July 18, 2023 • 43 mins
Police receive a tip that leads them to Zak Valentine. Investigators then connect the dots of the attempted insurance fraud, giving them the leverage they need to arrest Cecilia and Marinda, too. Now, Electus Per Deus is falling apart, as the group’s stories unravel and confessions come out. Another tip leads to a windfall of evidence that may connect Marinda to the murders. But with the members of EPD being held for fraud, and not murder, will the police be able to keep them behind bars?
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
School of Humans.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
This show follows the investigation of serial murders and contains
material that may be disturbing.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Listener discretion advised.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
In June of twenty sixteen, while Mirinda and her two
children were locked up in custody in krueger'stor the South
African Police Service hastened its investigation. They had LaRue and
Marcel on solid charges, including photographic evidence that showed them
taking money out of accounts belonging to two of the
murder victims, Anthony Schofield and Hanley Lattigan. Initially, Marinda coached
(00:51):
them to keep feeding the cops the story that they
had been working for drug dealers. The kids knew that
not doing as they were instructed was a matter of
life day. Eventually, Marinda and Cecilia decided that LaRue should
take the fall.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Le Rustain made a confession that he's the only person
that killed the Appointment murders.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
LaRue and Marcel's statements were taken on June twenty fifth,
twenty sixteen, two days after the arrest. Detective Ben Boysen
was briefed on this interview and read LaRue's statement. The
seasoned investigator wasn't buying his story for a second.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
With him being about sixty five sciety kilograms, it's impossible
that they would have been able to kill The two
men picked him up, loaded him in a vehicle, drove
away with that vehicle is not strong enough to do that.
It's totally not possible.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Both Marcel and LaRue remained in custody, but the police
needed more serious charges to keep Mirinda behind bars when
there was no new evidence to report. After a few
days in jail, Marinda had her day in court. The
case involving the pot plant was delayed, making way for
the larger claims against her like insurance fraud and murder.
(02:17):
When she got out, Marinda immediately filed her third lawsuit
against the police for wrongful arrest. This time she promised
LaRue that she would push for resolution and use any
award from the claim to bail him out. It was
starting to look like the Kruger's door of killers would
once again walk free, but detective Ben Boysen worked overtime
(02:38):
to make sure that didn't happen. The case quickly took
over his life.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
I took on one off my rooms in my house
and I made that to wardroom and I start working
day at night. I neverted it. You know, sometimes my
wife will wake up two o'clock in the morning and
I'm not in baten, so she comes in there and
take me on my ear and take me back to
bath and said, listen, need to go and freaking sleep.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It didn't take long for Ben and Manny Victor's task
team to connect the dots between LaRue, Marcel, Marinda, and
Cecilia and recognized the mayhem that EPD had been adjacent
to for the past four years. Digging a little deeper,
they discovered the open claim with Discovery Life. Cecilia was
waiting to collect Zach Valentine's insurance payout.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
And at that state, Zach Valentine was still missing because
I told he was. They burned out in Pietre Steit.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Which then led them to look into Jared Jackson's murder.
The details surrounding his death also appeared immediately suspicious in
Ben's eyes.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
His arms was full of cutting marks, he only had
socks on, no shoes. It cannot be suicide. Something happened
before this.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Soon enough, there was a warrant out for Zach's arrest,
and on June twenty sixth, just one day after LaRue's confession,
the task team received in a non tip. Someone matching
Zach Valentine's description had been spotted from School of Humans
(04:10):
and iHeart podcasts This is Queen Havoc and her murder
Cult I'm Your Host Kurt Kubachek episode nine, Only Hope.
For the six months following Jared Jackson's murder, Zach Valentine
(04:33):
had been in hiding when hotels got too expensive, especially
without the insurance payout they'd been expecting. He sought shelter
from a religious charity organization. Here's journalist and author Janna.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Marx Zak has been lying low at kia Kaya, a
Christian ministry.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Since his arrival. Zach had been using an alias Michael
de Villers. When law enforcement arrived at the ministry, they
didn't find Zach right away, but they found his.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Roommate, and at the time of his erased, he was
busy camping at Kiakaya's camping grounds. It was on a
farm near Machalisberg.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Upon viewing a photo of the suspect, the roommate insisted
that the man they were looking for was named Michael
de Villers and that he was currently away camping. Two
officers from Manny's war room headed to the location. Detective
Herd Krueger was one of them.
Speaker 6 (05:29):
On the place where he was rased, he first gave
up a name that not.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
He's the only nine the task team was prepared.
Speaker 6 (05:36):
He had just a lot of tattoos on his back.
Now I had a photo of that and asked him
to turn around. They checked the tattoos and then the
game was over.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
They managed to id him as Zach Valentine. That's also
when he then admitted that he was indeed Zach Valentine.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
He was arrested on charges of fraud for faking his
own death. Then, in another suspicious twist, when Ben went
searching for information on the suspects, the case files from
the first four murders had mysteriously gone missing.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
The twenty twelve murdered casis that I eventually started investigation,
all those dockets is missing. Built today it's missing. Nobody
knows where it is. All the evidence that was taken
into that twenty twelve investigations, everything's gone. So I had
to restore that in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
So, after all that had happened in twenty twelve, Ben
had only three case files one on the Jared Jackson murder,
another on Joan and Peter Meyer being robbed and killed
in their home, and after Zac's arrest, a clear attempt
at an insurance scam.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
So I opened a throat case against Zach for trying
to defraud Discovery, and then I started in mistigations all
on those three docades.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
This fraud case was Ben's only real inroad, the only
thing unquestionably linking all the perpetrators Zach, Cecilia, and Mirinda
and eventually LaRue and Marcel too.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Maranda Stein went to Pietre Stein saying that she's the
sister of Zack Valentine, and she gave a false address,
false information for the people at the mortuary, and Cecilia Stein,
who was the sole beneficiary of that Discovery thing, and
knowingly that Zach is now alive, they all were cursed
(07:46):
to commit this fraud.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
On July twenty ninth, twenty sixteen, Cecilia Stein and Mirenda
Stein were arrested for insurance fraud linked to the killing
of Jared Jackson.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
So I luckily arrested them when I opened the fraud case,
so nobody were on the street anymore except for John Barnard.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Cecilia Stein was finally behind bars, and so was Mirinda.
This time, as it turned out, for good. Ben wanted
to interview them right away.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
They thought when I arrested them, I arrested him for
the murders, but I never arrested him for the mergers.
And then as soon as I started reading why I
arrested them, you know, they changed. I couldn't believe that
I now arrested in them for fraud because I didn't
approve at that stage about the murders.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
They were being held in the precincts in Kruger's door.
He brought Christelle with him, as he often did.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
On weekends and after hours when I arrested or I
interview women, I always take my wife with because he's
a police officer, and there's always stories when you interview
women alone, your sexual harassment, or you know, you put
praiser on him to say stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Cristelle and Ben very quickly got a taste of Cecilia's
manipulation tactics. First, she went for pity.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Cecilia Steins was a freaking clown. She came in with
a bottle oxygen bottle, and she sat down and was
a ute oxygen bottle, and as soon as I told
her why I'm resting her, she suddenly start breathing difficult
and I look at the bottle and I saw that
(09:38):
the pipe from the mass to the bottle was not
even connected.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Then she went for ridicule. Ben and Cristelle got a
front row seat to the way Cecilia gnashed her teeth
when she felt vulnerable. At one point, Ben was taking
a note trying to spell the word conspiracy, and he
casually asked his wife for help.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
She said, how do you spell conspiracy? And she started
laughing in my face and said, you're a fucking idiot.
You can't even spell conspiracy, but you want to send
me to jail. And I just told her, you know
the person who laughed last laugh the loudest.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Then they pressed Cecilia about Zach and his relationship to
his wife, Michaela. They had learned about Zach and Cecilia's
intimate relationship.
Speaker 7 (10:26):
Being tested her by saying that you found evidence that
Zack and Michaela had intercourse the night she was killed
or the night before she was killed, and Cecilia went like,
it's fucking impossible. From this silly clown what she turned
into a vicious person. She physically transformed in front of
(10:48):
us from this you know, can't breathe and poor person.
