482 - Similar Different Problems

This week, Georgia and Karen cover the Alamo Christian Foundation.

For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.

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See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
Last, Hello and welcome.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
That's my favorite murder.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
That's Georgia Hardstar.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
That's Karen Kilgara.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Someone's got a new haircut.

Speaker 4 (00:23):
This is the place where we trim our bangs an
hour before we go on video.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
Oh did you hand you personally hand trim Drone Banks? Yes?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
And I have a sink at a home full of
hair to prove it. Well, I like it.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
You went down the center.

Speaker 4 (00:34):
I did like it because I've been growing it out,
so like what am I going to do? And then
I'm like, well, I hate it? And so I just
went You did cut Banks?

Speaker 3 (00:41):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah? Did it work? Yes?

Speaker 3 (00:43):
It did.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
I used the razor scissors from when I was in
beauty school, Oh, in nineteen ninety nine.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
So remember your razor scissor lesson? What was the trick
of razor scissors?

Speaker 4 (00:52):
H get them like, make sure you have a new
razor in there and not one from nineteen ninety.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
Eight, which is what you had, a nice dull razor.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:02):
You can hear the hair eyes, you can hear their hair, eat.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Hair individually being sliced.

Speaker 3 (01:09):
Do you know how much I can't have people use
razors on my hair? It goes insane, like because oh,
your hair goes crazy. The hair goes so crazy and
it's not you know, there's like I follow a bunch
of hairdressers.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
On TikTok, Yeah, stylists.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
Is there a word racer and a lot of them
use those razors. Yeah, Like I don't my hair.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
Wouldn't do that do the weirdest shit I know, because
it can't be thinner. It'll just that's very like carefully said,
don't you have someone who does that?

Speaker 3 (01:40):
And then ran down the hall in it socks at
top speed.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
I loft so hard. It was just like such a
careful thing.

Speaker 4 (01:46):
And it's like, yeah, but obviously you've never been a
fucking teenage girl because.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
Right, because it's not that hard and it doesn't it
looks good, thank you. I don't know how much better
they would do it. Yeah, And also you're get you're
into you're getting into a real curtain.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
It's got like a.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Curtain bangs center part. Are you gonna go into a
fara faucet era this summer?

Speaker 2 (02:08):
I could, And then I have like the eighties shirt
to go with it, but.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Yes, yeah, spam those decades.

Speaker 4 (02:14):
My goal and beauty is to look like Janet from
Freeze Company.

Speaker 3 (02:18):
Save Jennifer and Freeze Company. And then I thought you
would think when it was insulting.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Why she's gorgeous.

Speaker 3 (02:23):
She's gorgeous. I don't know. Maybe I thought it was
too old, so I was just like, pilot, pilot away.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
That's my fucking style.

Speaker 4 (02:30):
And then a little bit of missus roper thrown in,
you know what I mean, just like a smooth.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Chunky necklace. Right, we were just talking about the ropers
on do you need a ride?

Speaker 4 (02:40):
Oh so funny, not to cross promos. Weird, but it's
the truth, man. Yeah, we're like fucking psychically connected.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
It's true.

Speaker 4 (02:48):
Psycho leak connected, psycho lea connected. Speaking of, I have
a birthday present for you. Let's see if you want it.
Fuck yeah, to close your eyes. Oh okay, okay, close
your eyes. Hold on, I'll tell you what, okaya mm hmm.

Speaker 5 (03:13):
The Italian hand, it's an it's an Italian hand on
the like swing thing, so it does the Italian hand
gesture with the Italian flag, with the Italian flag, so it's.

Speaker 3 (03:24):
It's a constant Italian hand gesture of mama miadanza pizza
for one. What is that? I bet there's a name
for this. Sorry you want to tell us what the
name of this is. Sorry, you claim to be Italian.
You can't expose me like this.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
I got you.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
That was just a big got you for Yeah, exactly.
This is incredible. Hopefully we're clear on cameras, because that
is I wish it was the kind of thing where
you rocked it once and it does it for infinitely, like.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Like the clacking things.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
That's an incredible gift. Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (04:02):
Do you also want to I'm another one that's that
might be insulting, like Janet from Bruce Company might be insulting.
But I bought a self help book and I accidentally
got two of them, so I was going to say
that maybe we should read them together. And we don't
have like a self help book club.

Speaker 3 (04:16):
I mean, I think the people have been waiting for
that for ten years. Let's do it.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
I saw this one on us, But.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
Is it going to be confrontational?

Speaker 2 (04:23):
No, it was like it was.

Speaker 4 (04:24):
I got it because I don't cry and I need to,
like I want to feel feelings and stuff, and so
it's not. It's called emotional agility. Get unstuck, embrace change,
and thrive and work in Life by Susan David PhD.

Speaker 3 (04:35):
We all need to do all of those things. That's great.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
So there we go, all right, so let's not read it.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
No, so we're going to do We're going to not
read it and we're going to shut our emotions down
and we're not going to change. I think we should
read it, and I think we should do like a
that could be a fan cult video of like we
read a self help book and this is what Karen
thinks you should take from away from this is what
Georgia things. You should like.

Speaker 4 (04:58):
Highlight important things in it for us, and and we
can like see if we got anything the same. And
I just looked at it and realized that maybe I
bought it because there's a cookie with sprinkles on the
cover of it.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
But I still need emotional agility.

Speaker 3 (05:08):
So what if we picked cookies to eat with every
book club?

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Okay, that was kind of thinking strong.

Speaker 3 (05:19):
I was thinking about other stuff while I was pitching them. Okay,
it kind of got distracted. Well, you'll pick the next one,
so it can be whatever you want. I like this though.
We should really do a self help book club. Yeah,
I think it's.

Speaker 4 (05:30):
Great, and like, find one that you think will work
for you and like because obviously we both have different problems,
similar different problems.

Speaker 3 (05:37):
But I like this and if I get emotionally agile enough,
I can land an Italian man. Could you imagine?

Speaker 2 (05:45):
Manja?

Speaker 3 (05:46):
Is that it pizza for one Manda? It's it's the
thing where like in Inglorious Bastard's, the guys that he pretends,
he gets to pretend are Italian, but they don't speak.
So the one guy he asks, somebody asked him a
question an Italian and he.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Just goes, do you see the baby who does it too?

Speaker 4 (06:03):
No, there's a baby who does it on TikTok oh, thank.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
You like a brand new that it's just a weird thing.

Speaker 4 (06:08):
Is like toddler, So it is weird still, but it's
like who were you in your last life kind of
a thing.

Speaker 3 (06:14):
So the toddler means it yeah, and it's.

Speaker 2 (06:16):
Not he's not Italian. It's very weird.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
Mean, I guess Italians from everywhere, including our Italian couple's
friends that used to come and see us live. Remember
the Italians. Maybe they could write in and tell us
what what does the pinched finger hand boy give boy boy?
Which means what it means like, what do you want?
What do you do?

Speaker 2 (06:35):
What do you want? What are you doing?

Speaker 5 (06:39):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (06:39):
It's bad.

Speaker 2 (06:40):
Oh it's like this piece of ship.

Speaker 3 (06:42):
Yeah, it's like come on, now, what do you want?

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (06:45):
But don't people do it like.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
Like delicious or they but they kiss it when it
was that's a different thing. Chef's kiss kiss The fingers
are not like a beautiful it's like a okay you yeah, okay,
it's like a how dare you? Oh?

Speaker 4 (07:00):
Okay, Well that's good for you. Well, I just put
on your desk and just whenever someone comes into your office.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
You could just if only that would work.

Speaker 4 (07:07):
Did she watched the Vince Vaughn the show where he like,
nevermind say it?

Speaker 3 (07:13):
No, you don't want to talk about Italy anymore.

Speaker 1 (07:15):
I don't want.

Speaker 3 (07:18):
Did you watch that Vince Vaughan show where he became Italian?

Speaker 2 (07:21):
What do you got? Oh?

Speaker 3 (07:23):
Personally, I don't think anything except for to say that, uh,
it is now pool season again. It's hot enough consistently
in La where the swimming has begun again. And I
have been waiting and waiting for this, and it was
so weirdly mild to not warm for so long. Yeah,
and we're in now.

Speaker 2 (07:43):
It's very exciting.

