Analissa was 14 years old when she met Russell Taylor and started spending time at his Indianapolis home with other teens, where she says they hung out, drank alcohol that Taylor bought, and would frequently sleep over.
Two years later, Analissa now knows that Taylor, who was former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle’s close friend and the head of Fogle’s children’s charity, was secretly using cameras to record the home, including in the bedroom and bathroom.
In an exclusive interview with Dr. Phil airing Thursday, Analissa, comes forward with her story, recalling that she had a “weird feeling of something going on, but at the time I didn’t really understand that.”
When asked what Taylor did to cross boundaries, Analissa reveals, “He asked if I had ever experienced an orgasm, and just had me convinced to have sex with him at 16.”
Dr. Phil explains that Taylor seems to have been “grooming” Analissa, which is a common strategy for sexual predators or pedophiles who are setting up their potential victims for abuse to take place and even seem acceptable.
“It sounds like during that time he was able to tear down some of the boundaries of privacy. How far did that go?” Dr. Phil asks. “Did he get you comfortable with walking around less dressed than you would be otherwise?”
“Yes,” says Analissa. “We never really just normally walked around with no clothes on, but he’d come in and try to catch something.” When that happened, she says in the video above, “He kind of looked happy or aroused.”
Dr. Phil presses, “Did he come in when you were naked?”
“Yes,” says Analissa. “He’d stay for about a minute or so, but then we’d shut the door.”
Dr. Phil responds, “You now know that he may have been in there for a minute, but everything was on tape. It was all being recorded.”
“Yes.”
On today’s episode of Dr. Phil, Analissa opens up about how the experience has impacted her life. “He took my happiness, he took my trust, he took my pride, everything,” says the now-16-year-old about Taylor. “I feel so low. I feel like nothing.”
Asked if she blames herself, Analissa responds, “I do, a lot. I know now that wasn’t right for me to act that way. I know it wasn’t right to drink alcohol. I know it wasn’t right to let someone see you in no clothes and to let someone just talk to you that way. And I do blame myself a lot because I feel like I fed into it by letting him talk to me that way.”
Dr. Phil probes, “Do you feel guilty because you enjoyed the attention?”
“Absolutely. I do. I eat myself up over it every day,” says Analissa.
Dr. Phil tells her: “It’s important that you understand something. It’s an unfair battle. Because you take a child that is emotionally not fully developed, and you bring in a cold, calculating adult, and this adult has the power and uses that power to seduce the child. To ply the child with alcohol, to treat the child with such things as approval, acceptance and affection, and uses all of that currency to seduce that child. You are wrong to feel guilty about that. There are victims and there are perpetrators in crime. You were the victim. He was the perpetrator. This was not your fault.”
Taylor has agreed to plead guilty to multiple counts of sexual exploitation of a child and distribution and receipt of child pornography, some of which, authorities say, he shared with Fogle, who also faces criminal charges.
Watch Thursday’s episode of Dr. Phil as he and Analissa go back to the scene of the crime in an effort for Analissa to make peace with her painful past, and help other parents and children who could be lured by predators.
Update: On November 19, 2015 Jared Fogle was sentenced to 15 years, eight months in federal prison.
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