She said, it's fucking impossible. It won't happen.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
It sound.
Speaker 7 (10:58):
And then said, but why wouldn't they happened? They were
happily married, and she said, and then she came forward
to him and she says, I'm telling you it wouldn't
have happened.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Christelle chimed in, pushing Cecilia further.
Speaker 7 (11:12):
On this, and I said to her, but how would
you have insight into what's happening in this marriage? And
she turned to me again and she said, I'm telling
you it fucking didn't happen. And then all of a sudden,
someone else walked in. She went like this.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Christelle shook her shoulders as she spoke, like a duck
shaking water off its back.
Speaker 7 (11:33):
She you know, she like this, and next question, please,
so we saw that.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
I saw it changed the transformation.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Meanwhile, Zach was desperately trying to get out of jail.
All three of them were. Actually they had the right
to apply for bail since their only charge was odd,
which is not a capital offense. But Ben kept fighting
to keep them off the streets.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
And luckily I thought all of their bio application Zach
brought about eight of them.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Bail would mean Zach could walk free. Once released, he'd
be a likely flight risk and the police might never
see him again. They gotten lucky to find him the
first time. Now, prosecutors were considering letting Zach walk.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
But because he was the clared date, it's impossible to
give him battle because I'm going to blacklist him on
the airports and stuff like that. So that was a fight,
you know, between me and the prosecutor of the regional court,
trying to keep him in jail.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
During this fight, this back and forth with the state,
fate finally played a hand in Ben's favor. Ben and
Cristelle are known as trusted cops in the community and
got a number of tips from citizens of Kruger's were
anxious to end the murders. One in particular, though, led
to a windfall.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
So one of the people that found my wife's said,
I must go to Arundos classroom to see what's happening
in a classroom.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
On August ninth, twenty sixteen, Ben Christelle and a fellow
officer from the Krugery store. Police headed over to the
high school where Mirinda taught English. Turns out we were
there interviewing Ben exactly five years to the day that
this happened.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
I actually arranged it for today. That's Women's Day in
South Africa today, exactly today, because there will be no
children and at school.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
The headmaster was resistant at first, explaining that Mirinda was
one of the best teachers at the school. The kids
all loved her. Detective Ben boys and casually threatened the
headmaster that if he didn't comply, Ben could return with
a proper search warrant on a school day and conduct
his search in front of all the kids. The principal
didn't have to think long. He led them down the
(14:13):
empty hallways toward Merinda's classroom. It's a large room with
multiple sections and storage closets with stoves in them.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
I said, to the old place, but I didn't know
what to look for. I look for laptops and I
look for papers, I look for photos. I look for
anything that I can link to what they were doing.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Ben almost gave up. The headmaster was skeptical of the cops,
and Ben certainly didn't want to waste anyone's time.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
I couldn't find anything, and eventual I went to sit
down with the eight most of them, I said, it's Souri.
It seems to meet. It's false information.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
But something was still nagging at Ben, so before he left,
he decided to take one last look around.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
We all stood up and on the way out told
another lady from Cruiser Detective Unit.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
It was with me.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
I just want to go through all the rooms again.
And I went into the rooms and I checked and
I checked, and eventually I went to the left front room.
There was a lot of stuff laying around there, but
there was these two stoves standing in the middle of
the premises, and something just told me go and open
the ovens.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Merenda's room was a repurposed home economics classroom.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
And as soon as I opened the ovens, I found
all this ammunition and machine to reload. Then they ate
master also turned and was on outside there because it
was not on the police side from the beginning.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
He continued his search and discovered a bullet reloading kit,
shotgun shells, nine millimeter bullets and then red tipped rubber
bullets only used by specially trained police officers, and sold
what was Marnda doing with guns and AMMO, some of
which was from the heyday of South Africa's violent apartheid
(16:08):
passed and in a high school, no less, How did
a school teacher wind up with military grade weaponry? When
he was done, he lined up all the AMMO on
a school desk. The principal was shocked to silence as
the veteran cops stared at the amateur arsenal. He had
a new concern. Were there cops helping these killers? The
(16:32):
only people who have access to this kind of ordinance
are people with a badge. The next domino fell that
same day after he called the task team in to
gather evidence from Mirenda's classroom.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Packed it out and we took photos and stuff, And
eventually I think it was his wife. She's working in
the offices day. She came to me and she said,
did I know that Maranda changed their will? I knew
nothing about it.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Mirinda had just recently changed her will. Things had unfolded
so fast since Marinda's arrest, Plus the twenty twelve case
files were all missing, so Ben was doing his best
to catch up.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Osta will you give me the will? Otherwise I must
make a two or five application and force them to
give me the will through the right channels. And luckily
you said them, and I'll give you the will.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Ben took a statement from the headmaster and his wife
confirming that they were handing over this document of their
own free will. As they signed the paperwork, Ben read
over the will.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
While reading this will, I knew of good now something
to approach LaRue, because in that will she just owned
the children and she gave everything that is part of
her life to Cecilia Stein.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
But before he had a chance to meet with LaRue,
the task team made yet another breakthrough. They found the
sort of hard evidence that would make prosecutors finally believe
everything Ben had already suspected.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Luckily, in the twenty fifteen sixteen murders, John Barnard took
his cell phone to all the crime scenes.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Detectives Krueger and Violent had been busy tracing the suspects
and discovered that pings from John Barnard's cell phone matched
the murder map to a t This was the smoking
gun the cops needed. On August eighteenth, twenty sixteen, John
Barnard was taken into custody in connection with the insurance
fraud and his involvement in the murder of Glenn McGregor.
(18:43):
Here's Commander Hert Krueger.
Speaker 6 (18:45):
We erased John Barnard at his work, the Mayers Printing Company,
and while we were driving back like coldn SEMs, we
stopped and John just started confacing.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Barnard confessed to being part of all of the appointment Murners.
Speaker 6 (19:03):
I didn't got an officer to take his confession. It
was his first confession that he might after debt the
invasity guiding officer Captain Boisin's didn't just that he repeat
the dead confession in front of him magistrate, just to
give it more power. And John was the first one
that was convicted and the first one who went to prison.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Finally, on August nineteenth, the day after John Barnard's confession,
Ben sat down with LaRue. He baited LaRue telling him
that his mother, Marinda's claim against the police wasn't going
to pay out. There was no way she'd be able
to save him from a life behind bars. He let
that sink in. Then he told LaRue that Barnard had
(19:51):
made a full confession at his arraignment hearing, implicating everyone.
It was a smart move. Ben told LaRue the confession
would increase his chances of getting a reasonable plea deal. Still,
LaRue stuck to his story and took to blame for
all the murders. Then was still not buying it.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
For a young boy like that picking up a date
person and llowed him into a vehicle, It's slutally not possible.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Not only did Ben immediately recognize the improbability of this claim,
but he could see through Laru, see the boy in him,
a boy who was in way over his head.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
While I was speaking to him in prison. I've got
the scenes that he is predicting the people around him.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
At first, Larux was agitated, tense, pacing like a cage tiger.
Detective Ben Boyce and his a father. He thought of
his own son and how he could reach him when
he was combative. Here's Gristelle recalling his approach. She refers
to LaRue by his nickname. Lex.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Paine was friendly to next time, and he was kind
to Lex, and he was talking, you know, to Lex
with respect, and that turned ultimately turned Lex eventually to say,
but listen, yeah, you are giving me more kindness and
love than I ever experienced from my mother.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Ben knew that if he was calm with the wayward
son and asked him why he'd done what he'd done,
rather than scream at him, he was more likely to
hear the truth from LaRue. He was right.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
I talked to him a lot, and eventually I took
too well out and I put it in front of him,
but the words facing my way, and I asked him
who's antwriting? And he said it's my mother, because she's
got a very very nice antwriting neat and I turned
the paper around and I said, listen, read how much
your mother loved you.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Harsh right, But Ben's instincts were guiding him. LaRue was
apt to turn against his mother. Throughout his first couple
of months in police custody, LaRue had been worried about
his sister Marcel, who also in custody. He wrote her
a series of letters pleading with her to come clean,
not to take the rap for their mother, Cecilia or
(22:08):
any of the others. When Cecilia and Marinda got word
that one of their puppets was turning on them, they
tried to kill LaRue. Journalist Maritzka Kotsayer was visiting him
in jail around this time, reporting on the case, she
recalled Larux telling her about when his mother brought him medication.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
There was one way she apparently took him medication for
his stomach, and it was supposedly two step. So you
know that is a poison that stab one. You take
it in step till you die. Can you imagine living
in fear that your own mother wants to kill it.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
It appears that even in jail, LaRue wasn't safe from
Cecilia's wrath. In Mirenda's will, she attested, I'm Marinda stein laradim.
