Inside the investigation and prosecution of Larry Nassar

Larry Nassar’s trash can was sitting near the curb.

Inside his white, one-story home, police were searching the living room, the bedrooms.

And they were searching the basement, because a woman named Kyle Stephens had recently told Michigan State University Police Det. Lt. Andrea Munford that Nassar had sexually abused her there for years, starting when she was 6.

Stephens had told her parents more than a decade earlier. They hadn’t believed her.

Munford did. And now she had a search warrant.

The house in Holt was filled with "just stuff…" Munford said. "It appeared he never threw anything out."

Munford was inside when an officer noticed the trash can was full. Put it in the truck, she said. Go through it later.

It was Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2016. Police didn’t yet realize it, but that trash can held the evidence that would crack open the careful façade Nassar had built over 20 years: Larry the superstar who treated Olympians, the caring doctor who slipped forbidden treats to young gymnasts and took their side against strict coaches, the devout Catholic and pillar of his suburban community.

If garbage collectors had come earlier that day, investigators might not have found the four hard drives in Nassar’s trash.

The sheer quantity of clutter in Nassar’s home "was why it was so striking to us that he threw those hard drives out," Munford said.

On one, the MSU police Computer Forensics Unit would find 37,000 images and videos of child pornography, the accumulation of Nassar’s decade-long collecting.

Nassar was a respected MSU and USA Gymnastics doctor who over the course of a 20-year career sexually assaulted hundreds of women and girls, including a 15-year-old from Kalamazoo who 16 years later called MSU police. That call sparked an investigation that would pull in hundreds of victims, topple the leadership at MSU and USA Gymnastics and send Nassar to prison for the rest of his life.

But first there was Munford, whose inquiry began with a phone call from that former gymnast on a Thursday in August. Then there was prosecutor Angela Povilaitis, who joined the case when the Michigan Attorney General’s Office agreed to partner on the rising number sexual assault reports against Nassar.

Over 16 months, the two women built the stories of hundreds of victims into one of the largest sexual assault investigations in U.S. history. They set the stage for Nassar’s seven-day sentencing hearing, where the world watched those women and girls declare themselves an "army of survivors."

"They believed in us," said Larissa Boyce, who was 16 and a member of the Spartan Youth Gymnastics program when Nassar abused her in 1997. "Because they believed in us we started to believe in ourselves."

Who was that doctor?

Nassar, like Munford, is an MSU graduate, he with a medical degree from the College of Osteopathic Medicine and she with a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. Both started working at the university in 1997.

Coming off the 1996 Olympics where he treated the gold medal-winning U.S. women’s gymnastics team, Nassar was hired as an assistant professor with clinical duties. His stature in the gymnastics world grew over the next 20 years and he became an associate professor.

Munford worked in the MSU Police Department’s bike unit and crime scene investigation unit. She became a detective. In August 2016 she was supervisor of the special victims unit.

She was sitting in her glass-walled office in the detective bureau when her phone rang.

Dispatch was on the line, wanting to know who could take a sexual assault report. Munford wrote down contact information and the woman’s name: Rachael Denhollander.

Their phone call was brief. Denhollander didn’t want to give too many details over the phone, but told Munford she wanted to report a sexual assault by an MSU sports medicine doctor from 16 years earlier. They set an appointment for the following Monday. Before the call ended, Munford asked for the doctor’s name.

Then the detective walked across the hall into Capt. Valerie O’Brien’s office. Munford had a question for her boss, even though she was almost certain she knew the answer.

Who was that doctor you investigated a couple years ago?

Larry Nassar.

Yeah, Munford said, it’s the same guy.

Timeline: Larry Nassar's decades-long career, sexual assault convictions and prison sentences

More: How Larry Nassar abused hundreds of gymnasts and eluded justice for decades

‘I never knew how afraid they were’

The following Monday, Rachael and Jacob Denhollander walked around the line of students that stretched out the front door of the MSU Police Department.

They checked in at the front desk and took seats, watching the queue of students who needed parking passes for the new semester. Munford appeared from a side door and welcomed them, walking them back to an interview room furnished with comfortable seating and calming artwork.

Denhollander had wanted the face-to-face meeting. She wanted to give Munford her medical records. She wanted to see how seriously Munford took the report. She wanted to see for herself if Munford believed her, because she suspected others had spoken up in the past and been dismissed.

"I was not confident at all at that point," Denhollander said later. "I really didn’t know what to expect."

