In a recent email exchange with Gary Greenfield, he acknowledged to me that there had indeed been a secret courtship between Jamin and Natalie, approved by him. He said “You are indeed correct about my initial decision to allow Jamin in our house and that decision was based on multiple motives being: 1. To court my daughter which I called off after two weeks . . .” (10/26/16). I wrote back challenging his recollection of how much time was involved. He wrote me back and granted that it was possible that months were involved. He said, “In light of the bigger picture, whether it was a few months or a few weeks could very well be a miscalculation on my part . . .” (10/31/16).
So when I challenged Gary to put things right as far as the public record was concerned, he denied that there had ever been any public denials of the fact of the secret courtship. He said, “I have never ever said there wasn’t a courtship and neither has Natalie” (11/1/16). But this is false.
In fact there have been multiple denials of exactly that, as you may see below. But at any rate, the record is now clear. I was correct in maintaining that there was a secret, parent-approved courtship, and those who have been denying this (including, centrally, Natalie) have been misrepresenting what actually happened.
Here are some representative denials, which clearly need to be retracted and withdrawn.
“My parents told Jamin he could wait for me if he wanted to and they’d reassess the situation when I was 18 years old. It was made exceedingly clear that in the meantime there was to be no ‘relationship’ whatsoever. As far as my parents knew there was no relationship, and from what I can tell any ‘confession’ they made to Doug was taken out of context and/or deliberately twisted” (emphasis added).
Katie Botkin said this in The Sandpoint Reader, and Natalie linked to it:
“Wilson insisted after this letter became public that Wight and Natalie participated in a ‘foolish parent-approved relationship,’ and that this justified him writing to the investigating officer. Natalie and her parents have maintained that no such relationship existed, though they say one was briefly discussed for a fictional future and subsequently dismissed” (emphasis added).
Katie Botkin, an advocate for Natalie, said:
“So here’s the thing: the only documents I know about that ‘prove’ what Doug is claiming are authored by Jamin. You can even see the outline of this in Doug’s assertion to the HOH that the courtship was real because the Greenfields didn’t deny the allegations at the time. Well, as far as I can tell, Gary’s refusal to even entertain such an absurd claim, and refusing to let his family near the church’s spreading of these lies, is a pretty strong denial. Not to mention, they’re denying it now, when it’s publicly being tossed at them.”
“But I would like to also point at that neither was Doug in the room when my father said, No. I am not comfortable with this. There will be no courtship. There will be no hand-holding. Do not touch my daughter and do not foster a relationship with her. . .”
“There were discussions of this nature but the truth is that Jamin and I did not develop and maintain a romantic relationship under the encouragement of my parents.”
“I have addressed the matter of ‘secret courtship’ many times in the last several months and will gladly do so again. Jamin and I were not in a secret courtship. It is true that there was discussion of some kind of altered long-term courtship until I was of marrying age (a fact my parents have long since expressed embarrassment and remorse over) but my father quickly make it very clear that there was to be no relationship between Jamin and I. My father did set boundaries for the ‘relationship’, that is, he forbade it” (emphasis added)
The one thing that these claims all have in common is that they are all false. Gary Greenfield has confirmed to me personally that the claims were false. There was a secret, parent-approved courtship.
All these facts speak for themselves.
Important Update (7/23/17):
The CREC review of this case noted an important detail in the timeline they compiled of it. The judge in the case said:
“I am . . . very sympathetic with the victim . . . and I think Mr. Wight is sympathetic with the victim and . . . the people I’m not sympathetic with are the parents that allowed this to happen in the first place. And I’m not going to rehash this . . . but I do think . . . that what happened was foreseeable . . . This isn’t, and it never was in my judgment, an L and L case [Lewd and Lascivious]. It was a young-people-having sex case” (CREC Review, p. 56).
Bottom Line:
So Natalie is seriously misrepresenting how her relationship with Jamin actually came about. There was a secret courtship, approved by her parents. Natalie denies it. But testimony to the reality of this courtship comes from my testimony, a letter to me from her father, the state of Idaho, and the CREC review.