Speaker 8 (22:53):
Same mind and wished to recorde my last wishes as
follows every sent and property that I and will become
available at my death. I bequeathed to Cecilia stein nie
seword Kniebrandt to use as she sees fit, whether my
biological children are still in jail or not, whether she
wants to spend it on them or not. It toutally
(23:16):
becomes us.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
As soon as LaRue heard about the change in the will,
he broke down. Ben's compassionate approach had softened the edges, eroded,
the walls around the roots broken heart.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
And then at tisk started coming out here and his
lip stopped going like this, and he stopped crying and
then he said, FuG them. Now I'm going to talk.
And then he told me a lot of stuff where
the guns was hiding and stuff like that, and he
told me about it. Twenty twelve meders.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
After the cathartic confession, Ben did his due diligence and
got LaRue to repeat it in front of a magistrate.
Back from the hearing to the jail, Larux is exhausted.
He fell into this sort of paralyzing exhaustion that is
specific to the fallout from a world crumbling realization. Once
(24:12):
Laru stopped seeing the world through the lies, Secilia and
his mother raised him to believe. Laru was free to
face the truth of what his entire life had been
and the grim future ahead. The silence hung heavy on
the drive. Ben, a detective Herd Krueger, sat up front.
They knew it would be a long time before Laru
(24:34):
would ever see the world again.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Ben ask him, is there anything you need? And he says, yes, Uncle,
I'm hungry. And Ben asked him what would you like
to eat? And Lex was very confused because he says
that they could never decide what they wanted to eat.
They always had to eat what Cecilia was prescribing because
that was part of her power. And then he said,
(24:56):
can I please have a pizza and a coke?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
LaRue became emotional, recognizing something that had been missing from
his life, human kindness.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
When we got hold of Marenda's diary, she writes in
her diary as if she's speaking to the person in
the first person. And she wrote in her diary with
regard to Lex and Afrikaans, but I'll translate it into English.
She said, but you sold your soul for a pizza
and a coke.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
This was the beginning of Christelle and Ben kind of
taking care of the Rue. They would continue to provide
him with emotional support throughout the trial, and over time
they became bonded to him. L Arux even wrote letters
to Ben while he was in prison. He had no
one else.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
What she doesn't realize is that if you mean so
little to your children that they are willing to sell
you out for a pizzana coke. And this is no
indication of lex but it's indication of how poor mother
she was to the children, and that is what she caused.
Not anyone else.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Armed with LaRue's confession. Boison and hert Krueger go to
Cecilia's apartment. Upon entry, they find blood on the carpet.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
I saw the stains on the carpet, and then I
got the police to come out and check the stains
for me for blood, and then we fell into Goldfield's
blood and LaRue's blood inside the premises. So the previous
policemen that were about ten times in that flat then
trains for that to be done.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Ben and his team also confiscate a whole lot of
illegal firearms and ammunition stashed in the walls at seventeen
Cassano Flats. LaRue had been the one to create these
hidden panels.
Speaker 9 (26:48):
And there was a little gap between the cupboards and
the walk and I kind of broke one of the
wooden panels, so the length of the closet then it
made like a little I thought chimney almost, and we're
like push it back and put a panel back there,
so it looked like any other coverages, you know, going
up to the ceiling.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Cecilia's husband, Sergeant Drese Stein, an officer with the South
African Police Service, was also arrested after the arsenal was
found hidden in the walls of his home. All the
firearms were illegal. He was only held for a few
days and then released. The case against EPD would finally
(27:31):
go to trial in twenty seventeen, and it would take
two years to connect them to all the murders and
officially see them convicted. Journalist Maritzka Kotsayer's book on the
krueger Storf killings walks readers through these events from LaRue's perspective.
(27:54):
It's called outcast. Like most people in Krugersdorp and many
more across the nation, Maritzka had been following this story.
Thanks to her press credentials, she was granted access to
visit both John Barnard and LaRue in the late stage
of the trial. Upon meeting the two men, it was
immediately clear to her who her main subject should be.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
That is the easy target, you know, because I thought
he had a little hard left.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Maritzka also had a cousin who was locked up with LaRue,
giving her a whiff of street cred. So he agreed
to meet with her one on one.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
A godday. Waited. I was scared, and then he actually
agreed to see me. And I think it's because he
knew my name because of my cousin. And I remember
the first words that he said to me was dhxie.
So it's something like good day is very pulotte. So
I saw to myself, do you murderers have manners?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
You know?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
I was really like, what's this guy saying nice?
Speaker 4 (29:00):
You know?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Mariska and LaRue had an instant connection.
Speaker 10 (29:05):
You liked metal music.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
He was into piercings, into tattoos. So when you know,
when I got down you, I only had a short
time to win him over. So now I said to him,
I want to tell your story, but I don't want
to tell your story like, yes, I committed the murders.
I said, I want to I want to hear your story,
like I want you to tell me what you want
(29:27):
to say. And that day he asked me my number
and I gave it to him.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
In the months leading up to his sentencing, she and
LaRue formed a tight bond that evolved in the Mariska
becoming an advocate for him and Marcel.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
I mean, is there not one person that can see
that this was child abuse? She conditioned them to be monsters.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
On December fourteenth, twenty sixteenth, John Barnard took his plead
in exchange for testifying against EPD. His sentence was reduced
from life to twenty years in prison. Charging the rest
of EPD was a challenge. Now keep in mind that
in South Africa it's a judge's courtroom. The jury system
(30:17):
was abolished during apartheid, so the fate of each EPD
member lay solely in the judge's hands.
Speaker 11 (30:24):
You might shure you bring the truth to the court
in a Watertodd Vihko where you're the jud character of effect.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
That's Dion Venvick. He's worked in the State's Attorney's office
for thirty years, twenty of which were in the High Court,
which is like the federal district courts in the US.
He is currently a senior State Advocate. At just under
six feet tall, Dion Vnvick is an authoritative presence and
has been doing this so long. He's extremely well versed
(30:56):
in the intricacies of South African law and not to
be confused with Captain johann and Vick, who you've heard
from in earlier episodes.
Speaker 11 (31:06):
On the effects of the case that you guys are investigating.
Many crimes were perpetrated by various of her followers, but
the challenge is to prosecute them all, for each and
every one of them, to keep them liable, criminally liable
for all the offenses would be impossible without detulov racketeering.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Ben had a background in organized crime, so he developed
a strategy to approach this rare, unprecedented prosecution. Then, Vic says,
according to the Prevention of Organized Crime Act or POKER,
Ben would have to prove that the crimes involved racketeering.
Speaker 11 (31:47):
Section one of our Poker Acts creates that too. You
turned on proving an enterprise, which was easy to do.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
In this case. Alectis Perdaeus's enterprise was blatant insurance fraud,
thinking zach death to cash in on his policy.
Speaker 11 (32:02):
Secondly, how you your factual association, It all depends on
what level. Obviously, the main person will be the manager.
You have sufficient evidence to prove.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
That Cecilia being the sole beneficiary of the attempted fraud
made her the manager or ringleader in this act of
organized crime.
Speaker 11 (32:22):
And the person's associating in activities to further the objectives
of the enterprise, and that was the key.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
This is how Mirinda and her children were linked in complicity.
The kids were working to carry out Cecilia's enterprise. For example,
LaRue had made incessant calls to check on the claim
for Cecilia, then he backed her up in the insurance
inquiry video, and Marcel was an active participant in the robberies.
(32:52):
The ATM withdrawals from this angle. They were all enmeshed
involved in an ongoing conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt. Still,
this approach was unheard of at the time.