Speaker 4 (07:44):
I've started gardening because it's like nice till like eight o'clock.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yes, you know, in the evening.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Yeah, warm at night.

Speaker 4 (07:50):
Yeah, nice glass of wine and get my hands all dirty.
It's been fun.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Good. Yeah, that's a nice one.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
All right. Fine, Look, oh, I have an Instagram comment
to read that. I really liked that. I think you liked.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
Let's hear it.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
So last week you.

Speaker 4 (08:05):
Did the story of the shooting in Arizona and how
a lot of unhouse people got shot, and we discussed
that and you know, like, let's have some fucking empathy everyone.
So someone on my favorite runner Instagram whose name is
Feral Underscore Forest Underscore Witch, fir forest Witch, said this,

(08:27):
thank you for what you said today about humanizing unhoused people.
I was once an unhoused, pregnant nineteen year old living
in my truck and working as a merchandiser at Macy's
and a receptionist at a day spa. I would sleep
in my truck, do a quick corse bath at a
gas station, and change into my work clothes every morning.
Occasionally I could couch surf for the trade of cleaning

(08:50):
an apartment no one at work knew I was in
a house. A miscarried scare brought me to the hospital
and I called my mom. Thankfully, the baby was okay,
and I decided to keep him and moved back in
with my parents. That baby is now twenty four and
an astrobiologist ex twenty four forever an astrobiologist. You did

(09:11):
something right, You did some like what a contribution to
the world.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
It's like basically saying that baby is now a rocket
scientist right essentially.

Speaker 4 (09:21):
Right exactly, and a loving partner to my wonderful son
in law. But I'll never forget that we began life
together in a Chevy S ten Like that's how Like, yeah,
you're coworkers. You just don't know anyone situation these days.
These days, actually.

Speaker 3 (09:38):
Everyone has two and three jobs because the minimum wage
hasn't been raised in one hundred years, right, and the
billionaires are keeping all of the money.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
It's like, and the cost of living is just insane,
not matching up with what people are being paid, and
it's fucking it's it's abhorrent. We should be so humiliated
and like horrified by ourselves in the US that we are.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
Treating Rise up.

Speaker 3 (10:02):
Like it's over fuck billionaires, I mean, and also just
cannot sustain this way. It's they're they're pushing it to
the tipping point. Absolutely in that idea, that bill that
just got past, it's like cutting medicaid, cutting like it's
just stripping out any anything that's left to give people. Yeah,

(10:23):
and who's getting it?

Speaker 2 (10:24):
I wonder, Yeah, where's that money going to?

Speaker 4 (10:26):
I mean, it's just it's crazy. Should we do a donation? Sure, yeah,
let's give a ten thousand dollars donation. Let's do it
so No Kid Hungry who we love giving to go
to No Kid Hungry dot org. If you want to
help out as well, I mean.

Speaker 3 (10:42):
Would just do the basics. You could give five dollars.
We're going to give ten thousand. Try to move some
money toward children who are waking up in a four
to f ten with their mom trying to get by.

Speaker 4 (10:56):
My mom's working two jobs and raising kids. Like it's
not right, y'all.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Please do what you can.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
And this is all for the murderinos when we donate,
so thank you guys so much.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
That's right. We donate in your names. There's a lot
of good in this world, and there's a lot of
good we can do. If you don't have money to
do good with, what else can you do? Just ask
yourself that every day. You'd probably be pretty surprised with
the answers you get all around you because the need
is there, and also people need to be good to
each other. The need within you to give is just

(11:28):
as important.

Speaker 4 (11:29):
Absolutely, so absolutely that's great. You don't have that, then
blood is fine too.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
Then give your blood and get a cookie and try
not to faint.

Speaker 4 (11:37):
I have that blood that's like you know, oh, can
you that crazy blood? That's just like super rare, super
powerful blood.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
Does your blood cure cancers and others? It does? I
think I've heard of your blood, just like.

Speaker 4 (11:50):
They have, like you know, in Antarctica, there's a place
that has just my blood in case the apocalypse comes.

Speaker 3 (11:56):
You should sell it on Etsy. You made it blood
on Etsy.

Speaker 4 (12:02):
Well, we have an exciting announcement for you guys, So
I guess yeah, let's just fucking get into it, right,
let's get into it.

Speaker 3 (12:06):
If you're a.

Speaker 4 (12:07):
Fast forwarder, don't do it yet, because we got a
really fun announcement.

Speaker 3 (12:11):
Fast forwarder no skipper, right, We never called them fast
forwarders before. This is exciting news for the real ones.
The fan Cult, which is our fan club. We just
named it the Fan Cult. We just gave it a
major upgrade.

Speaker 4 (12:24):
Yeah, we've been working on this. This is so exciting.
You guys are gonna love it. It's got so much
stuff in it, and now we have added so much more.
So to begin with, there's currently an archive of almost
two hundred mini mini episodes and five years of bonus
video just waiting. So if you're not a member yet,
that's like the first thing, it's.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
Already sitting there. But now we have broken the fan
Cult into two tiers. So there's Tier one, which is
called You're in a Cult. That's five dollars a month
and that you get weekly bonus audio and video, early
access to live show tickets, access to our discord, which
is a new thing. I was told it's something like
the internet version of a Fresh Saloon.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
It's very fun.

Speaker 4 (13:03):
And then Tier two is call your dad and you
guys have been wanting this, this is the thing that
everyone's been waiting for. If it's just ten dollars a
month and you get everything from tier one plus a
twenty dollars merch credit, and here's the very exciting thing.
You get ad free episodes of the podcast and video.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
People have been asking for ad free podcasts since we
left Stitcher back in nineteen seventy four, and you wanted it.
Now we have.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
It's been very hard.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
We've been trying to figure out a way, and this
is it.

Speaker 3 (13:30):
We're doing it for ourselves. So if you sign up
for Tier two now, you will get AD free episodes
of this podcast and they upload to Apple or Spotify
or wherever you listen to your podcast, so they just
go there automatically.

Speaker 4 (13:42):
There's a lot of like little details that have been
hard to track down, and we've done it. And if
you sign up before Friday, June thirteenth, Friday the thirteenth,
you'll get the fan Cult relaunch discount. So that's Tier
one for three dollars and thirty three cents a month,
or Tier two for eight dollars a month. We're not
trying to fucking gouge anyone here. We're just trying to
put up some exclusive content and stuff.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
That's right and for and to prove that we're not
trying to gage anybody. You can either pay monthly at
those prices or you go yearly you'll save even more.
That's right. If you are a current member of the
fan Cult, you are automatically moved to the five dollars
tier at your original three dollars and thirty three cent price.
So don't worry, We're not. Yeah, nobody freak out here.
This is a good thing.

Speaker 4 (14:24):
I know people like to you know, people don't like
change and they get scared.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
But this is actually really fucking cool and I'm excited
about it.

Speaker 4 (14:30):
Yeah, So go to fancult dot supercast dot com to
join the cult, or just go to my favorite murder
dot com. There's links there, and yeay, welcome to the
fan Cult. It's a fucking really fun place to be,
I think.

Speaker 3 (14:41):
And on top of that, we want to tell you
about all of what the highlights from our network. It's
called the exactly Reich podcast Network.

Speaker 4 (14:49):
So this week on Banana's Current and Scottie cover hot
topics like attractive psychopaths and a woman falling into a
crevass to get her phone over.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
On Ghosted, Ros welcomes the luminous actor and kindred spear
James Scully.

Speaker 2 (15:00):
And then I said no gifts.

Speaker 4 (15:02):
Bridger does his best to stay composed when Tim Kalpakis
barges in with a Frickin' gift, and.

Speaker 3 (15:08):
This week on this podcast will Kill You, the Aarons
tackle toxic shock syndrome.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
WHOA Okay?

Speaker 4 (15:13):
And then, most importantly obviously, hot Dog Summer has arrived
straight from the runways of Milan, pulled from the elite
cotor shops of Paris, we bring you the hot dog
collection of our merch Again.

Speaker 3 (15:27):
That's right, we're re releasing hot Dog Ladies, Muscle Tea,
the hot dog unisex tea, and a hot dog sticker.
So chic, it's so sexy it's been banned on six contents.

