Adults in the Room: Jonathan

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This episode includes descriptions of abuse and discussion of suicide.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988 for the suicide and crisis lifeline or contact the crisis text line by texting, talk, T-A-L-K to 741-741. Please take care while listening.

“On February 6th, 2000, the Sunday after Garfield High School Science teacher, Tom Hudson died,”

the Seattle Times published two stories about him. If you opened the paper that morning, you would have read that this celebrated educator. The leader of the school's renowned outdoors club was suspended after apparent complaint about his conduct. That the school district dragged out a month's long investigation into his alleged abuse of boys, and that Mr. Hudson who dedicated his whole world

to young people was in agony being isolated from his students, so he took his own life. One of the stories was a fawning portrait written by a news columnist who clearly believed Mr. Hudson had been wronged. The columnist referenced ancient grace when a famed philosopher was put on trial

“for his unorthodox teachings, like Socrates Shiro, Hudson walked aligned with rulemakers.”

But it was the last sentence of the column that made me go cold. I ran to my dad, holding the newspaper. My dad scanned the piece, his eyes growing wide. He read the final paragraph

aloud slowly in disbelief. It may never be known if the allegations were true. Only that they

likely played a part in killing a teacher best known for showing his students how to survive. What those Seattle Times stories didn't say is that the original complaint made against Mr. Hudson came from me. That I urged my mom to call the authorities after Ella Hushagan, my best friend, told me Mr. Hudson had pressured boys to look at porn and shower with them. Ella and I had done what we thought was right. But now one of the city's major daily newspapers

had taken angry whispers, printed them, and in so doing put a target on both our backs. Soon after Mr. Hudson died, the district superintendent ended the investigation, saying it wouldn't be fair to continue because Mr. Hudson couldn't defend himself. So for the last year and a half, I've been trying to complete the investigation that was cut short. It's been like having a 1000 piece puzzle dumped on the table, but with some pieces missing

and no box cover as a guide. I collected records and talked with some former classmates, but to answer the questions I've carried with me for so long, I had to go into Mr. Hudson's inner circle. I reached out to the former president of post-84. That's when I discovered how little I really knew about those seminal events from my past. He told me how, at age 17, he was forced into the role of Mr. Hudson's confidant

in the final months of his life. How he thought to keep Mr. Hudson alive and how, like Ella and me, he's carried the weight of those tragic days well into adulthood. All this time, our former classmates hadn't thought of us as responsible for Mr. Hudson's death, because he's blamed himself. From KOW Public Radio in Seattle, I'm Isolder aftery. This is adults in the room, episode 4.

Jonathan.

Today, it's typically reserved for famous authors passing through the city on book tours.

“Picture a domed ceiling, stained glass windows, and a sea of long, curving oak pews.”

A thousand people packed in, shoulder to shoulder to honor Mr. Hudson. Kids from post-84 sat on the floor at the front of this grand space, Chris Cross Apple saws wearing fern crowns. But this wasn't the only service the post-84 students attended for their leader. They had gathered the weekend before in a forest outside Seattle for their own private remembrance. Under the Evergreen's dripping with likened a campfire crackled as the

teens, many in wool pants bought for cheap at the military surplus store downtown shared memories of their beloved instructor. He trusted us to take care of each other, to teach each other to give us the skills to be able to deal. My friend Maria sent me a VHS tape from this woodsy tribute. The video runs for half an hour. Students reminisced about Mr. Hudson controlling them to ballet offer rock face, delivering

snickers bars to hungry campers after a night alone in the soggy woods. And handing out a chain saw, like it was no big deal. This guy just gave me a chain saw. I'm going to kill myself. I'm not going to go home, my parents are really mad. After watching the U-Lid jeans, I noticed a common thread. Many of these kids were nervous, shy, even. There's a recurring pattern of Mr. Hudson pulling introverted students out of their

shells and into some new ridiculous scenario they'd never been in before. But he didn't ask

kids to do these things. He made them. That's totally freaked me out and I looked at Tom. As all of you guys know, you know, when you look at Tom, he tells you to do something. I mean, there's nothing you can really do about it. He volunteers me to do the programs. He makes your volunteering me, but telling me I was going to do it. During our senior year, Jonathan Hill was the president of post 84. Mr. Hudson had recruited

him as a freshman when Jonathan was just a quiet band nerd. When there was a trip coming up, he didn't approach me and say, Jonathan, are you interested in doing this? Jonathan, I signed you up. I can't wait for you to join. And me still as a pretty timid, small guy at the time and Tom being a very authoritative teacher, you know, charismatic and and all that.