Speaker 11 (33:04):
Normally you would not deploy racketeating on a murdic case likeness,
but that was the only way to bring them all
to book, and there's nothing boarding us or boring the
prosecution team in law to apply that. So that's the
first in South Africa as far as I know.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Since it had never been used in a murder case before.
It took a while to convince the judge that pocket
charters held water for the prosecution, but finally in February
the judge approved. Senior State Advocate Dion van Vick also
illuminated for US based on his years in the field,
that organized crime at this level usually leads to murder.
Speaker 11 (33:46):
Keeping in mind that it doesn't matter in what sphere
of organized crime you move. If your financial your criminal
benefit is big enough, people will die.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Just to be clear, Dion van Vick didn't work on
this case, but we spoke to him to get some
clarity on the racketeering stuff from an actual state official.
While Ben developed this racketeering angle, he also gathered witnesses.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
And fifty witnesses actually, and I served to aenit in
fifty two supunas three times, but we only used at
the end of the day about seventy witnesses to testify.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Many of the witnesses were reduced to tears. They were
all emotionally broken and terrified of speaking out against Cecilia.
As you've heard, Luke asked us to alter his voice
and use an alias because he's still convinced that he's
a target for testifying against Cecilia. Prison bars were no
match for her. Not only did she speak of astral projection,
(34:58):
but no one would have been surprised if she put
a hit out on any of the witnesses or their families.
Throughout the investigation, Ben received death threats warning him that
if he didn't stop his pursuit of justice, he would
be murdered by the Satanic Church. At one point, Brigadier
Manny victor got a tip that a one million RAN
(35:19):
contract had been offered to anyone that would take out
Ben Boysen. That's about fifty thousand US dollars. A suspect
was eventually arrested and identified as the would be hitman.
Cecilia also came after Ben and Cristelle's.
Speaker 7 (35:36):
Family since her first year in Joel, one of the
peoples she was incarcerated with was released and she told us.
She made a statement, she's coming from Kruystol, and she
told us that Cecilia is planning on killing our youngest daughter.
She took out a contract to kill our youngest daughter
for revenge on what Ben has done. And then our
(35:59):
younger his daughter had to move out of town and
she doesn't stay with us anymore.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
The court dates kept getting postponed for myriad reasons, a
slow moving justice system being one, but also because the
twenty twelve case files were missing. LaRue's confession was not enough.
Ben had to completely recreate reports on crimes that happened
four years earlier, which took time.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
But remember there was no dockets, there was no witness statements,
there was nothing. So even if he tells me and
he confession all this stuff, I still need to go
out and get evidence to prove what he said is
the truth.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
And that was very difficult, and Ben's health had not improved.
In fact, it was buckling under the pressure.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Every time the court postponed. I had to serve all
that tupunas again by myself. I became very very ill.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Christelle finally forced him to go to the doc.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
I didn't want to go to the doctor because I
know they're going to book me off and I can't
be booked off because I still need to get information
and stuff. And one morning I woke up and I
was sitting on bed and I didn't have a voice,
and she said, you're going to hospital to the doctor today.
And I was so weak when I get to the
hospital that I actually couldn't walk.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Turns out he had pneumonia, but even during treatment, Ben
kept working.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
So they brought the wheelchair to take me into the hospital.
And as I because the hospital was its opposite Cecilia
Stein's flats.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
There was suspicion that Cecilia had a friend working in
the hospital pharmacy who would secure drugs for Cecilia and
Electus per Dais.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
I saw the chemist and I said, I still need
to I want to tell I still need a statement. Yes,
And my wife freaked out that she said, no, since
you warned everybody in but all that they must not
talk about the case with me, I must relax. And
then eventually the doctor came to me and he said,
you've got overgrown art.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
An overgrown heart. After a few days of rest, Ben
was released.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
I wasn't supposed to go to work, but when I
get home, I took the sick note, I tear it
up and I started working the next day again. My
wife was very very cross with me, But you know,
I knew that if I'm not going to see this
cases through, that it's not going to work out nicely.
(38:41):
So I forced myself to do work.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
About a year into the trial, Janna Marx was working
as a court reporter.
Speaker 10 (38:52):
I was working in court, so I was attending court
cases and I was literally sitting in court every day.
It would be different cases because cisis Skates postponed. I
was a digital journalist. It becomes difficult to see a
trial evolving from start to end. I mean, it's not
always possible because of the speed of the journalism that
(39:15):
we practice.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
The case against EPD was moved to the High Court
in May of twenty eighteen, and Yana was assigned to it.
Speaker 10 (39:23):
So I think from the very beginning this really grab
people's attention, just because of the religion and also the
normalization of what happened there. I mean, the regular people
being part of a group are goodness. Now regular people
are killing other regular people.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
We are so grateful for all the insight and expertise
that Yana lent to this project for over a year,
Nearly every time these murderers took the stand, Yana was
there watching. She'll walk us through the trial. In the
next episode, we'll get her take on Cecilia, Zach and
the kids as they try to make a case for
(39:59):
themselves Merinda too well sort of. Yanna also speaks to
Cecilia's delusional style, which was on full display in the courtroom.
Speaker 10 (40:13):
Cecilia is very She's very lively, and she tells jokes,
and that happens in court.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Cecilia's charming personality is part of what makes her so terrifying.
Even today, her shadow is buried deep. I know this
because I met her well.
Speaker 12 (40:34):
I like joking and I like, you know, having fun.
Laughing life is serious and and you can't be serious
all the time. It'll just make you the priest if
you certain think about life.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
On the next episode of Queen Havoc, LaRue.
Speaker 4 (40:57):
Right when when he was found guilty and in front
of his mother, he said, thank you Captain for sending
this beach the.
Speaker 13 (41:06):
Jail on understand she lied Latant. I killed Reginald and
I enjoyed every minute of it and went into great
gory detail about how she did it and saying it
had nothing to do with Cecilia.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
But he still says there in things like what if
Cecilia I can sneak into my cell and come and
hurt me.
Speaker 10 (41:29):
You know, Massell was a bit different. I think the
whole country's sympathy lay with Mussel.
Speaker 7 (41:38):
And everyone believed her.
Speaker 6 (41:42):
Everyone believed in.
Speaker 7 (41:43):
What she was saying.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
So Queen Havoc in Her Murder Cult is a production
of Schooly Humans and iHeart Podcasts. Queen Havoc is hosted
and created by me Kurt Kupachak, produced and written by
Jennifer ZC Kenny, Julia Chriskau, and Kirk Kupachick. Lead producer
is Julia Chriskau. Story editor is Saren Burnett, Senior producer
(42:10):
is Amelia Brock. Production manager is Daisy Church. Original music
composed by Claire Campbell, editing, sound design and scoring by
Jesse Niswanger. Associate producers are DaShan Moodley and Jamaine Kriher.
Additional producing by Ben Melman, fact checking by Dennis Webster.
(42:33):
Recording engineers are Graham Gibson, Clay Hillenberg and Josh Hook.
Brinda Stein was read by Angelique Pretorious. Executive producers are
Virginia Prescott, L. C. Crowley, Brandon Barr, Jennifer Takeny and
Kurt Kupachick. We want to thank all of those who
so generously welcomed us in South Africa and shared their stories.
(42:57):
We're incredibly grateful to you all. We also want to
acknowledge how traumatic these events are for the victims and
their families. Please respect their privacy. If you or someone
you know has been affected by cult behaviors, there are
resources available, including voices for Dignity at Christine Murray dot
(43:18):
com
School of Humans.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
This show follows the investigation of serial murders and contains
material that may be disturbing.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
Listener discretion advised.
