From court to the Capitol: One woman's journey of courage over crime
- caroline reed
- Apr 5
- 8 min read
Updated: Apr 6
For The Temple Daily Telegram
Cailey Rush has a story unlike most, but it has transformed into one of courageously speaking out for victims of a crime that has been on the rise since technology has advanced.
She has grown from an unsure child who was victimized by a family member to a young adult at age 23 advocating for more penalties against criminal offenders.
Her courage to publicly tell her story has led to her becoming an advocate for House Bill 1465 introduced by State Rep. Hillary Hickland, R-Belton.
HB 1465 ensures that individuals convicted of invasive visual recording are required to register as sex offenders, holding them accountable and preventing further harm.
The House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence heard her public testimony on March 25.
“One legislator was so moved by these women’s powerful stories and the potential impact this bill could have on protecting other victims that she decided to joint-author the bill,” Hickland said. “I am incredibly proud to partner with these brave women to protect others from predators who commit this horrific crime.”
“As a kid, I used to feel like I was being watched,” Rush told the Telegram in an interview. “I remember double checking locked doors, and kids just get scared and paranoid sometimes... it’s something that I will ever get over either. I don’t know if I will ever not feel that way.”
Rush was 6 years old when the relationship between her mother and Rush’s stepfather, Brandon Mathiews, began. Mathiews is a former Temple Police officer who was a member of the Criminal Investigations Unit.
In the beginning, Rush noticed a feeling of anger and resentment toward Mathiews. The feelings were brushed off as a child adapting to the change in family dynamics.
“He tried really hard to convince me to be OK with it. At their wedding I remember crying because it meant I was stuck with him,” Rush said. The couple was married when she was 9.
Rush adapted and the family grew. In 2018, Mathiews and Rush’s mom had another daughter, and the couple was also fostering two boys, both younger than 2.
Mathiews interacted with her as would any stepparent, routinely taking her to school and dance performances. He was her “go-to parent.”
“Now I know it was all fake, but it was nice to feel like I had a dad. I was always the kid without one,” Rush said. “Being 16 I hadn’t grasped that he was grooming me the entire time probably to see just how far he could take it.”
The day that started Rush’s nightmare was a Monday in November 2018. The morning of the incident, Mathiews had taken Rush to a coffee shop and let the 16-year-old drive his car as practice for her driver’s license.
The interaction paints a picture of a typical father-daughter relationship.
What changed on that day was she was later cleaning her room when she found a recording device. Staring back at her was the infamous red “recording” light blinking back at her.
“Someone has been watching me and listening to me. My first thought was someone broke into my house, anything that would explain it,” she admitted to a friend after calling her to come over to the house.
The two girls would go through the files on the recording device together. When the files began to appear on the laptop screen, Rush said the titles of the videos and photos were explicit and revealed some of the invasive content.
Then the two girls located a file labeled “C,” Rush said her stomach dropped.
“She turned the screen away from herself and I hit play by myself and there it was, the first video was me in the shower,” Rush said.
She describes the three different videos from the folder that she had watched:
“The first one I was in the shower and you could clearly see the person adjusting the angles of the camera through the air vents,” she recalled. “He had crawled through the attic of the house that my great-grandparents built. Investigators told us the silver air conditioning tube it was hard to remove. Not only did he remove everything, but then climbed up a ladder. All that time and struggling I know he had time to think about what he was about to do.”
There were many similar files.
“Then there was another one where you can see the camera come under my bedroom door from the outside and adjust to see around the corner. Once I saw myself in that one ... I don’t know, I turned it off. I didn’t watch it all but I knew whoever it was had to be there and in the flesh. I didn’t know who it was at this point.”
The last video would answer that question for Rush.
“The last one I had the courage to watch was at his parents’, my grandparents’, swimming pool. There was no mistaking the location. That summer, I was 14 maybe 15. He had showed me that he got a new underwater camera from work and it was so cool. He had me do flips and jump in and out of the water. That’s when I knew who it was.”
As the two girls discovered the revealing videos on the recording device that day, Mathiews was in the room next door, Rush said.
Mathiews entered the room with the girls several times and carried on conversations while they were sorting through the sordid files. Toward the end of the day she had noticed Mathiews pacing the hall in front of the bedroom.
Rush assumed he was aware of his missing recorder.
Rush waited until her friend left before sharing her findings with her mother.
When the coast was clear that evening, she pulled her mother into a closet, the only private spot in the house Rush could think of.
The first emotion Rush described after sharing what she saw was stupidity.