Jacob Denhollander, her husband, didn’t say much, but over the course of the next hour or so, Rachael told Munford about the five times Larry Nassar sexually assaulted her when she was 15. Nassar had digitally penetrated her vagina. He had been sexually aroused.

"I left cautiously optimistic that she was at least going to try, that it had at least been taken seriously and that she appeared to be someone who was trustworthy," Denhollander said.

Weeks later, after Denhollander had observed Munford’s dogged pursuit of the truth, her optimism was no longer cautious.

"I never knew how afraid they were that I wouldn’t believe them, because that’s not an option," said Munford, who more than 17 months later still has the piece of paper where she wrote Denhollander’s contact info. The white, rectangular slip has the words “Start by Believing” printed across the top.

The day after the Denhollanders’ visit, Nassar walked through the same front doors at the MSU Police Department. He sat in the same lobby waiting for Munford. She appeared from the same side door, but walked him to a different interview room, one with gray walls and furnishings not chosen for comfort.

Munford started the interview asking what Nassar had changed about treating patients since 2014, when Amanda Thomashow told police and an MSU Title IX investigator that Nassar had sexually assaulted her. The two investigations ended without repercussions, although new protocols were put in place for Nassar when treating patients at MSU.

Nassar said he’d tried to adapt his techniques, then asked his own question.

"Has there been another complaint?" he said. "I’m just, like, confused right now."

Munford redirected him back to talking about his changes since 2014, hoping to learn if the description of anything he had stopped doing matched what Denhollander experienced 16 years earlier.

When Nassar began making excuses about why he wasn’t following the new protocols, Munford later said, she knew he was being intentionally inappropriate with patients.

"I lecture on this," Nassar told her. "That’s the thing that’s frustrating. It’s so, you know, the sacrotuberous ligament, it runs from the pubic symphysis, the falciform process, it runs, it’s like the pelvic floor."

More: Larry Nassar 'groomed the entire community,' Holt resident says

More: At MSU: Assault, harassment and secrecy

(Part of the interview is seen below during a preliminary hearing in June 2017)

"OK," Munford said.

"People don’t understand this stuff," Nassar told her. "So you’re really coming in, the way I describe it, you know, even in some of the videos is, is that if you go towards the labia and go lateral, so you’re going in and apart. And that, there’s muscles that attach to the ligament. And so as you’re treating that, you can feel the release. And that’s, like, a great teaching thing, too."

The spiral into technical terms in Munford’s interview illustrated how Nassar evaded prosecution for so long. His medical explanations convinced Meridian Township police not to pursue charges in a 2004 investigation. Medical information also was part of the unsuccessful 2014 case.

Povilaitis would call this Nassar’s built-in defense.

Munford later said the medical explanations didn’t matter for her, because Nassar couldn’t answer simple questions about whether he had been sexually aroused — "I can’t explain that. Because that should, when I, when I’m working, I’m working" — and whether he had digitally penetrated a 15-year-old girl’s vagina.

‘Their words have power’

When Povilaitis first met with Munford, O’Brien and MSU Police Chief Jim Dunlap in early October 2016, she didn’t know much about their Nassar investigation.

She knew he was a doctor, that there were several victims making delayed reports of sexual abuse. And she knew she wanted the case. So Povilaitis told them about James Rapp.

Rapp was a Catholic priest who in 2013 was nearing release from an Oklahoma prison, where he was serving time for sexually assaulting young boys. He had taught at Lumen Christi High School in Jackson in the 1980s, and two men came forward to tell the Jackson County Sheriff's Department that Rapp had abused them when they were students. More victims came forward and in 2015 Povilaitis filed 19 sexual assault charges against Rapp, who eventually pleaded no contest.

The night before Rapp’s sentencing in April 2016, Povilaitis organized a dinner and meeting for about 10 victims. The next morning, several gave impact statements during the sentencing.

"Why should we go forward now with a 30-year-old case? We are preventing future abuse," Povilaitis told the judge before he sentenced Rapp to 20 to 40 years in prison. "There is no doubt in my mind the fact that these men had the courage to come forward is preventing another child from living a similar fate.

"… Why go forward with a case so many years later? So that we can have a day like we had today. These survivors can know that they’re finally believed and supported, they can confront the evil that has haunted them and their families for decades. They can finally see that their words have power."

