My Findings on Sascha Riley

Trigger Warning: I do not describe most of the things from Sascha’s testimony, but there are small descriptions of violence in this article.

I will reference Sascha Riley as their preferred pronouns, they/us/we/y’all, though they are described in these witness accounts as a “boy.”

In early November a woman reached out to me on Signal with a simple message:

“Hello. Is this line secure and active?”

I told her yes, and she said she had a story that would be unlike any other. When was I available to talk? My son has soccer practice tonight. If you’re okay with me chatting in my car then I’ll probably have an hour or so. She said it was fine. I asked her how she found me, and she said a “good jedi stateside” had referred her to my Substack. I grabbed a fresh cup of coffee, dropped my kid off at practice, and waited for her call.

And she wasn’t wrong—I’d never heard a story like this.

Let me break away here to clarify my stance on stories like Sascha’s and any survivor who steps forward. I am always a safe space. I will always give survivors a platform to tell their stories in a meaningful way, and in a way that they feel listened to and believed. I will always believe survivors first and give them the benefit of the doubt, even while I investigate the details. And I will always, always listen more than I talk.

But I also do my homework. I research. I dig into background checks, genealogy, court records, marriage licenses, birth and death certificates, and military records. I look for patterns and inconsistencies. I listen to testimony and see whether it lines up or conflicts. And I do all of this because I hope that in the long run it can not only protect and spotlight survivors of sexual abuse, but also bring them to a point of justice and closure. And as much as a story of survival helps further this mission, a false lead can take away from the credibility of the hundreds of survivors we know about in cases like Jeffrey Epstein’s. So I’m very, very careful about what I hear, what I see, what I say, what I write, and the messages I push forward on platforms like Substack and social media.

Back to the story.

The call lasted longer than soccer practice, and I found myself back at my computer taking furious notes. A farm. Killing. Children. Oklahoma. A secret adoption. Snuff films. Her voice rose and fell as she laid out the details, and I got the feeling I was the first person to know. In hindsight, I may not have been, but in the moment it felt exciting. I was a new journalist and people rarely told me their secrets.

She’d moved Sascha out of the country for their own safety. These were stories of such magnitude, nobody in their right mind would sit and wait for a knock on their door from authorities. No one could expect a simple police department or even the FBI to do their job, not when you’re talking about a sex-trafficking ring exponentially worse than the one described in the Epstein files. Not when you’re giving witness testimony of child murders at the hands of the President of the United States and his friends. Certainly no one at the DOJ would touch this with a ten-foot pole.

Sascha (Riley) Barros - Facebook

But Sascha said it was true. And they said they only escaped because “boys are hard to find,” meaning they’d be less likely to kill them while they watched the other children shot, maimed, and murdered. Sascha escaped in a moment of near-biblical bravery, wrapping a tent stake with a condom and shoving it up Trumps ass.

I don’t remember when I stopped taking notes.

The woman was sincere, and in the moment I felt she believed Sascha’s story, so I did my best to honor her and do my homework. Because if it were true, this would be the worst case of child abuse in U.S. history, not to mention the biggest scandal if it involved Donald Trump. But if it weren’t, well, I supposed it would just go away.

I started to search, sending the woman my questions along the way. It had all taken place mostly in Oklahoma, Sascha said, but I could find no record of Epstein or Trump ever visiting Oklahoma, nor did they have friends or colleagues who lived there. Trump had spent more time there since campaigning for president, but prior to 2015 he’d never visited, at least on the record. “Yeah, I know that’s strange,” the woman said, “but they were adamant that’s where it took place.” I wrote it down.

Sascha (Riley) Barros - Facebook

And what about the witnesses? Who else could I talk to, to corroborate Sascha’s story? “They’re all dead,” she said, “Trump and the other men killed them all.” And Sascha is the only one who escaped? “Yes.” I told her that makes this a tough story, if we have no way to verify anything that happened, or the location, or the records. “Yeah, I know,” she said. So we’d have to skip over that part, at least for now.

I began to look into the genealogy, the part I could verify. At the time there were some documents floating around, though I’d get more in the coming months, including one where Epstein mentioned the name “William Riley.” William “Bill” Kyle Riley is the man Sascha says adopted them in 1977, something we’ll talk about in just a minute. And while at the time of my conversation with the woman Epstein’s email hadn’t surfaced, there was mention of Riley’s connection to Epstein as an investigator, and also his work as a pilot.