It was hard for me to say no. Jonathan said being volunteer was uncomfortable at first,

but with each trip, he could feel his confidence and his bond with Mr. Hudson grow.

“Are you glad that he did that? Because yes, yes. Like he is there two ways to look at it, right?”

One is like, it's too forceful. Or he saw in you, I've got to push this kid harder. Yep. I think it was both of those things. Tom took the post and our programs, very, very, very serious. And he recognized that for the program to be successful, he needed talent. And I do think he saw that in me. And when I certainly did not see it in myself, I do think another reason he pressured me into joining the post was like he wanted to be around me more.

By the time Jonathan was a sophomore, he devoted almost all of his free time to post 84, which meant he was around Mr. Hudson a lot. So it wasn't surprising when Mr. Hudson invited Jonathan to play Racketball one day after school. You've heard a story like this one a few times already. We played Racketball and it was fine. It was kind of fun. But then in the locker room after needing to change back into clothes, there was a shower and he was like okay, we're going to shower.

“Again, it wasn't hey Jonathan, do you want to take a shower after it's we're going to take a shower now?”

I was just like, yeah, I can just, you know, so I brought up my swimsuit and he said to me, Jonathan, we don't wear swimsuits in the shower. And that made me so uncomfortable. And I put on my swimsuit anyway. And I was like, okay, we're shower again. And, you know, he went into the shower area naked and I picked the farthest shower away. And I went against him,

that Mr. Hudson would likely pressure him into the shower. Jonathan told me he was risk-averse in

general. The kind of kid who would bring swim trunks along to a gem just in case he might need them. Regardless, that shower changed how Jonathan saw his teacher. He still admired Mr. Hudson as a mentor and he still loved post 84. But after that day, Jonathan decided he didn't want to spend time with Mr. Hudson alone. He still helped me grow into a confident person. He just was transformationaly good for me before and after that rack-up ball experience. But I, you know,

age 16, 17, I was like, okay, Jonathan, here's the plan. You're going to have a business relationship

“with Tom. And I thought that at the time, that's how I'm going to be safe.”

By his junior year, Jonathan had seen Mr. Hudson coax other boys into showering with him naked

after post 84 scuba trunks. And he'd heard from friends in the club that Mr. Hudson had slapped boys butts in the shower. These stories made Jonathan uncomfortable. But instead of blaming Mr. Hudson for that feeling, he believed something was wrong with him. He was an anxious kid and Mr. Hudson was so confident and all knowing. Maybe he was the weird one for not being chill enough to take off his swim trunks in the shower. None of the other guys seemed to think Mr. Hudson's

behavior was a big deal. So Jonathan kept to himself, but felt like he was walking a tightrope

as he balanced the risks and rewards of working closely with Mr. Hudson. And, you know, in hindsight,

“I think I pulled that off pretty well until senior year. Just ahead of senior year, Mr. Hudson told”

Jonathan that he'd be the new president of post 84. In that moment, neither could have foreseen that Mr. Hudson would soon be placed on leave, that a formal investigation into his behavior would be launched, complicating their relationship even more. And that in the thick of it all, Jonathan would be drawn deeper into Mr. Hudson's orbit with a force that would take him decades to overcome.

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At the start of our senior year at Garfield High School, post 84 drew more students than ever before. But Jonathan noticed something was off about Mr. Hudson. The daring rescue on Mount Olympus, which I described in episode 1, happened almost exactly one year before. Jonathan had avoided that trip, so he wasn't there to help his friends save Mr. Hudson's life. After he fell into a deep crack in the ice. Publicly, Mr. Hudson said the rescue was a success.