More: 'By the way, enjoy hell': Read the words of the many women who confronted Larry Nassar

More: 'I told Michigan State University,' Woman says at Larry Nassar sentencing

Povilaitis, a former child abuse prosecutor in Wayne County, joined the AG’s office in 2012. Her position is paid for through a federal grant aimed at improving prosecutions of crimes against women: sexual assault, stalking and domestic violence. She works with county prosecutors and takes on cold-case sexual assaults.

The Rapp prosecution was successful, Povilaitis told Munford, Dunlap and O’Brien, because she uses a victim-centered approach. That’s why she wanted to give all the victims in Rapp’s case a chance to speak.

The victim-centered approach is about understanding that the right path for a victim might not be prosecution, but treatment or a restraining order or just telling someone. It’s about treating victims as more than witnesses to their own assaults. At the most basic level, it directs police and prosecutors to start by believing.

Munford shot O’Brien an eager look.

It was their approach, too, one Dunlap initiated years earlier and Munford worked to implement.

Povilaitis said the AG’s Office wanted to take on the prosecution of the Nassar sexual assault cases.

That’s what Munford had hoped for.

"Is it inappropriate to high five right now?" she asked the room.

Munford and Povilaitis walked out of Dunlap’s office and into Munford’s. They needed to get to work.

‘You just let them talk’

Munford and Povilaitis took a plane from Detroit to Chicago and a cab from O’Hare International Airport to a three-story brick building in the 1300 block of North Dearborn Street in the city’s Gold Coast neighborhood.

It was late October 2016 and they were meeting Kyle Stephens, whose phone call to Munford helped police get their search warrant for Nassar’s home and led to the discovery of the child pornography evidence.

Stephens was 6 years old when Nassar started abusing her. She wasn’t a patient, just the daughter of family friends. The abuse went on during family visits for six years. He masturbated in front of her, rubbed her feet against his penis and digitally penetrated her vagina.

Stephens told her parents in 2004, but they didn’t believe her.

But those details weren’t yet known publicly and, to many people, Nassar remained a beloved and respected doctor.

Munford and Povilaitis planned to charge Nassar for the sexual assaults committed during medical appointments. But to do so, they needed to fully understand osteopathic medical procedures, find experts and select the right cases. In other words, they needed time.

With Stephens, they had a case that could be charged without delay because Nassar would have no chance to use his medical defense. "I mean, he sexually assaulted a child in the basement of his home," Munford said.

But if Stephens’ case was charged first, it would stand alone for some time. They needed to know she could handle that.

So they headed to Chicago and to Restoration Hardware, which sells upscale furniture and home decorations and offers a café, a wine vault and a coffee bar to accompany its display rooms. Most importantly for Munford and Povilaitis, the atmosphere would be far from a sterile room in a police station. For Stephens, who picked the meeting spot, the store was somewhere she’d feel comfortable, somewhere that might lighten the mood.

Stephens was waiting in the foyer when Munford and Povilaitis arrived.

They started at the table Stephens had a friend reserve for them and ordered a charcuterie plate. They talked about the store, then ordered lunch. They had coffee.

And they talked.

"You just let them have a free narrative," Povilaitis said. It’s a skill she picked up prosecuting child abuse cases. "Lawyers and police don’t often do a good job listening. We want to jump in all the time. With Kyle, we talked about college and soccer and her job and everything except this."

They talked about abuse in general terms. About Munford’s and Povilaitis’ backgrounds. About their focus on sexual assault, which impressed Stephens.

After lunch, the three walked from display room to display room until they found one they liked. They continued to talk, diving deeper into the sensitive details while they moved from couch to couch and people around them shopped for furniture.

They talked for several hours that day.

Talking to Munford and Povilaitis was easy, Stephens recalls. They were interested in the details, but in a good way. And they were kind, she said.

Afterward, Stephens, who shakes when she talks about the abuse, was emotionally and physically exhausted. She went back to work.

Munford and Povilaitis, who were fast becoming friends, went back to the airport and talked over a shared plate of pasta.

"She got to know us, I think, and trust us," Povilaitis later said of that visit. "And we were ready to pull the trigger as quick as we could."

An arrest at a tire shop

On a Monday in late November, Munford walked into a magistrate’s office in 55th District Court in Mason and walked out with an arrest warrant for Nassar in the Stephens case.

Munford feared that Nassar, who had been fired months earlier, might still be abusing young girls.

"What if people were letting their daughters go for medical treatment at his house?" she said. "Because we knew that he did that in his basement."