I found William “Bill” Riley, the former FBI agent and investigator hired by Epstein to follow and harass young survivors during the 2006-2008 case that ended with his “sweetheart deal,” led by prosecutor Alex Acosta. But this was a William John Riley, and according to the Washington Post he’d died in 2011. This Bill Riley was a Bronze Star in the Korean War, had been married to Janice Sue Benninger Riley since 1963, lived in New York State, and had two children, William Edgar Riley and Nancy Shannon Okeson. He worked as a private investigator for the Office of Kiraly and Riley PIs.

The William Kyle Riley named and linked in Sascha’s social media posts is a 76-year-old resident of Georgia. Since researching this information, his Facebook page has been taken down, but he is married to Cindy Sue (Burke) Riley. He does have a history of working as a pilot and is very much alive. He worked for Emergency Sky Care, Inc., as an air-evac, and in help-supply services as a pilot. I was unable to find a record for how long he has been married to Cindy Riley or if they have children.

A third woman is connected to William Kyle Riley, according to Sascha, listed as the elder Riley’s wife on Sascha’s adoption papers. Her name is Irene U. Riley, and the only alias I could find online is Irene U. Peer of Texas. I cannot verify that this is the same person, and there doesn’t appear to be any record of connection between her and William Kyle Riley. At some point in their history they both lived in Texas, but several miles apart. I cannot find a record of a marriage or children. There is also rumor she may go by the name “Irene U. Liske.” Again, this was unable to be verified by any background checks or genealogy websites.

The woman Sascha says is his mother and who adopted him alongside William Kyle Riley in 1977 (which doesn’t match the adoption papers, but we’ll get to that later) is Marie Lynn (Hasbrook/Matjeka) Riley, also listed as “Lynn Riley” in searches. She was married to Robert Matjeka from 1962 to 1980 and has two children, James (Derek) Matjeka and Suzanne Bell. While one of her last names is listed as “Riley” (Hasbrook is her maiden name), and she does come up as a relative of William Kyle Riley in background searches, there is no record of their marriage.

Let’s look at the adoption papers.

There’s not a whole lot to go on based on the document, which I enhanced so we could read it a little better. Writing on the back page is visible, though illegible.

On the paper it again lists William Kyle Riley and Irene U. Riley as the adoptive parents of “Manuel Joseph Barros,” which is later spelled on the same document as “Barrows.” The year is listed as 1978, though in the woman’s Substack story she lists the adoption as having taken place in 1977. She says they were adopted “for the purposes of trafficking,” which began when they were six, which would then make that late 1979 (Sascha was born in June 1973). These are minor discrepancies that don’t invalidate the story. She says they were trafficked within the Trump/Epstein ring from 9 to 13 years old, which would put us somewhere between summer of 1982 and as late as spring of 1987.

The adoption took place in Greene County, Tennessee and was allegedly overseen by attorney and former circuit court judge Ben Wexler, who passed away in 2012. Neither Irene Riley, Marie Lynn Riley, Cindy Riley, nor Sascha Riley, are listed as having ever lived in the State of Tennessee, though records show William Kyle Riley was born in Mohawk. However, Tennessee’s adoption code requires that both adoptive parents be residents of the State for at least six months prior to filing, though the child does not have to be a resident.

Sascha’s military records appear to be legitimate, including 3 tours in Iraq, about a year each. They served in the 1st Battalion, 30th Field Artillery Regiment at Fort Sill, TC, Oklahoma. However, I don’t have a way of verifying the forms for legitimacy because the military protects their records. But by all accounts they seem to be real.

Without pouring into all of the details that Sascha alleged took place on these killing farms in Oklahoma, I would like to focus in on what is inarguably the most shocking and memorable account: the rectal stabbing of now-President Donald J. Trump. Again, Sascha alleges their own sex-trafficking to have taken place 1982 to early 1987. And according to most records, Trump met Epstein in late 1987 or early 1988. So maybe there was some overlap, though short. So I researched what the average tent stake would look like in 1987. And your typical backpacking or lightweight tent stake in 1987 was 6-8 inches long and could look like a hook, a straight nail, or a y-beam. Car-camping stakes might be up to 12 inches long. And a stake for a heavier-duty canvas tent could be as long as 18 inches.

“Hey ChatGPT: How far are vital organs from the rectal opening?”

Trigger warning

According to most anatomy books, the prostate sits about 1.5-2.5 inches from the “anal verge” (opening). The bladder is 2.5-3.25 inches. The inferior rectal arteries are less than an inch from the verge. The middle rectal arteries sit anywhere from 2-4 inches in. The superior arteries are closer to 6 inches. A major puncture of any one of these arteries can lead to hemorrhagic shock and death if not treated quickly. A punctured bladder leads to sepsis. A traumatic puncture of the prostate leads to erectile dysfunction.