He touted the survival skills of the students he trained. But behind the scenes, Mr. Hudson seemed deeply shaken by the accident. That event really messed with Tom,

“messed with his mind and his sense of self. I think he had an invincibility complex where he thought,”

you know, he could get away with things and that things wouldn't get in his way. He told me that, you know, he wasn't going to see his doctor even though his knee was messed up from the fall. You know, it was telling me he takes 20 ibuprofen a day. Okay, that's not healthy. Why do you tell me that? And he became more volatile. Jonathan heard that Mr. Hudson had kicked another club member in anger and saw that Mr. Hudson was now using his personal boat for post-84 activities,

which made Jonathan nervous. Kids would be alone with him, isolated on the open water. Jonathan remembers feeling overwhelmed by these changes in Mr. Hudson's behavior and whether it would hurt post-84. I think I was more just worried about what would happen, either to Tom or the program or to the students or whatever, and I was just like,

Jonathan didn't share his concerns with anyone. I feel bad saying it, but like,

“even at the beginning of senior year, I was like, okay, I've ate more months of Tom. I can get through this.”

I was still very appreciative for him, but I already. I was like, I'm looking forward to not being around Tom anymore. Why before Thanksgiving break, Jonathan learned the school district was poised to investigate Mr. Hudson. He doesn't remember who told him about this or why, but he and fellow post-84 remember Rosie Bencroft went to Mr. Hudson's classroom. Without thinking, I felt that I needed

to tell Tom. It was my responsibility to tell him, if I have information that affects him or our program. And it wasn't a debate in my mind. In hindsight, it's like, Jonathan, why? And I was 17. I was a few months away from my 18th birthday. I walked into Tom's office as a Tom. I've something to tell you. And he seemed like he was already having a bad day, like he was just low energy andlethargic. And we sat down. And I said, Tom, I've learned that the school district is

“starting an investigation. And I think they're going to look into how you've been interacting with”

us students. And he looked at me and just some of the color went out of his face. And he slowly

closed his eyes. And then he slowly said, I want to keep these eyes closed and never open them again.

Sifting through school records from that time, I found a letter from the district to Mr. Hudson dated just before Thanksgiving. It broke the same news that Jonathan felt compelled to share with him. Mr. Hudson already knew he was in trouble. After Thanksgiving, Mr. Hudson didn't return to school. Jonathan kept thinking about how to feed it his teacher seemed when they talked about the investigation a week earlier.

“So he and a friend from post 84 went to check on him. At the Marina and Seattle's”

Ballard neighborhood where Mr. Hudson wore it his boat. They saw his truck in the parking lot and headed for the dock. As they climbed on board, they noticed three empty beer cans on a table next to Mr. Hudson. He had another beer open. Mr. Hudson was married, but it was evident to Jonathan that he'd been living alone on the boat. Without hesitation, he started talking about his previous 24 hours. And he said, you know, last night, he was feeling so lost that he was going to

kill himself. And I'm going to speak in the first person as he was saying to us. And, you know,

I wanted to make a plan for how to do it. And I just thought, I'm going to take my boat out on the muted sound. Put the gas pedal up to the top notch. And then put on a scuba diving weight belt that he had on and drink more alcohol. And then just fall off the boat and let the boat go keep going until it ends until it sinks until it hits something. And then I would drown. And that would be that. And he said to us, you know, while I was ready to end it,

I thought about you. I thought about the other students. I thought about other people in my life and that you all want me to stay alive. So, here I am because of you. Jonathan went to Mr. Hudson's boat planning to maintain their quote unquote business relationship. But during the visit, he felt a shift. I felt like I was someone in my friend with someone who is comfortable talking to and he needed to talk to people. And he wanted to share this and we were

there for him. He had been there for us for many years. And this was an opportunity for me to be there for him. After that encounter, Jonathan and the other post-84 kids closed ranks around Mr. Hudson. They stopped talking to Eddie Hill Sr., the former cop, the district hired to investigate their

college to persuade Rosie to stay quiet. And Jonathan even phoned me one night asking me to stop talking about Mr. Hudson. Mr. Hudson wasn't allowed to speak with students while he was

under investigation. But Jonathan went to the marina twice. He has a clear memory of the second visit

about two weeks after Mr. Hudson first told him his suicide plan. It was that night, you know, maybe 7 pm, 8 pm. And this time, whereas before, there was like a six pack of beer. Now, there was like a 24 pack of beer. And he told me that, you know, he can't eat food. He's not hungry,

“but even when he tries to eat, it won't stay down. The only thing he can consume is beer.”