Speaker 4 (15:37):
I wear that hot Dog Ladies Muscle Tea to work
out in and it boosts me. I don't want to
make any promises, but it's like you can drop hour
from it. Yeah, exactly so. Also, this design is by
Sammy Rich. So go to exactly right store dot com
to grab yours today or tomorrow. No, no rush, Yeah, sure, don't,
please don't unless they sell out.

Speaker 3 (15:57):
Yeah, those hot dogs will sell out.

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (16:03):
Now, this is the story of a cult that I
had never heard of. Oh yeah, I know you love
a cult, so maybe you know this one. But I
watched the documentary about it, and I was like, how
have I never heard of this? It should be just
as big as all the others because it's horrible, okay,
and you know awful.

Speaker 3 (16:21):
It feels like with cults, Yeah, it can only go
in one direction.

Speaker 4 (16:25):
Right, Well, you don't hear about the good one? Are
there good cults where it's like and everything was my
Catholic Church? You heard about that a lot lately. I
wonder if there are any like positive ones. What would
a positive cult be?

Speaker 3 (16:36):
I just don't think it can be, because it's the
Any positivity then turns in on itself because of the
creeps at the top.

Speaker 4 (16:43):
Yeah, if it's a positive one, it doesn't get called
a cult, so we don't hear about it.

Speaker 3 (16:47):
Probably then it's just ann MLM.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
Right, that is just a religion. Okay.

Speaker 4 (16:52):
So today's story is about a nefarious couple who teamed
up to start a Christian cult that managed to operate
for forty years and inflict horrific abuses on its members.
This is the story of the Alamo Christian Foundation.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
Have you heard of them? It's spelled Alamo.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
Yeah, I'm thinking of the rental car company. Yeah, they
were horrible. It's not them, but they abuse people.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
They actually do.

Speaker 4 (17:15):
Have a really crazy connection to like a piece of
merchandise or to like a public facing thing like the
rental car thing.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Okay, that's bananas, Okay.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
The main source is for this story is a docuseries
that Vince and I watch called Ministry of Evil, The
Twisted Cult of Tony Alamo, and the rest of the
sources can be found in the show notes. This is
a great documentary. It has all the information. So consider
this your friend telling you about the documentary, and then
you should go watch it because I'm not gonna be

(17:46):
able to like relay all the information and it's really
fucking interesting.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
I'm gonna, I promise I'll listen, but I'm gonna be
thinking that I've already seen this documentary because but I
feel like this story is so dense and it goes
on for so long.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
Yeah, it does.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
But is that the one I'm thinking of? Or is
it I'm like, but then there's Children of God, Like
I feel like I have documentary poison essentially, Yes, where
I've seen so many where it's like, is the clothes
captioning yellow?

Speaker 4 (18:19):
Well, let me tell you what they look like because
then maybe that'll help. It looks like Tammy Fay and
then it.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
Looks like fat Elvis.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
Yes, but I was gonna say, it's more of a
Roy Orbison kind of thing. Okay, Okay, do you see
that bright blonde hair. She's got the most amazing dresses,
like seventies style.

Speaker 3 (18:37):
But he has a tary seventies like man, paunchy man vibe.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Exactly.

Speaker 4 (18:42):
Okay, Yes, that's them Roy Orbison old Elvis kind of
a thing, gotcha, exactly? This is the one, all right.
So I'm not going to like really get into the beginnings.
It's the same thing you hear for like Manson and
all of the other ones. It's like the nineteen sixties.
There's a lot of hippies going to Los Angeles trying
to figure out their way, and there's a lot of
people praying on them, including this cult. They pass out

(19:06):
flyers about Jesus, they invite people to come to the church,
and it turns out for these guys. They're doing the
bidding for a couple. This couple, a man named Tony
Alamo and a woman named Susan who have started the
Alamo Christian Foundation. So it's the same thing you've hear
heard a million times.

Speaker 5 (19:23):
You know.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
It's it's the same thing you dream of doing one
day with your money.

Speaker 2 (19:27):
But starting a cult or running Los Angela foundation. It's like,
that's my dream. I have my mood board.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
It's like it's just so weird where it's like you're
all that work and maybe it's just my perspective that
I can't get, but it's like, you're going to do
all that work and not like do a show at
the end. You're going to do all that work and
not it's just purely to force people to go to church.

Speaker 4 (19:49):
Yeah, well, so she is actually an incredible orator, as
they say. Okay, so it's the story is like almost
in two parts where she's in charge and then he's
in charge. And when she's in charge, it kind of
makes sense because she can stand up on the pulpit
and give these incredible sermons and she's really a show
a showman. And her daughter is in the documentary and
she's fucking the most amazing person and you want to

(20:11):
hang out with her so bad. And she talks about
what a con woman her mother was and how good
she was at it, and I think she actually was
it's very similar to like Jim Jones, Oh okay, like
she's just really good at it. Wow, And like the
same time period where people are lost, they're looking for
something new. They you know, their parents are like old
school and so they don't fit in there anymore. But
there's nothing else for them, you know what I mean.

(20:33):
It's like I could totally.

Speaker 2 (20:34):
It's so easy.

Speaker 3 (20:35):
It's yeah, when you run under the house, like at
the beginning of the pet Ben at our video, love
is a battlefield and you're like, fuck you, I'll never
come back, and then you go out and then the
world is horrifying and you think you can't go back exactly.

Speaker 2 (20:48):
So that's that's this time.

Speaker 4 (20:49):
It's like, it makes sense that these people in the
sixties and seventies fell for this, but the people in
the nineties have no fucking excuse.

Speaker 3 (20:57):
Listen, it was a very sarcastic time and there's a
lot to run from.

Speaker 4 (21:01):
I think they were kidding. The nineties were like we
were just being sarcastic.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
No, I mean, it was like a people needed to
take shelter from all how toxic the culture was where
they were just like I don't know, Jesus, will you
help me because these.

Speaker 2 (21:14):
I can't anymore. Okay, So let me tell you about Susan.

Speaker 4 (21:17):
First of all, she looks like, yeah, like Dolly Parton
and Janice the Muppet from them Uppet Band became a person.
Her name was Edith Oplehorn. She's born in Arkansas in
nineteen twenty five. She wants to be an actress, moves
to Los Angeles in the nineteen forties, and she gets
a job as a bar girl, which I really loved this.
It's they pay pretty young women. Bar people pay pretty

(21:39):
hang on to sit at the bar have a drink,
and then the man buys them a drink but it's
not alcohol, but they're charged for alcohol, so they just
keep drinking and like making the men keep buying drinks.

Speaker 3 (21:49):
Wow, yeah, oh that's great.

Speaker 4 (21:51):
So like yeah, they just to keep the patrons coming
and buying more drinks. Yeap, makes sense, you know. So
then Susan, who at this point is marriage, is a dog.
As I said, her name, the daughter's name, I'm just
gonna call her Chris because it's some kind of Chris
theion that I can't pronounce.

Speaker 2 (22:07):
And she goes by Chris.

Speaker 4 (22:08):
Susan meets this man named Mark Hoffman. He had been
born Bernie Laser Hoffman in nineteen thirty four in Missouri.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
Laser laserkah with a Z.

Speaker 4 (22:18):
That's kind of cool, that mean, And he changed his name,
Like you fucking changed You change your name to Laser.

Speaker 3 (22:22):
Your name's Bernie Laser. You could do anything with your life.

Speaker 4 (22:27):
Mark was raised at Father Flanagan's boys Town, which I'm
sure was a very peaceful, calm yeah, supportive.

Speaker 3 (22:34):
No problems there, no no sarcasm there.

Speaker 4 (22:36):
Everything's fine. And after growing up and moving out to California,
he becomes a low level drifter and had several convictions
for petty theft as well as for statutory rate. And
so this guy Mark meets Susan in the early sixties.
She's ten years older than him and kind of just
a presence.

Speaker 2 (22:57):
Right, so he falls for her.

Speaker 4 (22:59):
They fall for each other, even though Mark has no
interest or knowledge of Christianity.

Speaker 2 (23:04):
He's like, I see what this does to people.

Speaker 4 (23:06):
I'm fucking all in, Like wants to be part of
the mind, controlling things. Yeah, you know yeah, And he
sees it as a business opportunity really, because Susan does
have this magnetism that draws people to her. She's very
it's like motherly. I don't know, there's something about it
that people love. Susan and Mark divorce their spouses and
they get married in Vegas in nineteen sixty six. At

(23:28):
this point, Susan's forty one and Mark is thirty two,
so those.

