the answer is, it's also...
framed by my face. If there's a way for human beings to screw something up, we will. And we are sin-burdened creatures. And some people are more readily willing to acknowledge
So many people that I talked to for this story referenced their faith. Some people spoke about finding comfort in the belief that Robert Courtney would be judged properly by God.
Others about the confusion and difficulty in understanding how a person could do something so terrible and how they found comfort by turning to their faith. It's notable to me because I think it shows how truly despicable Robert Courtney's actions were, how much damage he caused, and how that's really difficult to reconcile. I'm reminded of this conversation I had with Clay Withers. He's a pastor in Kansas City.
His mother was in the middle of chemotherapy treatment when the news came out about Robert Courtney. We heard from him earlier in the season. By the time they realized his mother had been receiving subpotent chemotherapy, it was too late. Her cancer was too far advanced. And I actually, I spoke with Clay about the final months of his mother's life. What was that time like with your mother? Because you said that in October, it became fairly clear to everyone that
she wasn't gonna get better. That's very true. Well, I will tell you that there's a lot of natural, normal response to injustice. There was anger. Now, I'm talking about on my part. There was anger. There was a lot of resentment. There was a growing feeling of almost revenge
in my life. And as a pastor, that did not go along with what I had spoken about, what I had taught. And it, for some reason, when it's personal, it's different. Clay said when he was confronted by the reality that Robert Courtney had stolen life, stolen time from his mother, he didn't know how to reconcile that. And the single thing that
Today, and now looking back 20, 20 years plus, my mom's dealing personally with her own demise, her own health that had been strong her whole life, just literally down the drain. And obviously, with no chance of getting any better, my mom, the way she dealt with that is she and I talked about it a lot.
At a certain point, it became very clear that his mother only had a short time to live. I started going into work late, leaving early at times, spending some evenings there, and my mom and I talked a lot. And my mom and I probably never did this unless I was when I was a child, but we...
spent quite a bit of time praying together during that period of time, during those weeks. And my mom's prayers did not sound like mine. What do you mean by that? Well, my prayers were that God would somehow heal her miraculously. And I was angry and I was very resentful of Dr. Courtney. And my mom's prayers were not for herself at all.
She prayed for me. She prayed for our family. She prayed for Dr. Courtney and his family. It was unreal. You know, forgiveness for me pretty much was, well, you have to say that you forgive somebody. But that doesn't change anything, does it? That doesn't relieve the actual living with pain and regret and loss.
So you have to practice that art of forgiving every time the thought comes back, every time somebody recalls his name. And man, in those early years, those first five to 10 years, people ask me about Dr. Courtney, about the court case, about my mom's death. They ask me about it all the time. So I was confronted with that on a regular, sometimes daily basis.
So the only way forgiveness really had any power in my life was I had to practice it every time the thoughts returned. I admit I struggle with this idea. The message of forgiveness is complicated. It's always come across to me as a way to excuse bad behavior, or even sometimes it minimizes the very real pain of the people who have been hurt.
But it seems to me that Clay's version of forgiveness is more about trying to free himself from the grip of hatred and revenge. Because, as he said, those emotions can overtake a person. Forgiving him was not about looking over it or ignoring it or acting like it didn't happen. No, the power of forgiveness is recognizing how bad it was.
and not trying to excuse it or even not think about it. First of all, that's impossible. It's impossible not to think about it. But what you do with those thoughts is where you get free. And that's what helped me more than anything else. But I didn't come up with that on my own. My mom helped me see what it looked like, hear what it sounded like, and see the fruit of that in her life.
Clay got something that many of the other victims never got. He found out about Courtney's crime while his mother was still alive. He was able to process it with her, and she gave him the gift of closure. She showed him the path to living without being consumed by anger, even in the final moments of her life. ♪
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