Jonathan recalls a bleak scene and more raw honesty from his teacher. Mr. Hudson let down his guard revealing that in the past, he'd wondered if he was gay. He shared with me that when he was young, he was having confusing feelings towards other boys and men. But, you know, he didn't tell me he was gay, but he told me that, well, that he questioned back when he was younger and that he tried different things, including joining the army, but those feelings didn't go away. It was the

only time I'd ever seen him vulnerable and allowing himself to share his doubts, his insecurities,

his hurt. What was going through your head is he was telling you all this? I was basically just

listening. But I remember feeling connected, I could tell that he felt that he was being heard without judgment, that he was able to do this safely and say things and tell somebody things that he wanted to say out loud for a long time. Jonathan why does this get you like this one

“memory? I think it's because it was the first and probably the only time like he was ever”

his true self around me. It also, I'm feeling a little emotional now because I was able to make him feel okay for just at least a little while. I don't know how long I was there, maybe 30 minutes, maybe an hour, maybe longer. I don't know, but you know, at a certain point, I was like, okay, I got to go home. You know, and he just said, okay, he said, thank you for coming. And then we had a

spontaneous hug. I don't know if you put his arms out first, I don't know if I put my arms

out, but we just had a hug. And it was despite everything, how uncomfortable he made me feel in the past, it was so authentic and safe and real. And then I said, said, buy and he said buy and that ended up being the last time I ever saw him. But that wasn't the last time Jonathan and Mr. Hudson would talk. Or the last time Mr. Hudson would lean on Jonathan for support.

“We all remember the song. It made it all seem so simple and turns out it's not. Who writes,”

influences and kills bills, it gets messy. I'm Scott Greenstone. And I'm Libby Denkman on sound politics. We tell that story. The inside track and how policy gets made in this Washington and the other one. And how it impacts you. Was now on the KUW app or wherever you get your podcasts. A couple of hours after Jonathan got home from visiting Mr. Hudson on his boat, the phone rang. It was Mr. Hudson calling. They're earlier conversation on the boat

head felt raw and vulnerable. But this was different. He was just like a shell of himself. There wasn't inflection in his voice. It's kind of like a dead man walking kind of thing. He said, Jonathan, I'm calling you so you can say buy to me. Unlike before, he was just like, here's my plan to commit suicide. He was using a euphemism. I'm going south. I'm heading south. He inferred that he was going to kill himself. And that he wanted to give me an opportunity to say buy

to him. And he wanted me to tell these other people who cared about him that he wanted to say buy

pager by his bed when he slept. He was oriented toward keeping people alive. It felt like Jonathan

was digging into his soul to keep Mr. Hudson from heading south. My reaction to that was, no, I'm not going to say buy to you. No, I'm not going to do these other things for you. I'm not going to say buy to other people for you because you're going to call me tomorrow because you're not going to do this and you're going to commit to me that you're going to call me tomorrow. But Mr. Hudson pushed back. He went into like talking about how worthless he was, how he doesn't deserve to stay

with with all these people, how he doesn't deserve to have me in his life. And so my kind of assertiveness and directiveness, that wasn't working anymore. So I, you know, went from my brain to to my heart. I was like, I got emotional. I was like, no, Tom, you mean so much to me. It means so much to everyone else.

“You are a good person. You, you do matter, you know. And at that point, I think I kind of wore him”

out and he said, okay, okay, Jonathan. Okay, I'll call you tomorrow. Okay, bye.

When they hung up, Jonathan hyperventilated. It was a panic attack. He'd never had one before.

He didn't want Mr. Hudson to die. And now he felt like he was the only one who could keep that from happening. Jonathan fell asleep that night, not knowing if he talked to his teacher ever again. Mr. Hudson didn't call the next day. But at school, Jonathan heard that someone had spoken to him. So Jonathan's gambit on the phone had worked. Mr. Hudson was still alive. A week or two later, he called Jonathan. It was basically the same talk except this time.