Speaker 3 (23:32):
Are kind of crucial ages to be making.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:36):
Interesting, Oh, Susan really landed a young guy.

Speaker 4 (23:39):
That's exciting, and it's kind of like it does seem
like her little fuck boy a little bit, because like
he's in the background of the photos of her, like
giving these amazing sermons with all her crazy nails, and
he does seem like a supportive little fuck.

Speaker 3 (23:52):
Boy and as supportive groupie.

Speaker 4 (23:53):
Yeah, and I'm sure she just like wanted it, yea
for her to a point, her to a point, so.

Speaker 3 (24:04):
Good for her too. Yeah, a good title.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
So they changed their name, so he changes his name
to Tony and they changed her last name to Alamo.

Speaker 2 (24:14):
So from here on out, it's Susan and Tony Alamo.

Speaker 4 (24:17):
The Alamos begin preaching on the streets to young people
in La They gained it a ton of followers and
you're like, how did that happen? They start operating out
of a house in West Hollywood on Crescent and Sunset WHI.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
It's like that's where I get my hair done, which
I mean, like, I wonder which corner had a house
is there's Green Blats, there's a Sunset five shop mini shoppings.

Speaker 4 (24:39):
Yeah, so I think probably behind one of those places
up in the hills a little bit. Yeah, Carrot, Kara,
Clink and Jared used to live rate there too. Yeah,
there's like there's some apartments buildings there.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Yep. So we're yeah, oh that's right, they had that great. Yeah,
that's nice.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yes, I bet it's like right around there.

Speaker 3 (25:00):
It's not this is not relevant at all.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
It's not.

Speaker 4 (25:02):
But like it's like we're living for five people and
you're one of them, and we're this is your our podcast.

Speaker 3 (25:09):
All text care after this?

Speaker 2 (25:11):
I guess what?

Speaker 3 (25:13):
All right?

Speaker 2 (25:14):
So I just love shit like that.

Speaker 3 (25:16):
Well that's the fun of like a it's like hometown
true crime because it's like this actually happened here. We're
not talking about some far away place in the place
where you can't convince someone to give you one dollar
if you were short on gas. Right, somehow these people
came in and started changing hearts and minds on Sunset.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
And it's a happening time. I'm at Sunset was crawling
and they're just like, come a couple of blocks away,
and we have this apartment where you can or a
house whatever, you can hang out with us. And because
of that, very quickly, the city of West Hollywood takes
issue with the over occupancy of the house because guess
by nineteen seventy's it's a.

Speaker 2 (25:52):
Three bedroom house.

Speaker 4 (25:53):
Guess how many people in nineteen seventy at this point
are living there. Ten But it's over They're bad because
it's over occupancies. You're growing with ten, well, three to
a bedroom, five to a bedroom, fifteen, two hundred.

Speaker 3 (26:07):
No, probably like people.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
Going in and out.

Speaker 4 (26:10):
You know. It's like not everyone that we get at
the same time, but two hundred, how that's so gross.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
It's so gross. There's like two old spinster sisters that
live next door with like another one's coming in.

Speaker 2 (26:22):
They don't have shoes, they got their pet lizard.

Speaker 4 (26:24):
I'm thinking of the Simpsons, the sisters from the Sisters.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
Another one's coming in.

Speaker 4 (26:29):
So like that alone would make me be like, no,
thank you to this cult. You know what I mean,
you don't have a clean bathroom.

Speaker 3 (26:34):
No, come on, where's the spaghetti dinner? I don't want
to just hang out in a hot apartment.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
That's right. So they are like, shit, we need to move.

Speaker 4 (26:42):
So by the early seventies they wind up buying a
compound out in the desert. Yes, very much like the
Manson family. In fact, it's not far from there.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
It's in a.

Speaker 4 (26:50):
Cult hot spot called Saugus, California. You know, Saugust Saugust
just down the road from the Manson family. So they
could like high five on their way to being terrible.

Speaker 3 (27:00):
I mean, what a weird time. We think we live
in a weird time. But like truly, like all of
culture just ripped in half. And then it was like
take these drugs and walk over there and see what happened.

Speaker 4 (27:12):
No one had ever lived that way, Like by the nineties,
it was like people had experience experimented and lived that
way and been through shit. But that like nineteen sixties on, No,
you couldn't go on an airplane without being in a suit,
you know what I mean. Yes, there's no alternative, there's
no counterculture. So it would be mind blowing to see that.

Speaker 3 (27:33):
So counter and so like the way my mom used
to be about, like you're not wearing those jeans to
the dentist and your mom and talking about and it's like,
can you imagine what those poor people who like grew
up in the Great Depression, they finally make money, they
get give the money to their kids, and their kids
are like he mean yeah, bye.

Speaker 2 (27:52):
Totally, or like you don't understand me, goodbye?

Speaker 3 (27:55):
Yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
And I want to do drugs too.

Speaker 3 (27:57):
I want to do drugs and I want to join
whatever religion anyone offers me totally Sunset Boulevard.

Speaker 4 (28:02):
Totally, and I believe it. I believe these people, like
the trust then was much more trusting.

Speaker 3 (28:10):
And you know the thing we've learned about, like the
effort vescens of being at a say, music show with
a bunch of people and you're like a next PERI. Yeah,
they were having that like with religion, where it's like.

Speaker 2 (28:21):
A change and the way you talk.

Speaker 4 (28:23):
You've talked about sociopaths being like commanding and you just
want to follow them. Yes, you've got to be a
sociopath to be a fucking cult leader. We know that, right, Yeah,
I believe if not full psychopath, do you have to
say that, Like I'm talking to God directly, and then
God wants me to tell you what to say, Like,
come on.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
Dude, I can't even answer email. I'm talking to God
the daily.

Speaker 2 (28:43):
Yeah, to tell you what to do with a love pressure.
That's a lot of okay.

Speaker 4 (28:47):
So, but they're into it, and so it's all the
normal cult stuff that I want to get into. But
you can watch in the documentary where they give them
the hippies give them the money, but they're also like,
it's hippies. They don't have a lot of money, but
like secretly there are a lot of hippies probably who
have like trust funds and shit, so it works.

Speaker 3 (29:03):
There was a some famous actresses who was it daughter
that like she pulled out of the man's it. Yeah, murder,
she wrote, I think her daughter, Angela Lamscora daughter was
like almost a Manson near.

Speaker 4 (29:19):
And then she got yanked like a musketeer mouse what's
the Mouseketeah?

Speaker 3 (29:26):
She got yanked right, and then her mom was like absolutely,
so you use that credit card. You will not be
buying things for Charles Manson.

Speaker 4 (29:34):
So so they paid, you know, they give them all
their paychecks. At this point, the religion has achieved tax
exempt status because.

Speaker 2 (29:42):
There a religious institution.

Speaker 3 (29:43):
That's the dream.

Speaker 4 (29:45):
But conditions at this desert compound, guess how they are.

Speaker 3 (29:49):
They're horrific discussed.

Speaker 2 (29:50):
They're disgusting.

Speaker 4 (29:52):
There's many members that have babies and small children because
they do this really smart thing where they open. They're
open to single mother and they're like, we accept you,
we won't judge you. Come and will like this is
a community that can take care of your children, because
that was so taboo at the time, right. However, they
have no access to disposable diapers, but they also have
no access to water to wash the cloth diapers. And

(30:14):
people are sleeping about one hundred and twenty five in
a room, you know, and I'm sure the rooms weren't
very insulated or nice to begin with. There's no access
pretty much to shower facilities. But meanwhile, Susan and Tony
guess what, they live in a nice house. Yeah, and
they're like going to sacks with that venue, buying expensive clothes.
Just they're living their good life.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
Yeah. She comes by and she's like, look, I bought
a silk scarf if anybody wants to borrow it for
your baby.

Speaker 2 (30:40):
Police in a pit. Oh god.