AbdominalKey.com

At the end of our talk, the woman sent me a document that she said she’d mailed to the House Oversight Committee and Senator Wyden’s office. It was a list of “in progress corroborative evidence,” (i.e. evidence they still needed to find to prove their case). This included:

• Witness testimony

• A 2021/2022 police report filed in Lawton, Oklahoma

• Medical records that indicate a deformity in Sascha’s ribcage due to torture

• Donald Trump’s medical reports, including a physical exam of his anal cavity

• A 1989 medical report where Sascha first described the torture by Trump

• Two 1980s police and FBI reports investigating William Kyle and Marie Lynn Riley for missing children, including several CPS investigations

• A 2009/2010 Fort Carson military investigation report of a fellow soldier for child pornography—after watching films of another child, “Samantha,” who was raped, tortured, and murdered—including records of a court martial

• Copies of child snuff films, which contained girls “Samantha” and “Patricia”

• Copies of films, videos, and photos taken from Epstein’s residences

• Testimony of another victim whose father was also a pilot, and who participated in Trump’s beauty pageants

• Copies of Epstein’s 2005 PB court docs, including William Kyle Riley the private investigator [remember, this was actually William John Riley], who she said used his pilot’s license to transport victims, and his PI license to obtain information about them and to “facilitate their kidnapping, trafficking, torture, and confinement, and...subsequent murders”

• Flight records of smaller planes and helicopters used to transport victims back and forth to the farms

2006 Palm Beach police report

At the time of our call, she was still hunting down all of the evidence. I asked her what we had to go on, and she pointed me to Sascha’s testimony, the same audio files posted with her article. She sent me text messages to verify the account of the soldier being taken off base and court martialed. But the soldier they contacted had no memory of the event, and even indicated that Sascha might be speaking to the wrong person. He didn’t know anything about the alleged videos.

She sent me the Palm Beach police reports from 2006 that included William Riley of Kiraly and Riley Private I’s. But this wasn’t William Kyle Riley indicated in the pictures and social media content posted by Sascha as recently as this week. It was William John Riley, deceased. She sent me pictures of police business cards, and photos of Sascha smiling with Elizabeth Warren at a political event. She sent me military records and hours of Sascha’s audio testimony.

I have had many, many people reach out to me in the last two weeks about Sascha Riley. People are shocked. They’re saddened. They’re fighting. They’re making TikToks. And they’re asking why all the survivors and journalists are so quiet.

To this I would say, we should already be shocked. We should already be saddened. We should already be fighting, and making TikToks, and calling our senators, and writing op-eds, and marching. We have hundreds of survivors who have already come forward to give their accounts in a meaningful, frightened, and often anonymous way. They are receiving death threats still to this day. They are using pseudonyms. They are being called liars by the men who are listed in these files with accurate and verifiable accounts that have repeated over and over again over the course of 30 years. The same MOs. The same locations. The same bank accounts. The same memories of the guy with the long face who didn’t like to leave his house. The grooming. The threats. The punishments. Nearly always the same, in the same places, with the same people, for three decades.

I’m not asking you to not believe Sascha Riley’s story. But I am asking you to pay attention and ask questions. It’s okay to say something doesn’t feel right or doesn’t add up. Every time one of these women and girls stepped forward, we did the same. And sadly, some of them weren’t believed, and should have been. But the reason we investigate is because an untrue story, at any time in this process, can invalidate the story of a survivor who’s fighting for her life. These are women who want to move on, start careers, have families, just sleep at night, but they’re stuck in a world of trauma that plays on repeat.

So maybe Sascha’s story is true, despite the lack of evidence, despite that uncomfortable feeling in the pit of our stomachs that something isn’t right. It is very possible that they were sexually abused as a child, though I cannot corroborate the information that I’ve been given. But maybe they’ll find what they’re looking for. And until then there will always be a platform and a safe space for survivors. But we will do our due diligence to protect those who deserve and need protection, and seek accountability for those who did them harm until justice is served and this story comes to an end.

For this article I used several methods to background check people and records, including beenverified.com, ancestry.com, the Oklahoma State Courts Network, Codes.Findlaw.com, Harnett District Court, Facebook, and the Palm Beach Police Department.

Ellie is an author, editor, and owner of Red Pencil Transcripts, and works with filmmakers, podcasts, and journalists all over the world. She lives with her family just outside of New York City.