He was much more stubborn and just, you know, Jonathan, now is the time to say, "Bademy, you're not going to see me again." I did my same tactics and it just didn't work. The way I describe it is like, I mean, this might sound weird, but my life energy, I tried to transfer into him through my words and sentiment and an energy to try and, you know,

“like, resuscitate his soul. Because that's what it seemed like. It wasn't his mind or even his”

his brain. He had lost just like the grace to live. But he wouldn't give up. He wouldn't give up. And I was just getting physically weaker on this call. And I just, my mind clicked on. And it was like, Jonathan, now's your time to say goodbye. So I said, "Thank you, Tom, for everything." I'm so sad that you're doing this. And I'm going to really, really miss you. And he said, "Okay, bye." And I said, "Bye." And I subsequently learned he did not kill himself that night.

And then I heard that he didn't even remember calling me because he was so drunk. And how could that be? Like, how could destroying me not even be a memory for him? Mr. Hudson cast Jonathan, a 17-year-old high school student into the role of counselor, therapist, and crisis responder. At Garfield, the lines between teachers and students, adults and children,

had always been blurry. But for Jonathan, they'd now disappeared completely.

Jonathan had two of these heavy phone conversations with Mr. Hudson. He told me he lived with a constant fear that the phone would ring again, or that worse, Mr. Hudson would find him in person. Jonathan, already an apprehensive teen, was wound so tight during this time that he'd erupt in anger over a small things. One day, after an argument with his brother, Jonathan jumped in his car

“and just kept driving. I just like bald in my car for like 20 minutes. I remember I was”

overlooking Lake Washington on a hill, and I was just like, "I can't do this anymore." I didn't seek out help. I did talk to a few of my friends, my peers, that was helpful, but you know, they were 17-year-olds, too. Like, you know? John Hammond called me and just a state of like, "What I don't know what to do with this?" Rosie Bandcraft was one of Jonathan's good friends. She remembers how distraught he was. Now that I know about this, I have to do something. I have no

if on me, if he kills himself. Jonathan was drained. He couldn't take it anymore. He had to stop

“talking to Mr. Hudson, regardless of the outcome. I decided, you know, I needed to tell Tom,”

not to contact me again. So I called him one day in the afternoon. He was sober, or at least he sure sounded. He sounded pretty normal. And, you know, I just said, "Tom, I can't be there for you like you want me to be there for you. I can't have you call me anymore." He sounded so sad to hear that, and abandoned, but understanding, and he said, "Okay, okay Jonathan, I won't call you anymore."

Mr. Hudson kept his word. He stopped calling.

After a few weeks, Jonathan felt better. Another teacher and some parents stepped in to help manage post-84 while Mr. Hudson was suspended. And Jonathan had an epiphany. Maybe Mr. Hudson was a danger to his students he thought. And the investigation was the right thing to do. But soon after, during a post-84 meeting, a parent who attended said, "Nobody had seen or heard from Mr. Hudson for a few days." Well aware of Mr. Hudson's suicidal thoughts, Jonathan wondered

if he'd followed through. He felt a flicker of emotion and then returned to his auto-pilot

state of avoidance. Don't think about Tom. Keep the post afloat. Graduate. A day or two later, Garfield Principal Cheryl Chow called the post-84 leaders to her office. She told the Mr. Hudson had died by suicide in a motel room, north of Seattle. I don't really remember what the Principal said after that. Maybe I'm sorry. But I felt like less than a minute later, Principal says, "So I need your help." I need your help now.

“And I think she looked at me. Maybe it was all of us. And it was like, "I need to know which”

students need to be gathered up to be told." And so I had 30 seconds to process this before this adult needed me to step up and get back into management mode. Jonathan and the other core post-84 members walked around the school telling about 20 students from the program to meet in Garfield's career center, a big room with clunky computers. Jonathan had been instructed to wait for a counselor or the Principal to join them. The adults

would break the news to everyone. They waited and waited some more. Clock was ticking by, known as there. We were just like, there were no adults in the room. And I, I was like, this is not right. Most of the people in here had not been told formally. So I was like, quote, "And adult now." And so I then said, "Everybody like as, you know,

“I think some of you already know Tom committed suicide." And he's gone.”