While Munford was with the magistrate, an MSU police surveillance team was watching Nassar. Once she told them she had a warrant, they watched for an opportunity to move in.

That happened at the Belle Tire on South Pennsylvania Avenue near Interstate 96, while Nassar waited to put air in his car’s tires.

Nassar was in handcuffs by the time Munford arrived.

Larry, you’re under arrest for sexual assault, she told him as she led him to a police car.

Nassar’s only comment during the arrest was to ask what they would do with his car.

Munford called Stephens to break the news.

The next day, during a news conference, Attorney General Bill Schuette called Nassar a "predator" who stole Stephens’ childhood.

Nassar, at this point, still had support from large swaths of the community despite having been fired by MSU and facing a growing number of sexual assault allegations. Just weeks earlier, he had received 2,730 votes for the Holt School Board, though he’d pulled out of the race. He was lining up supporters who might testify as character witnesses should he ever face a trial.

Munford and Povilaitis, who stood behind Schuette during the news conference, had hoped that news of Stephens’ charges would erode Nassar’s support. It wouldn’t.

‘Many sleepless nights’

Povilaitis made the 85-mile drive from her office in Detroit’s Cadillac Place to the police department on MSU’s campus countless times during the case, often turning on her Spotify playlist "Fierce," which included "Fight Song" by Rachel Platten and "Just Imagine It" by MKTO.

Povilaitis used these drives to go over legal arguments and rebuttals in her head. She returned phone calls and touched base with victims. She called her own voicemail, to leave reminders of ideas or things she needed to do, sometimes returning to her office to find a half dozen messages from herself.

And on most of the return trips, Povilaitis carried with her more case files picked up from the "Angie Pile" Munford kept on her desk: hefty, brown accordion-style folders filled with police reports, medical records, notes about victims who reported abuse by Nassar.

Povilaitis organized the files in black, plastic containers that look like tall tackle boxes stacked against a wall of her office. She started with one box. Then came the second, third and fourth. She was building her encyclopedic knowledge of the victims and their stories. A week after the case ended, there were at least a dozen of these boxes, sitting just below a whiteboard Povilaitis had used that summer to plan a third round of charges against Nassar.

As the case grew, Assistant Attorney General Robyn Liddell joined Povilaitis’ prosecution team, and then months later so did Chris Allen.

At the height of the police investigation, 18 MSU officers were working the case with Munford, but she interviewed most of the women or girls who reported abuse, especially early on. She did it in person in the soft interview room at the police department, the room with couches and art selected to make a traumatic experience a little less so.

That’s where Munford met Larissa Boyce.

Now a mother of four, Boyce was 16 when she was abused in 1997 as a member of the Spartan Youth Gymnastics program. She said she told Kathie Klages, the coach, who didn’t believe her. Klages told Nassar and no one else, Boyce said, adding that she was made to believe she was the problem. Shame, humiliation and trauma followed.

Boyce had carried those feelings for nearly 20 years when she walked into the MSU police department to tell someone else what Nassar did. Like other women and girls, her report was prompted by an Indianapolis Star story that detailed Denhollander’s abuse by Nassar.

"She was wonderful," Boyce said of Munford.

They talked Netflix and chocolate, two things that helped Munford cope with the grueling pace of the 17-month case. She watched "Lost" (she didn't like the ending) and "How to Get Away with Murder," and ate Lindor chocolate truffles and Dove ice cream bars.

Munford also spoke to victims on the phone late at night at home. When they needed to talk, she wanted to listen.

"There were many sleepless nights where I know she couldn’t turn it off," said her husband, Lt. Dan Munford, also of the MSU Police Department. He attended nearly every day of Nassar’s sentencing hearings and was the officer in the plaid shirt who helped deputies subdue a distraught father who rushed at Nassar in Eaton County.

"Being able to be there for her, just making her know I had her back and the department did," he said, "was important."

She went about two weeks at the start of the investigation without a day off. She brought work home. For the first two months, Munford did about four victim interviews a day.

"I know how heavy it is on their mind," she said of the victims. "I didn’t want them to have to wait."

On Feb. 22, 2017, about four months into the investigation with Nassar in federal custody on child pornography charges and 81 women reporting abuse, Munford went to get warrants for more than 20 new charges, all related to medical appointments.

The outside world knew little about what Nassar had done to the women and girls, or whether it could fall within some medically acceptable standards.

