I saw evil in Jesse’s eyes when he was just 18 – yet they let him walk free… After unthinkable tragedy, KRYSTLE STRONG exposes the spineless authorities who allowed a madman to claim SIX innocent lives

Jeering, Jesse McFadden pointed at my backside as I got off the sofa.

‘Look at her ass, it’s flat like a hatchback,’ he laughed.

His girlfriend Holly laughed, too.

‘I’m leaving,’ I told her, reddening. ‘He’s weird.’

Holly and I were both 15, Jesse 18. We’d all attended to the same school but Holly and I had drifted apart in our teens. It was a familiar story: I got good grades and wanted to be a lawyer; she mixed with a bad crowd.

Then I’d made the mistake of hanging out with her again. It wasn’t just her. Jesse, her older boyfriend, creeped me out. I hated being around him.

A few years later, aged 17, I went to a party but left early, feeling unwell, even though I had not drunk much, so I got a lift home.

My parents were out and it was just me in the house. I was resting on the couch later that night when someone banged on the door. 

Krystle Strong (pictured) tried to tell the world Jesse McFadden was a predator who couldn’t be reformed. After he was granted early release, he took six innocent lives

Opening it a crack, I saw Jesse standing there. ‘What do you want?’ I snapped at him.

‘Holly’s kicked me. I’ve got nowhere to go. Let me in,’ he pleaded. I shrugged and told him that wasn’t my problem.

Then Jesse shoved the door open and forced a sock in my mouth.

‘What the f*** are you doing?’ I yelled. He then retreated, flashed a sick grin and said, ‘Just kidding.’

‘You’re weird,’ I said, slumping back on the couch.

I’d let my guard down – Jesse wasn’t finished. Moments later he suddenly lunged forward, grabbed my arm and dragged me to my bedroom.

He threw me down and tied me to the bed with belts and my dad’s bungee cord.

‘Get off!’ I screamed as he tore off my clothes. He stuck a knife at my throat.

Sex offender Jesse McFadden (pictured) raped Krystle when she was just 17. Years later he would be released from prison, only to commit mass murder in a small Oklahoma town

‘If you don’t shut your mouth, I will kill you right now.’

Play along. It’s the only way you’ll get out of this alive, I thought to myself.

‘Jesse, do whatever you need to do, then get out,’ I trembled.

I felt a sharp pain and my mind went somewhere else as I entered survival mode. I don’t know how long it lasted, but it felt like an eternity.

‘Jesse, untie me. I promise I won’t tell Holly,’ I pleaded after he finished.

Eventually, he untied me. I sat naked, hugging myself as he paced the bedroom.

‘We’re friends, Jesse,’ I said, trying to calm him down.

‘Go shower, scrub yourself,’ he ordered. ‘And put your clothes in the washing machine.’

I picked them up and hurried out to the laundry.

Throwing them my clothes on the washing machine I bolted out the back door and ran for my life to a neighbour.

‘Oh, my God! Are you okay?’ she gasped as I burst into her home.

‘Jesse just raped me,’ I cried. ‘He’s at the house. Call the cops.’

Police arrived but he was gone. Later they found him on the banks of a nearby river. He’d slit his wrists.

A teenage Krystle is pictured at about the age she was attacked by Jesse McFadden

‘Good. Is he dead?’ I asked. The officer said he was alive and being questioned.

Meanwhile, I went to hospital and received shattering news.

‘Krystle, I’m afraid your attacker caused irreparable internal damage,’ the doctor said after my examination.

I had a vague memory of Jesse putting things inside me, including a battery, but I’d totally blocked it out.

Weeks later a woman from the prosecutor’s office called me to ask how I was doing. I told her I’d been diagnosed with PTSD and anxiety and was in counselling.

Then she said something that made my jaw hit the floor. She told me Jesse had been high when he savagely attacked me, and that perhaps if he hadn’t been under the influence of drugs, it might not have happened.

‘Maybe you can write a letter to each other?’ she suggested.

I was speechless. Whether he’d been high or not made no difference at all.

And the letter suggestion was offensive. It was as if she was saying my brutal rape was a misunderstanding over consent. She made me feel even worse.

In a meeting with the District Attorney, I learned for the first time that I would never be able to have children after what Jesse had done to me. I was devastated.

In November 2003, Jesse pleaded no contest to raping me. I didn’t have to give evidence. He was jailed for 20 years.

Soon afterwards, despite what the DA had said, I fell pregnant to my then-boyfriend.

I was 18 when I had my first daughter. Miraculously, another followed 16 months later, after which we moved away for a fresh start.

In 2012, when my eldest was eight and I was pregnant with another daughter, someone from the prosecutor’s office called me.

Jesse was appealing his sentence and seeking early release.

‘Like hell,’ I fumed. ‘That’s not happening. I’ll stand up in court and make sure he doesn’t get out.’

I never heard back, so I assumed his bid for freedom had failed.

Years passed. I separated from the father of my children and found a new partner, with whom I welcomed another child, a little boy, in 2017. Now I was a mother of four.