Speaker 1 (00:25):
In June of twenty sixteen, while Mirinda and her two
children were locked up in custody in krueger'stor the South
African Police Service hastened its investigation. They had LaRue and
Marcel on solid charges, including photographic evidence that showed them
taking money out of accounts belonging to two of the
murder victims, Anthony Schofield and Hanley Lattigan. Initially, Marinda coached
(00:51):
them to keep feeding the cops the story that they
had been working for drug dealers. The kids knew that
not doing as they were instructed was a matter of
life day. Eventually, Marinda and Cecilia decided that LaRue should
take the fall.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
Le Rustain made a confession that he's the only person
that killed the Appointment murders.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
LaRue and Marcel's statements were taken on June twenty fifth,
twenty sixteen, two days after the arrest. Detective Ben Boysen
was briefed on this interview and read LaRue's statement. The
seasoned investigator wasn't buying his story for a second.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
With him being about sixty five sciety kilograms, it's impossible
that they would have been able to kill The two
men picked him up, loaded him in a vehicle, drove
away with that vehicle is not strong enough to do that.
It's totally not possible.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
Both Marcel and LaRue remained in custody, but the police
needed more serious charges to keep Mirinda behind bars when
there was no new evidence to report. After a few
days in jail, Marinda had her day in court. The
case involving the pot plant was delayed, making way for
the larger claims against her like insurance fraud and murder.
(02:17):
When she got out, Marinda immediately filed her third lawsuit
against the police for wrongful arrest. This time she promised
LaRue that she would push for resolution and use any
award from the claim to bail him out. It was
starting to look like the Kruger's door of killers would
once again walk free, but detective Ben Boysen worked overtime
(02:38):
to make sure that didn't happen. The case quickly took
over his life.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
I took on one off my rooms in my house
and I made that to wardroom and I start working
day at night. I neverted it. You know, sometimes my
wife will wake up two o'clock in the morning and
I'm not in baten, so she comes in there and
take me on my ear and take me back to
bath and said, listen, need to go and freaking sleep.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It didn't take long for Ben and Manny Victor's task
team to connect the dots between LaRue, Marcel, Marinda, and
Cecilia and recognized the mayhem that EPD had been adjacent
to for the past four years. Digging a little deeper,
they discovered the open claim with Discovery Life. Cecilia was
waiting to collect Zach Valentine's insurance payout.
Speaker 4 (03:24):
And at that state, Zach Valentine was still missing because
I told he was. They burned out in Pietre Steit.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
Which then led them to look into Jared Jackson's murder.
The details surrounding his death also appeared immediately suspicious in
Ben's eyes.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
His arms was full of cutting marks, he only had
socks on, no shoes. It cannot be suicide. Something happened
before this.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Soon enough, there was a warrant out for Zach's arrest,
and on June twenty sixth, just one day after LaRue's confession,
the task team received in a non tip. Someone matching
Zach Valentine's description had been spotted from School of Humans
(04:10):
and iHeart podcasts This is Queen Havoc and her murder
Cult I'm Your Host Kurt Kubachek episode nine, Only Hope.
For the six months following Jared Jackson's murder, Zach Valentine
(04:33):
had been in hiding when hotels got too expensive, especially
without the insurance payout they'd been expecting. He sought shelter
from a religious charity organization. Here's journalist and author Janna.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
Marx Zak has been lying low at kia Kaya, a
Christian ministry.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Since his arrival. Zach had been using an alias Michael
de Villers. When law enforcement arrived at the ministry, they
didn't find Zach right away, but they found his.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
Roommate, and at the time of his erased, he was
busy camping at Kiakaya's camping grounds. It was on a
farm near Machalisberg.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Upon viewing a photo of the suspect, the roommate insisted
that the man they were looking for was named Michael
de Villers and that he was currently away camping. Two
officers from Manny's war room headed to the location. Detective
Herd Krueger was one of them.
Speaker 6 (05:29):
On the place where he was rased, he first gave
up a name that not.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
He's the only nine the task team was prepared.
Speaker 6 (05:36):
He had just a lot of tattoos on his back.
Now I had a photo of that and asked him
to turn around. They checked the tattoos and then the
game was over.
Speaker 5 (05:49):
They managed to id him as Zach Valentine. That's also
when he then admitted that he was indeed Zach Valentine.
Speaker 1 (05:57):
He was arrested on charges of fraud for faking his
own death. Then, in another suspicious twist, when Ben went
searching for information on the suspects, the case files from
the first four murders had mysteriously gone missing.
Speaker 4 (06:16):
The twenty twelve murdered casis that I eventually started investigation,
all those dockets is missing. Built today it's missing. Nobody
knows where it is. All the evidence that was taken
into that twenty twelve investigations, everything's gone. So I had
to restore that in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1 (06:37):
So, after all that had happened in twenty twelve, Ben
had only three case files one on the Jared Jackson murder,
another on Joan and Peter Meyer being robbed and killed
in their home, and after Zac's arrest, a clear attempt
at an insurance scam.
Speaker 4 (06:57):
So I opened a throat case against Zach for trying
to defraud Discovery, and then I started in mistigations all
on those three docades.
Speaker 1 (07:10):
This fraud case was Ben's only real inroad, the only
thing unquestionably linking all the perpetrators Zach, Cecilia, and Mirinda
and eventually LaRue and Marcel too.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
Maranda Stein went to Pietre Stein saying that she's the
sister of Zack Valentine, and she gave a false address,
false information for the people at the mortuary, and Cecilia Stein,
who was the sole beneficiary of that Discovery thing, and
knowingly that Zach is now alive, they all were cursed
(07:46):
to commit this fraud.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
On July twenty ninth, twenty sixteen, Cecilia Stein and Mirenda
Stein were arrested for insurance fraud linked to the killing
of Jared Jackson.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
So I luckily arrested them when I opened the fraud case,
so nobody were on the street anymore except for John Barnard.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
Cecilia Stein was finally behind bars, and so was Mirinda.
This time, as it turned out, for good. Ben wanted
to interview them right away.
Speaker 4 (08:26):
They thought when I arrested them, I arrested him for
the murders, but I never arrested him for the mergers.
And then as soon as I started reading why I
arrested them, you know, they changed. I couldn't believe that
I now arrested in them for fraud because I didn't
approve at that stage about the murders.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
They were being held in the precincts in Kruger's door.
He brought Christelle with him, as he often did.
Speaker 4 (08:49):
On weekends and after hours when I arrested or I
interview women, I always take my wife with because he's
a police officer, and there's always stories when you interview
women alone, your sexual harassment, or you know, you put
praiser on him to say stuff.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
Cristelle and Ben very quickly got a taste of Cecilia's
manipulation tactics. First, she went for pity.
Speaker 4 (09:18):
Cecilia Steins was a freaking clown. She came in with
a bottle oxygen bottle, and she sat down and was
a ute oxygen bottle, and as soon as I told
her why I'm resting her, she suddenly start breathing difficult
and I look at the bottle and I saw that
(09:38):
the pipe from the mass to the bottle was not
even connected.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
Then she went for ridicule. Ben and Cristelle got a
front row seat to the way Cecilia gnashed her teeth
when she felt vulnerable. At one point, Ben was taking
a note trying to spell the word conspiracy, and he
casually asked his wife for help.
Speaker 4 (10:00):
She said, how do you spell conspiracy? And she started
laughing in my face and said, you're a fucking idiot.
You can't even spell conspiracy, but you want to send
me to jail. And I just told her, you know
the person who laughed last laugh the loudest.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Then they pressed Cecilia about Zach and his relationship to
his wife, Michaela. They had learned about Zach and Cecilia's
intimate relationship.
Speaker 7 (10:26):
Being tested her by saying that you found evidence that
Zack and Michaela had intercourse the night she was killed
or the night before she was killed, and Cecilia went like,
it's fucking impossible. From this silly clown what she turned
into a vicious person. She physically transformed in front of
(10:48):
us from this you know, can't breathe and poor person.
She said, it's fucking impossible. It won't happen.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
It sound.
Speaker 7 (10:58):
And then said, but why wouldn't they happened? They were
happily married, and she said, and then she came forward
to him and she says, I'm telling you it wouldn't
have happened.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
Christelle chimed in, pushing Cecilia further.
Speaker 7 (11:12):
On this, and I said to her, but how would
you have insight into what's happening in this marriage? And
she turned to me again and she said, I'm telling
you it fucking didn't happen. And then all of a sudden,
someone else walked in. She went like this.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
Christelle shook her shoulders as she spoke, like a duck
shaking water off its back.
Speaker 7 (11:33):
She you know, she like this, and next question, please,
so we saw that.