Speaker 4 (30:44):
But it's not just financial abuse. Taking place, and this
is where we starts to get dark. Susan starts preaching
to parents that their children will go to hell if
they do not punish them for real or imagine defenses,
and the beatings begin, and this book is a key
component of the church that will endure for decades before
they're finally stopped. So at this point in the nineteen

(31:05):
the mid nineteen seventies, Susan's daughter Chris, who has children
of her own, she even she is like this is
fucked up and leaves, like has to run and leave.
So that's how bad it is, like if your daughter
who's been with you for your entire life is just
sudden like, whoops, this is too much for me.

Speaker 3 (31:23):
Yeah, she's been born into the cult and she leaves.

Speaker 4 (31:26):
And she does that amazing thing where you don't try
to sugarcoat or make your parents' sins seem reasonable. This
woman is incredible. She's very much just like these fucking nuts. Yeah,
very good. So they also though, like Susan and Tony
are these larger than life, you know, Elvis and Dolly

(31:47):
Parton looking characters. And she again is really good. So
they have a weekly syndicated religious TV show they even
they even perform or like they even do a sermon
at the Grand Old Opry.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
You and I did that one time.

Speaker 3 (32:01):
Yeah, I bet our sermons are very similar.

Speaker 2 (32:03):
But they were very similar.

Speaker 4 (32:05):
So they're like mainstream and it gives them credit. And
it kind of has like a musical variety show vibe
and a lot of sequence, a lot of you know,
emphasis on the Bible, just like that crazy seventies Tammy Fay.

Speaker 3 (32:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (32:21):
Then this attracts new members because people think it's respectable,
they have TV time, they have a real show. By
nineteen seventy five, the California authorities are like, hey, something's
not right here. I don't think the workers are being paid.
So Susan and Tony do the smart thing and get
the fuck out of California and go to a place
that's a little more chill.

Speaker 2 (32:41):
About it, Arkansas. Oh that's another thing for me.

Speaker 4 (32:44):
When they're like, let's get out of California, I'd be like,
I'm staying my cult. Yeah, my cult status really depends
on location.

Speaker 3 (32:52):
For sure, you know beach yeah, access Yeah, well yeah,
because I feel like it's the old thirty rock don't
move to a second location. Idea where it's like, once
you're going to a second location, what are you going
to do? Bunker right, You're going to start talking about
the end of the world. You're going to start talking
about like doubling and tripling down on your dedication.

Speaker 2 (33:11):
And you're isolated.

Speaker 4 (33:12):
So there's no like, if you leave the compound, you
can you're in Los Angeles, you can go wherever.

Speaker 2 (33:18):
Yeah, there's there's like services.

Speaker 4 (33:19):
Suddenly you're in Arkansas and they don't give a shit
and you don't know anyone there.

Speaker 2 (33:22):
Yeah, so it's kind of perfect.

Speaker 4 (33:24):
They choose a location near the Texas Oklahoma border and
they buy a compound. Of course, they love compound and
they also run several businesses in town, including a grocery store,
a gas station, a restaurant. They kind of take over
at this small town. They infiltrate them, as you would say.
And the location is right off the highway. So they
actually get a lot of business and they actually do

(33:46):
really well. But it's more of a front because like
this business gives this business the money to open the
you know, it's to hide the money. Yeah, And because
of the TV show and Tony's Tony has some connections
in the music industry. They also start getting big name
performers to play at the restaurant bar, including Dolly Parton,
Tammy Wynette, and Roy Orbison. So all of those people

(34:08):
she's comes and perform there. And Bill Clinton even stops by.
He's the Attorney General at the time, and he and
Hillary go on a date to this place, and Bill
Clinton says something about how Tony Alamo is Roy Orbison
on speed Oh shit, So you know he's not hiding.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
It while I don't think.

Speaker 4 (34:27):
But of course, all the businesses are staffed by members
of the church who sign their paycheck over to Susan
and Tony. So so at this point, Susan had been
using cancer as a tactic and the fact that she
had been cured of cancer by God to get people
to believe that she was blessed or something that wasn't

(34:50):
true at all.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
She never had cancer.

Speaker 4 (34:52):
She never had cancer, and then she got cancer. Oh,
in nineteen seventy five, she's diagnosed with breast cancer and
she dies at the age of fifty six. In nineteen
eighty two, dies from breast cancer. So suddenly it's over
and it's also a thing of like. But people thought
she was blessed, and so her dying of cancer actually
makes the whole religion look really bad.

Speaker 3 (35:14):
Oh right, you know she had been claiming that like
the Lord had saved.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
Her and then it didn't work.

Speaker 4 (35:19):
But then Tony just does this thing where he yells
at the members and it is like, it's because you
didn't pray hard enough, right, Like that's just.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
That's when i'd be out. That's what I liked all this.

Speaker 2 (35:29):
I prayed hard.

Speaker 3 (35:30):
You started blaming me.

Speaker 4 (35:32):
Right, So Tony, now this is the like second chapter
of this cult, and it gets really fucking dark. Warning,
the content going on here is child sexual abuse, child rape,
child abuse. So it gets culty and dark. Tony is
now forty eight and he everyone's like it's going to

(35:52):
fall apart now because the person who was good at
getting people to join and keeping them is dead. But
he takes over as the sole leader of the Alamo
Christian Foundation.

Speaker 3 (36:03):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
So Tony like kind of doesn't know what to do
at first, and so he stalls for time by not
burying Susan's body. Instead, he has her embombed and brought
to the compound's main house and the members of the
church are to pray over her open casket twenty four
hours a day, asking God to raise her from the dead,

(36:25):
Like they think that's what's going to happen.

Speaker 2 (36:27):
M this goes on for six months?

Speaker 3 (36:31):
Oh no, yeah, her body sits there for six months. Yeah,
it's just such a tall order. Why would you not
come back? I think, yes, it's like, can.

Speaker 2 (36:42):
I get a nap?

Speaker 3 (36:43):
It's your first move after the woman who was making
it all happen dies. You're You're the dark horse that
no one actually believes in, and you're going to walk
right up and be like, we're going to win the
world series. Like what are you doing? Right? Right? Did
he do it? Is that what you're about to tell me?
And so he did, and so he did.

Speaker 4 (37:07):
After six months, her body is breaking down and the
numbers are like, hey, Tony, we hate to like question you, but.

Speaker 3 (37:15):
But her nose just fell off, right. So, I mean, God,
it's a dead body.

Speaker 2 (37:22):
I know.

Speaker 3 (37:22):
That's horrible.

Speaker 4 (37:23):
And people are praying over at twenty four hours a day,
and it's their fault that that it didn't happen, not
that God doesn't exist or that she's not blessed or whatever.
So he builds her a heart shape mausoleum on the
compound property. Okay, a little more responsible, yeah, and then
at the same time things are dicey on the business end.
Three weeks after Susan's death, a lawsuit against the foundation

(37:43):
by the Department of Labor goes to trial. Basically, you know,
they're like, you're not paying your your employees, and they
determined the district court determines that the foundation owes its
worker nineteen million dollars in back wages and over time.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
In nineteen seventies money. Yeah, do we know how much
it would be in today's money?

Speaker 4 (38:04):
No, Ali didn't let me know. But wait wait, I do, yes,
I do, yes, I do yes, I do Alli. Let
me know what a turn Alli, Alli, yelkin, I just
threw you under the bus even though there was no bus.
Nineteen million in back wages and overtime, and then an
eight eighties money.

Speaker 3 (38:23):
Is okay, you said nineteen million.

Speaker 4 (38:27):
Nineteen million, and it's like it's like, you know, late seventies,
early eighties or mid eighties. I think at this point
I never get these right. No, no, no, early eighties,
early eighties eighty two, Like that's gonna fucking I know,
early eighties, early eighties, nineteen million.

Speaker 3 (38:39):
Huh is it fifty million sixty three? That's not but
you're in the ballpark at least I'm in the you
know what I mean. But remember the other day when
you got it right? I got it right. Eight million.

Speaker 4 (38:50):
Tony appeals the case, blah blah blah. The IRS comes
around and they're like, what this isn't right and so
so much money. If the IRS is like this looks excessive, Yeah,
then you're something you're not doing it right, something terrible successive.

Speaker 3 (39:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (39:05):
So after bearing Susan, Tony is in and out of town.
He goes back to La a Lot. He basically marries
a woman named Brigitta who owns a like clothing shop
in Los Angeles. He kind of does a number on her.
It seems she's like from Sweden and she falls in
love with, you know, the rich Christian televangelist type.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
Of guy whatever whatever.