“I was sick to my stomach, I felt so stupid,” she recalled. “I didn’t think about the fact he was recording.”
Rush recalled the next few hours as a blur, but vividly remembers her mother confronting Mathiews asking, “How long have you been looking at my daughter naked?”
When the sounds coming out of their bedroom resembled items clattering and falling, Rush knew she had to leave.
After breaking down emotionally in a local retail store parking lot, she returned only when she was certain Mathiews was no longer in the house.
Rush and her siblings stayed at the house that night, but Tuesday she and her half-sister went to their great-grandparents’ house.
In the week following the revelation, the adults in her life were weighing their options.
“I begged for them to turn him in but everyone was worried about his safety for being a cop in prison, they were looking for rehab facilities for him,” Rush said.
Five days later, the decision was made. They would turn him in. Before he was turned in, her mother shared the news with her sister and her husband. All were in shock.
Their daughter, Rush’s cousin, had overheard the news, and broke her silence. She revealed to her family she was being molested by her step-uncle, Mathiews. She was 15 years old.
The adults had no choice but to go directly to the police.
“That’s when it got crazy, my mom freaked, she was now a single mom, she didn’t have a job, she had a mortgage to pay,” Rush said. “He was the sole income provider and there were four kids she had to take care of now. So she wasn’t in a good place.”
The situation prompted Child Protective Services to take the foster children, and CPS ended up removing Rush and her sister from the home. The sisters were allowed to stay with grandparents.
Rush was again overcome with feelings of uncertainty — no dad, separated from her mom, and living in a different home.
Mathiews had been a part of the Rush family for more than a decade.
Rush recalled Mathiews being in jail for a couple of days but after he was released on bond he was living less than five miles away.
“I never went to Walmart or H-E-B because he was shopping at the same stores,” she said.
He continued his life from there.
“I heard he was working at a food pantry and worked his way up,” Rush said. “Some of his coworkers served as character witnesses in the trial. Their whole defense is it was a mental illness, his job is hard, his home life is hard, and in the dark moments he had made a mistake.”
Mathiews faced two separate indictments that were worked into one plea deal, according to Rush.
Charges against him related to Rush’s cousin dealt with indecency with a child. Charges related to what happened to Rush included six counts of child pornography and invasive recording.
Ultimately, Mathiews plead guilty to the six counts only and received a sentence of eight years probated to five by Judge Paul LePak of the 264th District Court in Belton for invasive visual recording in bath/dressroom and child pornography charges.
Rush said Mathiews did not plead guilty to charges related to her cousin and those charges were disposed. Her cousin was allowed to testify in her case.
His term in prison was probated five years, according to the court records. Sentencing guidelines could allow Mathiews to get credit for time served and be eligible for parole as soon as 75 days after the start of his sentence.
If he were denied probation due to a violation, he would face serving the full eight years.
The trial did not include jury and was over in three days with the judge imposing sentencing, according to Rush, and two of the days were spent going through testimonies.
“It would have absolutely changed the outcome if we went to a jury, which is so frustrating,” Rush said. “But now I have a fire under my rear, to change the system.”
She wants her story to encourage other victims.
“If it didn’t happen how it did I don’t think I would have had the initiative to do something as serious as go to the capitol,” Rush said. “There’s a greater good coming out of this, and the guy upstairs is going to take care of the rest.”
Rush hopes HB 1465 illuminates this now common type of crime that ultimately can end with limited to no punishment for offenders.
“Typically with the invasive recording charge, people think about public spaces, a (store) bathroom, or store dressing rooms, but no one ever thinks about being invaded in your own home and bathroom,” Rush said. “I was just a kid singing in the shower.”
HB 1465 must still get through the legislation process in the current legislative session.
Before standing up for others for the world to see, Rush had to face the one who overturned her world and set her on this new path of courage for others.
She stood before Mathiews in the courtroom and stated her case:
“I can still thank you for how strong I have become and proud of who I am. No more monsters in the attic. I can breathe again. The best is yet to come and I hope your soul is changing. I hope you find your peace. You told the police back in 2014 on your employee Friday feature post that your favorite quote was ‘Two wolves battle inside us all, one good and one evil, the one that wins is the one you feed the most.’
“I hope you start feeding your good wolf because God knows that you’ve done enough damage.
“I never wanted revenge, only justice for what I’ve been through. Today justice has been served not because of your sentence but because I am free. Free of the weight of carrying this weight alone I have and will continue to work through the trauma you have caused me.
“Air vents will always remind me of what you did but also how much I have accomplished. I hope air vents are also a reminder to you to feed the good wolf.”
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