Speaker 4 (11:42):
I saw it changed the transformation.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
Meanwhile, Zach was desperately trying to get out of jail.
All three of them were. Actually they had the right
to apply for bail since their only charge was odd,
which is not a capital offense. But Ben kept fighting
to keep them off the streets.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
And luckily I thought all of their bio application Zach
brought about eight of them.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
Bail would mean Zach could walk free. Once released, he'd
be a likely flight risk and the police might never
see him again. They gotten lucky to find him the
first time. Now, prosecutors were considering letting Zach walk.
Speaker 4 (12:26):
But because he was the clared date, it's impossible to
give him battle because I'm going to blacklist him on
the airports and stuff like that. So that was a fight,
you know, between me and the prosecutor of the regional court,
trying to keep him in jail.
Speaker 1 (12:46):
During this fight, this back and forth with the state,
fate finally played a hand in Ben's favor. Ben and
Cristelle are known as trusted cops in the community and
got a number of tips from citizens of Kruger's were
anxious to end the murders. One in particular, though, led
to a windfall.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
So one of the people that found my wife's said,
I must go to Arundos classroom to see what's happening
in a classroom.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
On August ninth, twenty sixteen, Ben Christelle and a fellow
officer from the Krugery store. Police headed over to the
high school where Mirinda taught English. Turns out we were
there interviewing Ben exactly five years to the day that
this happened.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
I actually arranged it for today. That's Women's Day in
South Africa today, exactly today, because there will be no
children and at school.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
The headmaster was resistant at first, explaining that Mirinda was
one of the best teachers at the school. The kids
all loved her. Detective Ben boys and casually threatened the
headmaster that if he didn't comply, Ben could return with
a proper search warrant on a school day and conduct
his search in front of all the kids. The principal
didn't have to think long. He led them down the
(14:13):
empty hallways toward Merinda's classroom. It's a large room with
multiple sections and storage closets with stoves in them.
Speaker 4 (14:24):
I said, to the old place, but I didn't know
what to look for. I look for laptops and I
look for papers, I look for photos. I look for
anything that I can link to what they were doing.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Ben almost gave up. The headmaster was skeptical of the cops,
and Ben certainly didn't want to waste anyone's time.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
I couldn't find anything, and eventual I went to sit
down with the eight most of them, I said, it's Souri.
It seems to meet. It's false information.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
But something was still nagging at Ben, so before he left,
he decided to take one last look around.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
We all stood up and on the way out told
another lady from Cruiser Detective Unit.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
It was with me.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
I just want to go through all the rooms again.
And I went into the rooms and I checked and
I checked, and eventually I went to the left front room.
There was a lot of stuff laying around there, but
there was these two stoves standing in the middle of
the premises, and something just told me go and open
the ovens.
Speaker 1 (15:23):
Merenda's room was a repurposed home economics classroom.
Speaker 4 (15:30):
And as soon as I opened the ovens, I found
all this ammunition and machine to reload. Then they ate
master also turned and was on outside there because it
was not on the police side from the beginning.
Speaker 1 (15:46):
He continued his search and discovered a bullet reloading kit,
shotgun shells, nine millimeter bullets and then red tipped rubber
bullets only used by specially trained police officers, and sold
what was Marnda doing with guns and AMMO, some of
which was from the heyday of South Africa's violent apartheid
(16:08):
passed and in a high school, no less, How did
a school teacher wind up with military grade weaponry? When
he was done, he lined up all the AMMO on
a school desk. The principal was shocked to silence as
the veteran cops stared at the amateur arsenal. He had
a new concern. Were there cops helping these killers? The
(16:32):
only people who have access to this kind of ordinance
are people with a badge. The next domino fell that
same day after he called the task team in to
gather evidence from Mirenda's classroom.
Speaker 4 (16:46):
Packed it out and we took photos and stuff, And
eventually I think it was his wife. She's working in
the offices day. She came to me and she said,
did I know that Maranda changed their will? I knew
nothing about it.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Mirinda had just recently changed her will. Things had unfolded
so fast since Marinda's arrest, Plus the twenty twelve case
files were all missing, so Ben was doing his best
to catch up.
Speaker 4 (17:15):
Osta will you give me the will? Otherwise I must
make a two or five application and force them to
give me the will through the right channels. And luckily
you said them, and I'll give you the will.
Speaker 1 (17:29):
Ben took a statement from the headmaster and his wife
confirming that they were handing over this document of their
own free will. As they signed the paperwork, Ben read
over the will.
Speaker 4 (17:40):
While reading this will, I knew of good now something
to approach LaRue, because in that will she just owned
the children and she gave everything that is part of
her life to Cecilia Stein.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
But before he had a chance to meet with LaRue,
the task team made yet another breakthrough. They found the
sort of hard evidence that would make prosecutors finally believe
everything Ben had already suspected.
Speaker 4 (18:09):
Luckily, in the twenty fifteen sixteen murders, John Barnard took
his cell phone to all the crime scenes.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Detectives Krueger and Violent had been busy tracing the suspects
and discovered that pings from John Barnard's cell phone matched
the murder map to a t This was the smoking
gun the cops needed. On August eighteenth, twenty sixteen, John
Barnard was taken into custody in connection with the insurance
fraud and his involvement in the murder of Glenn McGregor.
(18:43):
Here's Commander Hert Krueger.
Speaker 6 (18:45):
We erased John Barnard at his work, the Mayers Printing Company,
and while we were driving back like coldn SEMs, we
stopped and John just started confacing.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
Barnard confessed to being part of all of the appointment Murners.
Speaker 6 (19:03):
I didn't got an officer to take his confession. It
was his first confession that he might after debt the
invasity guiding officer Captain Boisin's didn't just that he repeat
the dead confession in front of him magistrate, just to
give it more power. And John was the first one
that was convicted and the first one who went to prison.
Speaker 1 (19:29):
Finally, on August nineteenth, the day after John Barnard's confession,
Ben sat down with LaRue. He baited LaRue telling him
that his mother, Marinda's claim against the police wasn't going
to pay out. There was no way she'd be able
to save him from a life behind bars. He let
that sink in. Then he told LaRue that Barnard had
(19:51):
made a full confession at his arraignment hearing, implicating everyone.
It was a smart move. Ben told LaRue the confession
would increase his chances of getting a reasonable plea deal. Still,
LaRue stuck to his story and took to blame for
all the murders. Then was still not buying it.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
For a young boy like that picking up a date
person and llowed him into a vehicle, It's slutally not possible.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Not only did Ben immediately recognize the improbability of this claim,
but he could see through Laru, see the boy in him,
a boy who was in way over his head.
Speaker 4 (20:32):
While I was speaking to him in prison. I've got
the scenes that he is predicting the people around him.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
At first, Larux was agitated, tense, pacing like a cage tiger.
Detective Ben Boyce and his a father. He thought of
his own son and how he could reach him when
he was combative. Here's Gristelle recalling his approach. She refers
to LaRue by his nickname. Lex.
Speaker 2 (20:58):
Paine was friendly to next time, and he was kind
to Lex, and he was talking, you know, to Lex
with respect, and that turned ultimately turned Lex eventually to say,
but listen, yeah, you are giving me more kindness and
love than I ever experienced from my mother.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Ben knew that if he was calm with the wayward
son and asked him why he'd done what he'd done,
rather than scream at him, he was more likely to
hear the truth from LaRue. He was right.
Speaker 4 (21:26):
I talked to him a lot, and eventually I took
too well out and I put it in front of him,
but the words facing my way, and I asked him
who's antwriting? And he said it's my mother, because she's
got a very very nice antwriting neat and I turned
the paper around and I said, listen, read how much
your mother loved you.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Harsh right, But Ben's instincts were guiding him. LaRue was
apt to turn against his mother. Throughout his first couple
of months in police custody, LaRue had been worried about
his sister Marcel, who also in custody. He wrote her
a series of letters pleading with her to come clean,
not to take the rap for their mother, Cecilia or
(22:08):
any of the others. When Cecilia and Marinda got word
that one of their puppets was turning on them, they
tried to kill LaRue. Journalist Maritzka Kotsayer was visiting him
in jail around this time, reporting on the case, she
recalled Larux telling her about when his mother brought him medication.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
There was one way she apparently took him medication for
his stomach, and it was supposedly two step. So you
know that is a poison that stab one. You take
it in step till you die. Can you imagine living
in fear that your own mother wants to kill it.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
It appears that even in jail, LaRue wasn't safe from
Cecilia's wrath. In Mirenda's will, she attested, I'm Marinda stein laradim.