Speaker 4 (39:28):
But she is brought back to the compound. Everyone's like,
she looks exactly like Susan. They think that he maybe
was using her to like pretend that Susan came back,
But she's a fucking Swedish accent.

Speaker 2 (39:39):
It's not her.

Speaker 3 (39:39):
Oh so there's I mean that makes a lot of
sense because it's like in the middle of all this,
the psychopath falls in love and it's like, oh no,
it's just one more tool in his tool bell.

Speaker 2 (39:49):
She looks like her and she does.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (39:53):
She is an atheist, but that doesn't stop her from
moving to the compound with him. And yeah, she's not
good at being a preacher like Susan was, but she
is a good business woman and she's into clothing and
so she so she winds up setting Tony on the
course for the Foundation's most famous business venture.

Speaker 5 (40:15):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (40:15):
In nineteen eighty four. Okay, do you remember, like picture
Mike Tyson in the jean jacket with like rhinestones and
like a spray painted like Tasmanian devil that had been
fucking bedazzled. Yeah, and those were like the big jack
the big jean jackets. Those were a hit back then.

Speaker 3 (40:35):
They were.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
They were a big part of it.

Speaker 4 (40:37):
Or they have the Hollywood like spray spray painted Hollywood,
you know, sign sign or the Las Vegas and then
they were all bedazzled and shit, yeah, that's this fucking cult.
They fucking made these and they got fucking famous.

Speaker 3 (40:52):
What was the name of that brand. It was called.

Speaker 4 (40:55):
Tony Alamo of Nashville is the name of the business
venture classic psychopath move for your whole name totally like
Alamo sounds better, but no, you won't know.

Speaker 3 (41:07):
It Tony Alamov. It's like a Giorgio Armani Beverly Hills
or whatever exactly. And like nineteen ninety this is the eighties.

Speaker 4 (41:14):
No, in eighty four eighty four they start selling these
dnim jackets airbrush that's where it is, hand be dazzled
with rhyinestones, and they become wildly popular. They're sold, they're
sold in high end department stores and boutiques and it's
the brand is a Lamo clothing brand. They have a
flagship store in Nashville.

Speaker 3 (41:33):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (41:33):
They make customized jackets for like Dolly Parton, mister.

Speaker 2 (41:37):
T Brooks Shields.

Speaker 4 (41:38):
Of course, Michael Jackson gets a leather version wears it
on the cover of Bad. That's next time you see
the cover of Bad. That's a cult's jacket.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
Oh my god. Yeah, so it gets this is the
last thing this cult needed. Yeah, going viral, yes exactly,
just a huge influx.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Of cash right right, and legitimacy again. So here's the thing.

Speaker 4 (42:01):
About the jackets though, like every other Alama venture, they're
being made with unpaid labor of the members, and in
this case it's almost all being done by the children
of the foundation, because they've got those little fingers that
can pick up those little fucking brianstones no and blew
them on. Yes, the kids living on the Arkansas compound

(42:22):
their bust to a facility each night where they hand
bedazzle and hand airbrush every jacket each night.

Speaker 3 (42:28):
Yeah, in secret, right.

Speaker 4 (42:31):
Yeah, and hand It's like they can say they're handmade
one hundred percent of hand made, but they don't tell
you how little those hands are. So those little fingers
going around. The jackets self around six hundred dollars each,
which in today's money twenty five hundred, fifteen hundred more
than fifteen hundred in today's money, So fifteen hundred for
a fucking Geene jacket.

Speaker 3 (42:50):
Insane.

Speaker 2 (42:50):
Yeah. Of course, those child workers are.

Speaker 4 (42:54):
Never paid and the Department of Labor is very suspicious,
but they can't prove anything. The IRS ultimately revokes the
foundation since taxi semp status and Tony, who'd been spending
lavishly this whole time, doesn't have the resources to pay
those back taxes because you have to pay them, and
so Tony it almost seems like at this point people
are after him, but he's got this like like things
are feeding his ego. Still he becomes as like megalomaniac,

(43:17):
and he spirals deeper and deeper, and with that comes
more violence against his followers.

Speaker 2 (43:25):
And then also he divorces the.

Speaker 4 (43:27):
Look alike Regitagita goes hopefully home to La and lived
a great life.

Speaker 3 (43:32):
Who knows, but she's the reason those jackets I worked.

Speaker 4 (43:35):
Hopefully she's in the documentary and she looks like she's
in a lavish spot, so hopefully she got a cut
in the divorce all green screen.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Yeah, she's actually where.

Speaker 3 (43:45):
She's wearing just a green cloth from her now.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (43:48):
So beatings and abuse are actually kind of normal already
in the Foundation. It's happened since the beginning, but in
this period the late eighties, after Susan's death, things get
way worse.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
It's just awful.

Speaker 4 (44:00):
Children are subjected to intense beating at Tony's direction. Tony
threatens out of parents or other adults in the cult
don't beat their children as punishment for real or imagine misbehavior.
He'll beat the parents instead. But you know, over and
over these these ex members say, we really believe that
he was the Messiah, like we one hundred percent believed

(44:25):
that he was basically good.

Speaker 3 (44:27):
Because you know, the Messiah when he comes back to
the earth, is immediately going to start making jean jackets
with bedazzle or bedazzle decorations on the back.

Speaker 4 (44:35):
And definitely when Jesus comes back, he's going to make
a paddle that has holes in it for you and
your followers to beat children with.

Speaker 3 (44:43):
There's a thing, there's a trend on TikTok right now,
and it's people with their little kids like four and
five years old and they go finish this phrase. We're
going to say, they know I brought you into this
world because I love you, and you're just like.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
Oh, girls should be fun loved. Like it's like we
just had it hard.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
It's bad.

Speaker 4 (45:04):
When I read that my mom used to spank us,
and when it was bad, it was the wooden spoon, yeah,
which I just like I traumatized from that.

Speaker 2 (45:13):
I can't use a wooden spoon.

Speaker 3 (45:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
And when you were.

Speaker 4 (45:15):
Really bad, so my brother got it a lot, but
I got it a few times too. The wooden spoon
with the cutouts in it, holes in it.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
Oh, yeah, because the wind.

Speaker 4 (45:26):
There's something about the force of it that was different
and it hurt worse. Yeah, the wooden spoon with the holes.
Was you did something really fucking bad the regular wooden spoon, Yeah,
it was not.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
It's not good.

Speaker 3 (45:39):
That's awful. I'm sorry. The only reason I didn't ever
get that, and I was prime candidate, yeah, is because
both my parents had such bad I mean, my dad
had great parents, but they got smacked around. My mom
definitely did, so they that was their rule to each other.

Speaker 2 (45:55):
Stops with me.

Speaker 3 (45:56):
We don't hit little kids, don't hit chill.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
You don't use violence to try to fucking parent children.

Speaker 3 (46:03):
It's so obvious. Yeah, it's so obvious, But it really
wasn't back then until and then there was one day
when I was seventeen and I was so awful andnoxious
that my mom tried to spank because she had just
bought me all these clothes and I tried them on
and left them on the floor and she was like,
pick those clothes up, and I was like, I'm leaving,
and then she grabbed my arm and was walking around
to smack my butt and I just was going, what

(46:26):
are you doing? Stop it? And just like, oh my god,
what are you doing? And I was like later on,
only later on did I realize, Like, you just didn't
realize how good you had it. You didn't realize what
those people were fucking doing right every day.

Speaker 4 (46:41):
You can't start at seventeen, though, So you can't start
no smacking your child at seventeen.

Speaker 3 (46:46):
I was already smoking clothes. I was I was headed
for juicy too late.

Speaker 4 (46:51):
They are who they are at that point, and it's
kind of your face parent and the parents also say
that they believed that beatings were going to save their
children from going to Hell because member Hell was a
big part of this. Hell's a big part of Christianity.
It turns out, Yeah, so they actually think, you know,
who knows how much, but they'll they convince themselves that

(47:11):
they're helping their children to not go to Hell. And
that paddle that he uses with the holes drilled into it,
he nick Tony, nicknames the Board of Education boo not funny, real.

Speaker 2 (47:21):
Clever fun.