"He made it sound like it was this well-known treatment that he did," Munford said. "And, the more we dove into it, the more we realized no one else does it. He had created this little niche for himself that no one would question."

‘Until the judge told me not to’

Povilaitis realized the attention the Nassar case was getting when she walked into a small courtroom in Mason on the day Stephens was set to testify in a preliminary hearing. The room was at capacity with attorneys, reporters and cameras.

"It was just this surreal moment," she said. "It was gross. I was like, ‘This is disgusting. This is somebody’s life. This is not entertainment. This is not a front page.’ But she handled it awesome. Not that we ever had any doubt."

Stephens, who wouldn't be publicly identified until Nassar's sentencing, later said Povilaitis asked questions in the best way possible, allowing her to lay out the facts. It made an uncomfortable process a little less so.

The week after Stephens testified, the new charges were filed. The media attention only grew. Before those victims would give their testimony in a similar hearing, one woman whose case was part of those new charges told Povilaitis she couldn’t go forward.

"At that point in her life it was too much, and we had many conversations about the best way to support her and honor her choices and give her legitimate choices, and, at that point, she chose for us to dismiss those charges," Povilaitis later said in court.

In May and June, the remaining nine women would testify.

From the witness stand in that cramped, brick-walled courtroom in Mason, victims could see almost everything: the prosecutors, the judge, the TV cameras and reporters in the jury box. And Nassar, the man who abused them.

"That really bothered a few of them," Povilaitis said of Nassar’s presence in the courtroom. Some victims had considered Nassar a friend and were still coming to terms with the fact that someone they thought cared about them had abused them.

As Povilaitis questioned victims, Nassar was directly to her left, almost impossible to avoid seeing.

So occasionally Povilaitis leaned to her left, blocking the line of sight for the women in the witness stand. It was a protective instinct, to make them feel at ease.

"If I could somehow block him to make them more comfortable," she said, "then I was going to do it until the judge told me not to."

‘He’s always manipulating’

Munford was next to Povilaitis in an Ingham County courtroom in late November and was holding her breath.

Weeks earlier they had been preparing for Nassar's trial. The child pornography evidence had eroded his support, but he and his attorneys were sticking to his medical defense in the face of more than 120 reports of abuse. Then came word that Nassar was open to a plea deal.

Munford worried it might be an attempt at manipulation. "He’s always manipulating," she said. "Always."

On the morning of Nov. 22, with plea agreements in Ingham and Eaton counties in writing, Nassar walked into Judge Rosemarie Aquilina’s courtroom. Reporters, photographers and TV cameras crowded the jury box and the space around Aquilina. Nassar stood at the podium in front of the judge.

"I was terrified he wasn’t going to go through with it," Munford said. "I would listen to his jail calls and I kept listening for things to ensure me that he was really going to do it. But I was never sure until he actually pled guilty."

In all, Nassar pleaded guilty to 10 sexual assault charges split between Ingham and Eaton counties. Gag orders were lifted, allowing Nassar’s victims to tell their stories more freely.

In early December, Munford and Povilaitis sat together in the gallery of a federal courtroom in Grand Rapids for Nassar’s child pornography sentencing.

Neff’s 60-year sentence, which all but assured that 54-year-old Nassar would die in federal custody, seemed to lessen the significance of the Ingham County sentencing hearing set to begin in January.

‘Povilaitis meeting’

One after another, dozens of women and girls walked into the Hannah Community Center in East Lansing, a repurposed school building not far from the MSU campus.

A sign on the banquet room said "Povilaitis meeting." Inside, they found pizza, cupcakes and worry stones, small black stones painted with inspirational messages like "You Matter," "Be Strong" and "believe." Many would carry those stones to court in the days that followed.

That night, conversation flowed. Some had traveled from across the state, others from Illinois or Kentucky or farther to be there. Several met Denhollander for the first time, the woman many would credit in their court statements as their inspiration for coming forward.

More: Rachael Denhollander: 'It took all of our voices to get here'

Povilaitis stood in front of them, much like she had the night before Rapp’s sentencing, and explained how the next week would go, what court would be like, where Nassar would sit as they gave their impact statements.

Munford was there, too. She had been waiting months, in some cases more than a year, for these women to meet each other and know that they weren’t alone.

The message from Munford and Povilaitis was encouraging, supportive and eased the tension, Boyce said.