Speaker 8 (22:53):
Same mind and wished to recorde my last wishes as
follows every sent and property that I and will become
available at my death. I bequeathed to Cecilia stein nie
seword Kniebrandt to use as she sees fit, whether my
biological children are still in jail or not, whether she
wants to spend it on them or not. It toutally
(23:16):
becomes us.
Speaker 1 (23:23):
As soon as LaRue heard about the change in the will,
he broke down. Ben's compassionate approach had softened the edges, eroded,
the walls around the roots broken heart.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
And then at tisk started coming out here and his
lip stopped going like this, and he stopped crying and
then he said, FuG them. Now I'm going to talk.
And then he told me a lot of stuff where
the guns was hiding and stuff like that, and he
told me about it. Twenty twelve meders.
Speaker 1 (23:52):
After the cathartic confession, Ben did his due diligence and
got LaRue to repeat it in front of a magistrate.
Back from the hearing to the jail, Larux is exhausted.
He fell into this sort of paralyzing exhaustion that is
specific to the fallout from a world crumbling realization. Once
(24:12):
Laru stopped seeing the world through the lies, Secilia and
his mother raised him to believe. Laru was free to
face the truth of what his entire life had been
and the grim future ahead. The silence hung heavy on
the drive. Ben, a detective Herd Krueger, sat up front.
They knew it would be a long time before Laru
(24:34):
would ever see the world again.
Speaker 2 (24:36):
Ben ask him, is there anything you need? And he says, yes, Uncle,
I'm hungry. And Ben asked him what would you like
to eat? And Lex was very confused because he says
that they could never decide what they wanted to eat.
They always had to eat what Cecilia was prescribing because
that was part of her power. And then he said,
(24:56):
can I please have a pizza and a coke?
Speaker 1 (25:00):
LaRue became emotional, recognizing something that had been missing from
his life, human kindness.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
When we got hold of Marenda's diary, she writes in
her diary as if she's speaking to the person in
the first person. And she wrote in her diary with
regard to Lex and Afrikaans, but I'll translate it into English.
She said, but you sold your soul for a pizza
and a coke.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
This was the beginning of Christelle and Ben kind of
taking care of the Rue. They would continue to provide
him with emotional support throughout the trial, and over time
they became bonded to him. L Arux even wrote letters
to Ben while he was in prison. He had no
one else.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
What she doesn't realize is that if you mean so
little to your children that they are willing to sell
you out for a pizzana coke. And this is no
indication of lex but it's indication of how poor mother
she was to the children, and that is what she caused.
Not anyone else.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Armed with LaRue's confession. Boison and hert Krueger go to
Cecilia's apartment. Upon entry, they find blood on the carpet.
Speaker 4 (26:16):
I saw the stains on the carpet, and then I
got the police to come out and check the stains
for me for blood, and then we fell into Goldfield's
blood and LaRue's blood inside the premises. So the previous
policemen that were about ten times in that flat then
trains for that to be done.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
Ben and his team also confiscate a whole lot of
illegal firearms and ammunition stashed in the walls at seventeen
Cassano Flats. LaRue had been the one to create these
hidden panels.
Speaker 9 (26:48):
And there was a little gap between the cupboards and
the walk and I kind of broke one of the
wooden panels, so the length of the closet then it
made like a little I thought chimney almost, and we're
like push it back and put a panel back there,
so it looked like any other coverages, you know, going
up to the ceiling.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
Cecilia's husband, Sergeant Drese Stein, an officer with the South
African Police Service, was also arrested after the arsenal was
found hidden in the walls of his home. All the
firearms were illegal. He was only held for a few
days and then released. The case against EPD would finally
(27:31):
go to trial in twenty seventeen, and it would take
two years to connect them to all the murders and
officially see them convicted. Journalist Maritzka Kotsayer's book on the
krueger Storf killings walks readers through these events from LaRue's perspective.
(27:54):
It's called outcast. Like most people in Krugersdorp and many
more across the nation, Maritzka had been following this story.
Thanks to her press credentials, she was granted access to
visit both John Barnard and LaRue in the late stage
of the trial. Upon meeting the two men, it was
immediately clear to her who her main subject should be.
Speaker 3 (28:18):
That is the easy target, you know, because I thought
he had a little hard left.
Speaker 1 (28:27):
Maritzka also had a cousin who was locked up with LaRue,
giving her a whiff of street cred. So he agreed
to meet with her one on one.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
A godday. Waited. I was scared, and then he actually
agreed to see me. And I think it's because he
knew my name because of my cousin. And I remember
the first words that he said to me was dhxie.
So it's something like good day is very pulotte. So
I saw to myself, do you murderers have manners?
Speaker 2 (28:57):
You know?
Speaker 3 (28:57):
I was really like, what's this guy saying nice?
Speaker 4 (29:00):
You know?
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Mariska and LaRue had an instant connection.
Speaker 10 (29:05):
You liked metal music.
Speaker 3 (29:06):
He was into piercings, into tattoos. So when you know,
when I got down you, I only had a short
time to win him over. So now I said to him,
I want to tell your story, but I don't want
to tell your story like, yes, I committed the murders.
I said, I want to I want to hear your story,
like I want you to tell me what you want
(29:27):
to say. And that day he asked me my number
and I gave it to him.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
In the months leading up to his sentencing, she and
LaRue formed a tight bond that evolved in the Mariska
becoming an advocate for him and Marcel.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
I mean, is there not one person that can see
that this was child abuse? She conditioned them to be monsters.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
On December fourteenth, twenty sixteenth, John Barnard took his plead
in exchange for testifying against EPD. His sentence was reduced
from life to twenty years in prison. Charging the rest
of EPD was a challenge. Now keep in mind that
in South Africa it's a judge's courtroom. The jury system
(30:17):
was abolished during apartheid, so the fate of each EPD
member lay solely in the judge's hands.
Speaker 11 (30:24):
You might shure you bring the truth to the court
in a Watertodd Vihko where you're the jud character of effect.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
That's Dion Venvick. He's worked in the State's Attorney's office
for thirty years, twenty of which were in the High Court,
which is like the federal district courts in the US.
He is currently a senior State Advocate. At just under
six feet tall, Dion Vnvick is an authoritative presence and
has been doing this so long. He's extremely well versed
(30:56):
in the intricacies of South African law and not to
be confused with Captain johann and Vick, who you've heard
from in earlier episodes.
Speaker 11 (31:06):
On the effects of the case that you guys are investigating.
Many crimes were perpetrated by various of her followers, but
the challenge is to prosecute them all, for each and
every one of them, to keep them liable, criminally liable
for all the offenses would be impossible without detulov racketeering.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Ben had a background in organized crime, so he developed
a strategy to approach this rare, unprecedented prosecution. Then, Vic says,
according to the Prevention of Organized Crime Act or POKER,
Ben would have to prove that the crimes involved racketeering.
Speaker 11 (31:47):
Section one of our Poker Acts creates that too. You
turned on proving an enterprise, which was easy to do.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
In this case. Alectis Perdaeus's enterprise was blatant insurance fraud,
thinking zach death to cash in on his policy.
Speaker 11 (32:02):
Secondly, how you your factual association, It all depends on
what level. Obviously, the main person will be the manager.
You have sufficient evidence to prove.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
That Cecilia being the sole beneficiary of the attempted fraud
made her the manager or ringleader in this act of
organized crime.
Speaker 11 (32:22):
And the person's associating in activities to further the objectives
of the enterprise, and that was the key.
Speaker 1 (32:32):
This is how Mirinda and her children were linked in complicity.
The kids were working to carry out Cecilia's enterprise. For example,
LaRue had made incessant calls to check on the claim
for Cecilia, then he backed her up in the insurance
inquiry video, and Marcel was an active participant in the robberies.