After Jonathan shared the news, he watched his classmates deflate. Some kids went quiet and still, other started crying. Eventually a few adults did show up. I told myself, "Be strong, hold it together. You can feel your feelings when you get home, but be strong for your friends. Be strong for your classmates." And I did for a little while, but then I think the Principal offered me to call my parents to let them know.

And so I was like, "Yeah, I think I should." So I called my mom and I told her what happened and then I broke down. Mr. Hudson's death changed everything at Garfield. It ended the district investigation into his behavior with students and it let loose a flood of vocal support from parents, students, and the outdoor community that revered him. Tom Hudson, the 58-year-old man, facing allegations of sexual abuse, had died, but Tom Hudson, the legendary teacher, mentor,

and leader, was reborn. And Jonathan promoted that narrative. Under Jonathan's leadership,

and at the huge public memorial, at the Hudson family's request, he delivered a ulogy for the man who

“changed his life. Jonathan didn't mention what he now calls the suicide talks. Conversations”

that have made him feel guilty for a lot of his adult life. All the pain, the confusion, the shame, the hurt, the harm, the trauma that Tom caused in me. I put that into a box deep inside me. Then in my college years and in my 20s, my priority was to keep all that in that box. So while I say all of these emotions, feelings, and confusion were down in the box, I did have a narrative in my mind, and it was a very brief, concise narrative. And it was

Tom told me he wanted to kill himself, and he was going to kill himself. He did not kill himself

“because I was there for him. I told him I couldn't be there for him. He killed himself.”

A couple of weeks ago, Jonathan called me. He'd just listened to episode two of this podcast. He'd heard our former classmate, Christina Mitchell, tell the story of how Garfield's principle at the time, Al Jones took advantage of her. And it made him reconsider our earlier conversations.

Jonathan said that when we first talked, he didn't tell me the whole story about the shower with

Mr. Hudson. He'd been too ashamed to give me all the details. The truth was he said, Mr. Hudson was fully erect and staring at him. Jonathan said that was the first time he'd seen a man turned on. He was 15 years old. An alarm sounded in his brain at that moment, telling him he wasn't safe. It's the real reason why Jonathan kept his distance from Mr. Hudson after that. Why he intentionally missed the Mount Olympus trip and steered clear of Mr. Hudson's boat. But for all the space,

he put between them. Mr. Hudson still managed to dig deep into the psyche of this sweet boy, burdening him with the gut-wrenching responsibility of believing he was the only one who could prevent his teacher from killing himself. Today, Jonathan says he feels kinship with Christina. He is healing and thriving. Jonathan wants other survivors of abuse to hear this experience that life can get better. Through therapy, through friends, through family,

and work, work and more work. I've been able to, to work through a lot of that and understand a lot more about what happened and that it was a really, really hard situation that I did my best in and that I actually have a lot to be proud of. And that it was not my fault.

Jonathan never told anyone about the shower with Mr. Hudson. But his story confirmed

part of what my best friend Ella and I had heard at the start of the investigation back in 1999 that Mr. Hudson sometimes got aroused in the shower with his teenage students. Ella and I believed then and now that Mr. Hudson had been a serial abuser, a predator, hiding in plain sight.

“He hurt Jonathan. How many others were there? And did any adults try to stop him?”

That's on the next episode of adults in the room. In episode five of adults in the room, Ella and I had a mission for this podcast to prove the extent of Tom Hudson's abuse. So we found the man who led the schools of original investigation to help us finish what he started. I wanted to try to get that out of the way to figure out what his interpretation and what was happening and his answers

as I remember didn't answer. But after hitting dead ends, we realized that part of the truth had been sitting right in front of us the entire time. This is why I wanted to talk to you

That's coming up next.

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“at KUOW.org. Original reporting for this project was done by me,”

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Brendan Sweeney, a director of marketing, is Michaela Gianotti Boyle. KUOW's chief content officer is Marshall Eisen. I'm Isolder Aftery. Thank you so much for listening. Seattle's economy is complicated, inflation, tariffs, AI, layoffs. It's a lot to keep track of. That's where we come in. I'm Joshua McNickles. And I'm Monica Nicholsberg. We host booming, a podcast about the economic forces shaping our lives here in the Pacific Northwest.

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