“Familiar Evil” follows public relations consultant and University graduate Rannah Gray’s personal involvement in one of Baton Rouge’s most thrilling crime investigations.
In her book, which released in December, Gray recounts the events of the investigation of Scott Rogers, a child abuse case that shocked Baton Rouge in 2013. The book reveals details of the hunt for Rogers previously unknown to the public from the perspectives of those within the investigation and victims of his abuse.
The story begins twenty years before Gray was involved, when Rogers, owner of a performing arts academy in England, was allowed to walk free due to a hung jury after being charged for sexual assault against one of his young students. He was able to quietly slip out of the country and relocate himself in the United States.
At the time of the events of “Familiar Evil,” Rogers was the host of his own weekend morning talk show in Baton Rouge, “Around Town,” which ran for close to 10 years despite its small audience.
He lived with his 30-year-old daughter and two men in their mid-30s who he had been abusing since they were 12 years old. Those men, who he kidnapped and brought to the country, never saw their parents again.
Rogers had also adopted a 10-year-old boy and was in the process of adopting a 2-year-old. Gray said she later learned he told child services about his intention to later adopt four more children.
Gray’s involvement in the case started after one brief encounter with Rogers in a meeting in August 2013.
“He said some things in the newspaper about those of us working on the project with him that were not accurate,” Gray said. “I wrote a letter to the editor to correct everything.”
After that letter to the editor was published, a man in England that had been searching for Rogers for 13 years, who is referred to as Ethan in “Familiar Evil,” contacted Gray to ask her to warn the community about him. He was confident Rogers was still abusing children.
Gray began working with her attorney and Ethan to gather information on Rogers’ past charges. In the process, she learned Ethan had been sexually abused by Rogers between the ages of 12 and 16.
Wary of Rogers’ connections with Baton Rouge law enforcement, Gray took the case to Luke Walker, an Assistant United States Attorney in Lafayette who had prosecuted child exploitation cases for more than 20 years.
“Rogers developed very close relationships with law enforcement in Baton Rouge,” Gray said. “He was a chaplain and a reserve deputy at the sheriff’s office, and he claimed he was very close friends with the head of the state police.”
After spending so much time acquiring information, Gray went on to become a confidential informant to the federal investigation on Scott Rogers.
“Familiar Evil” chronicles Gray’s fight to expose Rogers over the course of a year as she worked with Ethan, criminal defense attorney Nathan Fisher and paralegal Mary Jane Marcantel.
“The thing I really care about is that people understand that there’s a positive side to learning about this story,” Gray said. “It’s starting to make it a little easier for people to talk about this subject.”

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Greta Jines

Author Rannah Gray displays her book "Familiar Evil" Wednesday, March 16, 2016, in downtown Baton Rouge.