In late 2020, I was at my mother’s house watching the news on television when Jesse’s name flashed on the screen.

He was being released from prison, despite facing a new charge of smuggling a phone into prison three years earlier. He had used the device to send sexual messages to a 16-year-old girl.

‘Oh my God!’ I screamed.

‘What’s wrong?’ asked my mother.

‘They’re letting Jesse out,’ I sobbed.

I called the prison and spoke to an official. I begged them not to let him out.

‘He’s in his late 30s now and he’s still going after kids. He hasn’t served his 20 years for what he did to me.’

I was told he wouldn’t be released and would likely get more time. But it didn’t reassure me – I knew it wasn’t up to the prison staff to decide who was granted early release.

When he was transferred, I called the new prison to register my concerns, and the one after that when he was transferred again.

The authorities were supposed to tell me when he was released. Because I never heard from them, I assumed my protests had worked.

Fourteen-year-old Ivy Webster (pictured) was one of the people found dead on a Oklahoma property near the rural town of Henryetta. She was among McFadden’s victims

Ivy’s friend Brittany Brewer (pictured), 16, was also found dead. She was planning to represent her town at a state beauty pageant that summer

At Easter 2022, my family gathered at my aunt’s place in the small town of Henryetta.

A year later, on April 30, 2023, Henryetta was in the news: two girls, Ivy Webster, 14, and Brittany Brewer, 15, were missing there.

My stepmother called me later that day while I was grocery shopping.

‘Krystle, I’m sending you a link,’ she said. ‘They think Jesse has those girls.’

‘Jesse? No. He’s still in jail,’ I said confidently.

‘No, honey,’ she said, ‘They let him out.’

Sobbing all the way home, I pulled over to vomit repeatedly.

I tracked down Ivy’s mother Ashleigh from news reports and called her.

‘You’ve got to get those girls as far away from that man as possible,’ I said.

‘What do you mean?’ she asked.

‘I was his first victim. He raped me at 17,’ I said. ‘He’s supposed to still be in prison.’

She gasped. ‘I didn’t know.’

She told me the girls had gone to Jesse’s house for a sleepover.

They were friends with his wife Holly’s children, Rylee, 17, Michael, 15 and Tiffany, 13.

‘He has a wife?’ I blurted. ‘And she’s called Holly?’

Holly Guess, 35, and her children Rylee Elizabeth Allen (right), 17; Michael James Mayo (middle), 15; and Tiffany Dore Guess (left), 13 were the other teens killed in the rampage

I initially thought it was my old friend Holly, but soon realised the name was just a twisted coincidence.

Somehow, Jesse had been freed from prison – then allowed to marry a woman with two teenage daughters.

Hours later, I was watching the news when I saw Ivy and Brittany’s bodies had been found near woods at Jesse and Holly’s rural home.

They’d been shot dead. 

Nearby were the bodies of Holly, Jesse and Holly’s three children.

I called my mother, distraught.

‘Those poor babies,’ I sobbed. ‘Why did nobody listen to me?’

A shiver ran down my spine as I remembered being in Henryetta the year before for the family gathering.

What if I’d bumped into Jesse?

News reports said he had been released after all in 2020, despite my protests. He had married Holly two years later.

His trial for the sexting case was supposed to begin on the day the bodies were found.

I couldn’t stop crying for those kids.

I felt a bond with Ivy’s mother and father Justin, so went to see them.

‘We never knew anything. We just thought he was a normal guy,’ Justin wept and trembled as he hugged me.

‘If I’d known he was free I’d have plastered the whole town with posters of his face,’ I cried.

There were questions about how much Jesse’s wife Holly knew of his past, especially as drugs, sex toys and BDSM paraphernalia was found in his house.

I ended up speaking to one of Holly’s relatives, who assured me she did not know the full story.

Jesse had apparently told his wife we’d had consensual sex and I’d falsely accused him of rape, which led to his charge and conviction.

Incredibly, he’d even introduced Holly to a woman who’d posed as me and claimed the ‘rape’ was all a big misunderstanding.

Somehow, he’d been able to persuade a woman to pretend to be me to help explain his criminal past. To this day, I have no idea who that woman was.

When the autopsy reports were made public, I learned the news I’d been dreading: Jesse had sexually assaulted some of the girls.

My heart broke. I still couldn’t believe this had happened.

It’s time survivors like me were listened to. After all, we know better than anyone what predators are capable of, says Krystle (pictured in a recent photo)

Unbelievably, nobody in authority had tried to prevent the early release of a violent rapist who was facing fresh charges for sexting a teenager behind bars.

And nobody told me, his first victim, he had been released.

Then, in a final and tragic mistake, nobody stopped him from marrying a woman with teenage daughters.

I hope Ivy and Brittany’s parents sue the authorities for millions.

They’ve already got a bill passed in the Oklahoma House of Representatives to make sure sex offenders serve 100 per cent of their sentence.

It’s time survivors like me were listened to. After all, we know better than anyone what predators are capable of.

If only someone had listened to me, those poor babies would still be alive.

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