(32:52):
The ATM withdrawals from this angle. They were all enmeshed
involved in an ongoing conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt. Still,
this approach was unheard of at the time.
Speaker 11 (33:04):
Normally you would not deploy racketeating on a murdic case likeness,
but that was the only way to bring them all
to book, and there's nothing boarding us or boring the
prosecution team in law to apply that. So that's the
first in South Africa as far as I know.
Speaker 1 (33:22):
Since it had never been used in a murder case before.
It took a while to convince the judge that pocket
charters held water for the prosecution, but finally in February
the judge approved. Senior State Advocate Dion van Vick also
illuminated for US based on his years in the field,
that organized crime at this level usually leads to murder.
Speaker 11 (33:46):
Keeping in mind that it doesn't matter in what sphere
of organized crime you move. If your financial your criminal
benefit is big enough, people will die.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Just to be clear, Dion van Vick didn't work on
this case, but we spoke to him to get some
clarity on the racketeering stuff from an actual state official.
While Ben developed this racketeering angle, he also gathered witnesses.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
And fifty witnesses actually, and I served to aenit in
fifty two supunas three times, but we only used at
the end of the day about seventy witnesses to testify.
Speaker 1 (34:34):
Many of the witnesses were reduced to tears. They were
all emotionally broken and terrified of speaking out against Cecilia.
As you've heard, Luke asked us to alter his voice
and use an alias because he's still convinced that he's
a target for testifying against Cecilia. Prison bars were no
match for her. Not only did she speak of astral projection,
(34:58):
but no one would have been surprised if she put
a hit out on any of the witnesses or their families.
Throughout the investigation, Ben received death threats warning him that
if he didn't stop his pursuit of justice, he would
be murdered by the Satanic Church. At one point, Brigadier
Manny victor got a tip that a one million RAN
(35:19):
contract had been offered to anyone that would take out
Ben Boysen. That's about fifty thousand US dollars. A suspect
was eventually arrested and identified as the would be hitman.
Cecilia also came after Ben and Cristelle's.
Speaker 7 (35:36):
Family since her first year in Joel, one of the
peoples she was incarcerated with was released and she told us.
She made a statement, she's coming from Kruystol, and she
told us that Cecilia is planning on killing our youngest daughter.
She took out a contract to kill our youngest daughter
for revenge on what Ben has done. And then our
(35:59):
younger his daughter had to move out of town and
she doesn't stay with us anymore.
Speaker 1 (36:05):
The court dates kept getting postponed for myriad reasons, a
slow moving justice system being one, but also because the
twenty twelve case files were missing. LaRue's confession was not enough.
Ben had to completely recreate reports on crimes that happened
four years earlier, which took time.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
But remember there was no dockets, there was no witness statements,
there was nothing. So even if he tells me and
he confession all this stuff, I still need to go
out and get evidence to prove what he said is
the truth.
Speaker 1 (36:40):
And that was very difficult, and Ben's health had not improved.
In fact, it was buckling under the pressure.
Speaker 4 (36:50):
Every time the court postponed. I had to serve all
that tupunas again by myself. I became very very ill.
Speaker 1 (36:57):
Christelle finally forced him to go to the doc.
Speaker 4 (37:01):
I didn't want to go to the doctor because I
know they're going to book me off and I can't
be booked off because I still need to get information
and stuff. And one morning I woke up and I
was sitting on bed and I didn't have a voice,
and she said, you're going to hospital to the doctor today.
And I was so weak when I get to the
hospital that I actually couldn't walk.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
Turns out he had pneumonia, but even during treatment, Ben
kept working.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
So they brought the wheelchair to take me into the hospital.
And as I because the hospital was its opposite Cecilia
Stein's flats.
Speaker 1 (37:40):
There was suspicion that Cecilia had a friend working in
the hospital pharmacy who would secure drugs for Cecilia and
Electus per Dais.
Speaker 4 (37:48):
I saw the chemist and I said, I still need
to I want to tell I still need a statement. Yes,
And my wife freaked out that she said, no, since
you warned everybody in but all that they must not
talk about the case with me, I must relax. And
then eventually the doctor came to me and he said,
you've got overgrown art.
Speaker 1 (38:10):
An overgrown heart. After a few days of rest, Ben
was released.
Speaker 4 (38:19):
I wasn't supposed to go to work, but when I
get home, I took the sick note, I tear it
up and I started working the next day again. My
wife was very very cross with me, But you know,
I knew that if I'm not going to see this
cases through, that it's not going to work out nicely.
(38:41):
So I forced myself to do work.
Speaker 1 (38:47):
About a year into the trial, Janna Marx was working
as a court reporter.
Speaker 10 (38:52):
I was working in court, so I was attending court
cases and I was literally sitting in court every day.
It would be different cases because cisis Skates postponed. I
was a digital journalist. It becomes difficult to see a
trial evolving from start to end. I mean, it's not
always possible because of the speed of the journalism that
(39:15):
we practice.
Speaker 1 (39:16):
The case against EPD was moved to the High Court
in May of twenty eighteen, and Yana was assigned to it.
Speaker 10 (39:23):
So I think from the very beginning this really grab
people's attention, just because of the religion and also the
normalization of what happened there. I mean, the regular people
being part of a group are goodness. Now regular people
are killing other regular people.
Speaker 1 (39:38):
We are so grateful for all the insight and expertise
that Yana lent to this project for over a year,
Nearly every time these murderers took the stand, Yana was
there watching. She'll walk us through the trial. In the
next episode, we'll get her take on Cecilia, Zach and
the kids as they try to make a case for
(39:59):
themselves Merinda too well sort of. Yanna also speaks to
Cecilia's delusional style, which was on full display in the courtroom.
Speaker 10 (40:13):
Cecilia is very She's very lively, and she tells jokes,
and that happens in court.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
Cecilia's charming personality is part of what makes her so terrifying.
Even today, her shadow is buried deep. I know this
because I met her well.
Speaker 12 (40:34):
I like joking and I like, you know, having fun.
Laughing life is serious and and you can't be serious
all the time. It'll just make you the priest if
you certain think about life.
Speaker 1 (40:53):
On the next episode of Queen Havoc, LaRue.
Speaker 4 (40:57):
Right when when he was found guilty and in front
of his mother, he said, thank you Captain for sending
this beach the.
Speaker 13 (41:06):
Jail on understand she lied Latant. I killed Reginald and
I enjoyed every minute of it and went into great
gory detail about how she did it and saying it
had nothing to do with Cecilia.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
But he still says there in things like what if
Cecilia I can sneak into my cell and come and
hurt me.
Speaker 10 (41:29):
You know, Massell was a bit different. I think the
whole country's sympathy lay with Mussel.
Speaker 7 (41:38):
And everyone believed her.
Speaker 6 (41:42):
Everyone believed in.
Speaker 7 (41:43):
What she was saying.
Speaker 1 (41:45):
So Queen Havoc in Her Murder Cult is a production
of Schooly Humans and iHeart Podcasts. Queen Havoc is hosted
and created by me Kurt Kupachak, produced and written by
Jennifer ZC Kenny, Julia Chriskau, and Kirk Kupachick. Lead producer
is Julia Chriskau. Story editor is Saren Burnett, Senior producer
(42:10):
is Amelia Brock. Production manager is Daisy Church. Original music
composed by Claire Campbell, editing, sound design and scoring by
Jesse Niswanger. Associate producers are DaShan Moodley and Jamaine Kriher.
Additional producing by Ben Melman, fact checking by Dennis Webster.
(42:33):
Recording engineers are Graham Gibson, Clay Hillenberg and Josh Hook.
Brinda Stein was read by Angelique Pretorious. Executive producers are
Virginia Prescott, L. C. Crowley, Brandon Barr, Jennifer Takeny and
Kurt Kupachick. We want to thank all of those who
so generously welcomed us in South Africa and shared their stories.
(42:57):
We're incredibly grateful to you all. We also want to
acknowledge how traumatic these events are for the victims and
their families. Please respect their privacy. If you or someone
you know has been affected by cult behaviors, there are
resources available, including voices for Dignity at Christine Murray dot
(43:18):
com
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