Speaker 4 (47:23):
Beatings are so severe that children lose consciousness. So in
the late eighties, a man named Carrie Miller leaves the
cult with his brother, and but the wives are like,
we're not leaving and keep the children, and this guy's
in the documentary prominently they wind up going Basically, they
get a court order to get the kids out, and

(47:46):
so the kids are freed.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
But the whole story gets a.

Speaker 4 (47:49):
Fair amount of media attention because Carrie Miller's son gets
beaten severely and that gets out in the media, and
so it becomes a big public story. And I think
at the time too, there's like the satanic panic. There's
some you know, like there's some backlash from Manson and Jonestown,
and so people are like scrutinizing cults a little more.

Speaker 3 (48:06):
Maybe, yeah, and probably I think child abuse as a
concept was really coming to the fore. There was that
episode of Different Strokes Ared percent. It was like this
thing of like, we all have to really reckon with
this problems up to us.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
It's not a secret yet if you don't let it.

Speaker 3 (48:25):
Be, Yeah, that's how it survives.

Speaker 2 (48:26):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (48:27):
So at this point, Tony in nineteen eighty eight, he's
just like fuck it and goes on the run, but
he's able to control the cult still remotely over the phone.
He sends orders back to the compound in Arkansas. He
doesn't show up for a civil case in Arkansas and
the court decides against him, and at this point, the
FBI raids the Arkansas property thanks sees assets. No, no,

(48:49):
not think of not yet. Oh yeah, And so basically
everyone abandons the compound before they can get there, and
also so no one's there and gets caught. But it
turns out that he also has someone break into the
mausoleum where Susan is buried and steal the casket because
they think like they're gonna I don't know, I don't know,

(49:10):
they take the casket with them because they're like, we need.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
To keep her body safe.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
Is this gross of me to say that's kind of romantic?
At least he meant it that he really was into her.

Speaker 4 (49:20):
It almost is like they from the way they talk
about it, it sounds like he did believe that she
was you know, holy yeah, and so if they left
her holy body there, you know, the government would get it, okay.
And this is a time too, I know, think people
understand this when like the government and religion weren't best

(49:40):
friends and in line, they were actually against each other.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
They were very far apart, right, remember that, Yeah, I
do so.

Speaker 4 (49:46):
Extremist religions weren't didn't have the ear of the president
and the government at the time. They were actually against
each other. Yes, so I know it sounds like nowadays we.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
Know that they're right.

Speaker 4 (49:57):
Yes, So they were scared of them, right, they were
scared of taking this holy woman's body in their mind. Yeah,
there had to be some white powder going on for Tony.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
You can't make all that money off of Tony Alamo
of Beverly Hills or.

Speaker 2 (50:11):
Whatever bullshit jacket in the.

Speaker 3 (50:12):
Eighties in the eighties and not be like, I'm sure
he was living large in every way possible.

Speaker 4 (50:18):
Yeah, line them up, yeah literally. Yeah, so the paranoia
we need to get her body out of there actually
makes total sense.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
And also that's always part of the decline of a
cult is like this psychopath that's in charge is like
and you said, megalomania. Yeah, it's just like ingest all
of it, keep on keep the believer in going.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:36):
Right, so now everyone's scattered, they're still members though they
still fucking believe in him, and they're still.

Speaker 3 (50:43):
It's hard to change. Yeah, it's hard to.

Speaker 4 (50:45):
Like give up on a thing that you've devoted so
much of your life, to unbelieved in.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
You went all in, all.

Speaker 4 (50:51):
In, and to say no now is yeah, to admit
you're a fucking idiot. Tony gives orders to the church
over the phone. No one knows where he is. The
irs winds up seizing all of Tony's assets, including the
store in Nashville where the jackets are made. And then
while he's on the run, he's quoted in a newspaper.

(51:13):
Because of course, he always calls the press to tell him,
tell them how misalign and how fucked up everyone's against him,
And during one of those calls, he basically threatens an
Arkansas judge, which.

Speaker 2 (51:24):
You can't fucking do No, that's not allowed. You cannot
do that.

Speaker 3 (51:27):
Don't do it.

Speaker 4 (51:27):
This prompts the US Marshall to issue a major manhunt
to track him down. So you fucked with the wrong
I don't know department. Yeah, So in nineteen ninety one,
federal agents examine the phone records, but basically they track
him down with phone calls from cell phone towers all
the way back in ninety one, right, which is like surprising.
They find him in Tampa, Florida, and long story short,

(51:51):
they eventually hit on a particular address, stake out the house,
see Tony come out to pick up his morning newspaper,
and they raid the house. They find Tony sitting at
the table in sunglasses and a tied ice shirt. And
there's a photo of him like being or the video
of him being let out and his like tied ie.
He looks very like Yeah, it's like it's it's old
Elvis for sure. Yeah, yeah, but in tidy, so it's confusing.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
It's a good cover.

Speaker 4 (52:14):
Yeah, stacks of cash all over the table, but no,
Susan's body, Oh it's not there.

Speaker 2 (52:20):
They don't know where it is.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
Okay.

Speaker 4 (52:21):
Tony's charge with child abuse in California for the beatings.
Also charged with federal tax evasion, essentially the tax evasion.
This is like so horrible and wrong, but like that
is easier to try and actually get a conviction for
than child abuse.

Speaker 2 (52:38):
So like let's get him in like locked.

Speaker 4 (52:41):
Up now on that and we can worry about the
child abuse stuff later.

Speaker 3 (52:45):
Right, that's the well, it's not comparatively directly, but that's
the old I think, right, al Capone, how they it's
exactly that, Yeah, things you can actually prove.

Speaker 4 (52:54):
Right, right, So he goes to prison. He gets six
years I think in prison, and the cult doesn't disband.
They take orders from him from prison. He's somehow wanted
to use the phone, and they record sermons and they
play them for all the members and people come to
see him, and they move into the town. They move
into the town near the prison so they can be

(53:17):
ready when he gets out.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
Whoa yeah, off the compound and to the prison.

Speaker 4 (53:22):
Yes, and so through the early nineties, new members continue
to join, New members continue to join, and during this time,
when he's in prison in the early nineties, he starts
to drop little hints that it's okay for a man
to have multiple wives.

Speaker 2 (53:38):
Oh, there we go where he gets up the Bible.

Speaker 4 (53:41):
Oh okay, don't you know it's there, And little by
little his members start to accept this.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
He decrees that he's entitled to have multiple wives.

Speaker 3 (53:51):
If you say child brides, I'm going to get up
and walk out of this podcast, du kid Brides.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
So I don't want I don't want you to walk
up and leave.

Speaker 4 (53:59):
Leave.

Speaker 2 (54:00):
I have to day. But you have to say child bread.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
Does he really say that? Yes, right before I did
see this documentary. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (54:06):
He starts to introduce teenage girls from the cult as
his wives, and then goes on to say, like, you know,
once they hit puberty, the Bible says they can be wives,
that kind of thing.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
So yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (54:18):
Puberty, don't go younger than that, please.

Speaker 4 (54:21):
So yeah, So he recruits teenage girls to work at
his house while he's in prison, which basically means marrying Tony.
You know, they do the like fake ceremony, you're married.
It's a sexual assault. And then but the parents can
like those kids have been raised in the cult, and
their parents consider it an honor, and they're excited about

(54:43):
them marrying their daughters, their young daughters marrying Tony. The
victims at this point, most of them who were born
in the nineties were born into this cult. So that's
all they know, and so they think it's okay or
they think they have to do. I think they're growing
a hell if they don't. They visit him in prison
and bring photos of the children that are still in
the church, can select other victims, like he just becomes
this monster, a monster and a groomer and a fucking

(55:07):
child abuser. In nineteen ninety eight, now in his sixties,
Tony's released from prison as a requirement of his release,
he has to return Susan's body.

Speaker 2 (55:17):
It has to happen.

Speaker 5 (55:18):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (55:19):
Yeah, and so he denies ever having it, but right
when he is released, the casket is anonymously delivered to
an Arkansas funeral home.

Speaker 3 (55:28):
Where was it?

Speaker 2 (55:30):
We don't know where it was.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Also, doesn't it only mean something to him? Are they
saying like, you just can't have this dead body? Yes, okay,
like desecration of a corpse.