Nassar’s sentencing hearing started the next morning, Jan. 16, in Aquilina’s courtroom on the third floor of Veterans Memorial Courthouse in downtown Lansing. Prosecutors expected 88 women and girls to speak over four days.

‘An army of amazing women’

Stephens was the first at the podium.

"Perhaps you have figured it out by now, but little girls don't stay little forever," she told Nassar. "They grow into strong women that return to destroy your world."

Stephens — whom Munford and Povilaitis had needed to know could carry a case on her own — set the unrelenting tone for what followed.

The hearing, broadcast live with journalists from dozens of outlets present, began to catch the attention of a nation learning of Nassar, his crimes and his victims for the first time.

Stephens’ quote made headlines and adorned signs at the Women’s Marches around the country the following weekend.

"They ended up helping people," Stephens said of Munford and Povilaitis. The help was not only with seeking justice, but with healing — something the court process doesn’t always foster. "I feel very lucky to have them in my life."

Melody Posthuma Vanderveen, the woman who hadn’t been ready to testify against Nassar seven months earlier, spoke on Day 3.

"Giving him a life sentence today is what I am asking for, but that is just the starting grounds for what really needs to happen going forward," she said. "Organizations, businesses, our schools and universities, specifically, should be on high alert to protect innocent children, beginning with women."

Each day more women and girls came forward asking to speak. And each day more women and girls shed anonymity and shame, telling the world their names and what Nassar did to them.

As the world watched, they were learning what Povilaitis had said during Rapp’s sentencing: That their words have power.

Four days were no longer enough.

Logistics — who would speak each day and in what order — were adjusted each night. Povilaitis, Liddell and Rebecca Snyder, the newly hired victims’ advocate for the AG’s office, did the work from a hotel about a half mile from Nassar’s old MSU office.

Angela Olson, from the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan, helped with those logistics and made sure Preston the therapy dog was in the courthouse as well.

Boyce was the last to speak on Day 4, the 105th to do so.

"You chose the wrong prey," she told Nassar. "We are athletes. We will not give up or give in. We are trained to fight past the pain and hurt. United we are now, an army of amazing women who are paving the path to justice and change."

Sitting at the prosecution table, Povilaitis from time to time wrote a few words on sticky note. As victims walked by after speaking, she gave them a hug and handed them a note.

"I was trying to — it’s going to sound super cheesy — I was trying to take my strength and pass it on somehow," she said.

Attention to the proceedings grew. Celebrities and politicians were praising the women, criticizing the institutions that failed to protect them and condemning Nassar and his crimes. The world finally heard Larissa Boyce, Tiffany Thomas Lopez, Brianne Randall-Gay, Kyle Stephens and Amanda Thomashow describe how they weren’t believed when they first reported Nassar.

On Jan. 24, Denhollander was the last to speak on the seventh and final day in Ingham County, the 156th to do so.

"May the horror expressed in this courtroom over the last seven days be motivation for anyone and everyone, no matter the context, to take responsibility if they have erred in protecting a child, to understand the incredible failures that led to this week, and to do it better the next time," she said.

The Eaton County hearing took three days, ending on Feb. 5. By then, 265 women and girls had told police they were abused by Nassar.

Don’t forget what you’ve seen here, Povilaitis said in court, addressing the world now paying attention. And don’t forget what it took to get here, because it shouldn’t take what it did, she said, adding, "We must all start by believing victims when they tell."

Nassar was then sentenced for the third and final time in an eight-week stretch, all by female judges.

A shell of the man Munford interviewed 17 months earlier, Nassar walked out of the courtroom the last time wearing an orange jail jumpsuit, his legs shackled at the ankles and his hands cuffed to a thick, black restraining belt.

Povilaitis made a point to watch until he was gone. Within days he’d be at a federal prison in Arizona.

"What if it had just been Kyle?" Povilaitis said later. "I think about that often. What if Kyle’s parents had reported it to the police in 2004? I would have charged that case in a minute. But I don’t know that every prosecutor would have. Or would we have gotten the same result? You would have had this prominent man who was a doctor who had all the accolades."

Over the course of the investigation and prosecution, Munford had been inside Nassar’s home, inside his email, inside his laptop, Facebook account, cell phone and more. She read his text messages and listened to his phone calls from jail. Munford has come closer than anyone to understanding Nassar’s manipulations, deceptions and obsessions.

"But," she said, "we never saw the true evil that made him do all this."

Contact Matt Mencarini at (517) 267-1347 or mmencarini@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @MattMencarini.