Lee Phelan/Max
Margie and John Cantrell had a long history of caring for foster kids when they moved in 2004 from California to Mineola, Texas. Thus, taking in 7-year-old Shelby, 6-year-old Hunter, and 4-year-old Carly—siblings who had been in the system after being removed from their drug-abusing parents—was par for the course. What wasn’t customary was what came next.
With Margie by their side, the three kids confessed to a Texas Ranger that they’d been forced into X-rated work by their mom and dad at a local swingers’ club (and a training facility referred to as a “sex kindergarten”) that had already drawn the ire of residents in this deeply religious hamlet. The ensuing trials were front-page news and concluded with four life-sentence convictions, as well as multiple families and reputations in tatters.
And, as How to Create a Sex Scandal’s title implies, it was all a lie.