Speaker 4 (55:38):
And then meanwhile, her daughter and her family are like,
we want to be able to you know, it's like
you can't.

Speaker 2 (55:43):
You can't fucking do that.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
That makes sense.

Speaker 4 (55:44):
Yeah, So once Tony's out of prison, he continues to
quote Mary girls from the church and of course rape
and sexually abuse them, also physically and verbally abuses them.
He does this with twenty four girls that become his wife.
This is just like and it's part of the documentary
and she's in it, and she's so strong and so admirable.
The youngest one is eight years old. Oh man, And

(56:07):
I mean these women who are in the documentary and
end of testifying against him are so freaking strong and incredible.
They were raised with this mindset. They didn't join the
cult themselves. Yes, when they were lost teenagers, it was
the only world they news and their parents were telling
them that they would go to hell if you know,
or that.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
It was this honor. We've been picked and it's so special.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Totally exactly.

Speaker 4 (56:32):
So. Nine of the twenty four girls are under eighteen
years old. He continues to use the Bible to justify this,
and they're all kept isolated in Tony's home. It's the
thing you always hear about. But concerned X members start
to make complaints to the FBI about the abuse, but
in order to prove the case, the FBI needs at
least one of the current victims to come forward, which
is of course terrifying to them. A lot of their

(56:54):
families are still in the cult. In two thousand and six,
a woman named Amy Eddie who's in the documentary, who's
twenty two and was first married to Tony at fourteen.
She escapes and flees to Oklahoma. The whole time she
believes that God is going to strike her down for
leaving him and send her to hell. And then a

(57:17):
fifteen year old named Desiree Colbeck escapes as well. She
gets help from her aunt to leave because her mom
also is still in the cult. So being fifteen years
old and being like I need to escape this abuse,
Like what pushes you to that?

Speaker 3 (57:31):
What horrors have you seen?

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Exactly?

Speaker 4 (57:34):
And like it's better for me for God to like
smite me than for me to keep saying like how right.
And Desiree had been the eight year old victim who
is now fifteen. Both women are approached by the FBI. Initially,
Amy is too scared, but Desiree she is terrified too,
but she agrees to testify against Tony because her sister,

(57:57):
her little sister, is still.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
In the cult. I need to save her.

Speaker 4 (58:01):
Yes, she testifies that Tony took photos of his victims,
of course, many who were underage, and also took the
girls across state lines. So like that's enough because those
are federal crimes. So they're able to create a strong
federal case against Tony. Finally, yeah, okay, So finally, in
two thousand and eight, federal agents raid Tony's house in
it's called fuck Arkansas fuck, yeah exactly, it's pronounced fall fuck.

(58:28):
Tony's not there, he knew the rate was gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
Blah blah blah.

Speaker 4 (58:31):
They don't find the photos Desiree had been talking about,
but they find other incriminating things like a lot of
wedding rings and like boxes of ovulation tests just like
creepy as shit.

Speaker 3 (58:41):
Gross, and also just a sign that like it's we're
now at the end of the line with this cult leader.
It's like, this is the he did usual wind out
where it always goes to child brides, it always goes
to yeah, he did it, he did what he did,
the whole thing, he did, the whole dead body.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 4 (59:01):
So he's seventy four at this point and fucking grossously lifelong. Yeah,
and so he has a secret cell phone now again FBI. Basically,
they find him at a hotel in flags At, Arizona.
He's indicted on ten counts of interstate transportation of a
minor for sex, and in addition to Desiree, Amy does
get over her fear and ultimately testifies against him, as

(59:22):
do three other so called wives. By the time the
case goes to trial, at least thirty people are willing
to testify against him. To they finally like, let's end this.
And many of the witnesses still have family in the cult,
but they're just they now know what's actually going on
or you know.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (59:41):
So, Tony's found guilty on all accounts in two thousand
and nine and sentenced to the rest of his life
in federal prison. He also loses a civil case against
his victims and is ordered to pay more than one
point one billion dollars to them.

Speaker 3 (59:53):
Wow.

Speaker 4 (59:54):
Tony dies in prison in twenty seventeen, But the church
isn't completely defunct. Despite all of that, It still has
some locations and they continue to recruit new members. As
recently as twenty eighteen, there was a chapter in New
York City.

Speaker 3 (01:00:10):
Like Wow, yeah, what do you need crazy therapy?

Speaker 4 (01:00:15):
And unfortunately, as recently as twenty eighteen, when everything had
come out about the foundation, those now vintage Alamo Jean jackets,
oh have a resurgence among celebrities. So I'm not going
to say who they are because maybe they don't know
about the abuse.

Speaker 3 (01:00:35):
Right It might not be because right, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:00:38):
It's just like an eighties thing and they don't know
the background. So I won't say it. But one recently
sold for nine hundred and fifty dollars on Etsy.

Speaker 3 (01:00:44):
I mean to me, that makes me think of like
the John Wayne Gacy painting selling exactly. There are those
people that are like, can you believe I'm doing this?

Speaker 4 (01:00:53):
It's so tabooed, totally, totally, and that is the story
of the Alamo Christian Foundation.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
Oh my god.

Speaker 4 (01:01:00):
The documentary again is called Ministry of Evil, the Twisted
Cult of Tony Alamo. We binged it. I mean, Jesus fucking.

Speaker 3 (01:01:08):
Christ, unbelievable. It just wouldn't end.

Speaker 4 (01:01:11):
No, like what God like pick a pick a, Like
this is as far as I go and write it
in your diary.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
Me playing a psychopath. No, I will not. I will
not only that, I'll succeed.

Speaker 2 (01:01:24):
I mean the members though I don't mean the head, right.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
But once you're in, I mean, like that's that thing
where it's like people have to be deprogrammed to get
out of culture.

Speaker 4 (01:01:33):
Yeah, and the deprogramming like there's actually a guy who
it becomes a deep programmer in that time period, and
the tactics they use are like fucking horror, like.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
Oh the kidnapping. Well, yeah, it's bad, it's not any better.

Speaker 3 (01:01:46):
Everything's everything been so bad for so long.

Speaker 4 (01:01:52):
Yeah, everyone's like, eh, this is the worst time in history,
and it's like, no, history is the worst time.

Speaker 3 (01:01:59):
It's been pretty bad.

Speaker 2 (01:02:00):
It's been bad for a lot of people for a
long time.

Speaker 3 (01:02:01):
Speaking of which, I just saved my story in the
next episode. Yeah, because that was a lot and that
was plenty and great.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
I know.

Speaker 4 (01:02:08):
I'm sorry that was so long, but yeah, yeah, do
you want to do a solo next week?

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
I liked it absolutely.

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
Yeah, Hell yea our homework.

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
Thank you for joining our cult. It's funny that we
did it. Oh my god.

Speaker 4 (01:02:20):
I didn't realize we did a pitch to join our cult,
the fan cult, and then I did a cult story
and we've just talked shit on cults the whole time.

Speaker 2 (01:02:27):
But I mean, come on, this is a fun cult.

Speaker 3 (01:02:29):
Did the Alamo Cult have ad free podcast episodes? I
don't think so, Ladies, No.

Speaker 4 (01:02:34):
They didn't. Did you get a discount on Merge? Did
you get first access to live show tickets.

Speaker 2 (01:02:40):
From the Alamos?

Speaker 4 (01:02:42):
No? No Italian hand gesture, no.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
Good or bad Italian hand gesture. Well we'll meet you
next time.

Speaker 4 (01:02:51):
Yeah, thank you guys for listening to that long ass
story of horrible things. We appreciate you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
We love you. Dearly, Stay sexy.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
And don't get murdered.

Speaker 4 (01:03:01):
Cavy Elvis Do you want a Cookie?

Speaker 3 (01:03:12):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 2 (01:03:13):
Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

Speaker 3 (01:03:16):
Our editor is Aristotle os Vedo.

Speaker 2 (01:03:18):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.

Speaker 3 (01:03:21):
Our researchers are Maaron McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 4 (01:03:24):
Email your homecounts to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

Speaker 3 (01:03:27):
Follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.

Speaker 4 (01:03:29):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 3 (01:03:34):
And now you can watch us on exactly Right's YouTube page.
While you're there, please like and subscribe. Goodbyebye