Covid Cures and Conspiracies Introducing: The Deadly Cure

Smoke Screen: Deadly Cure is a podcast about a family on the fringe who convinced tens of thousands of people across the globe to buy a miracle liquid made of poison, the international conspiracy they ignited, and the people who fought to take them down. Smoke Screen: Deadly Cure is a Neon Hum Media, Bloomberg & Sony Music Entertainment production.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The story I'm about to tell you. It's as old
as dirt, and yet, like any great story, it perfectly
explains the moment we are currently in. It's a story
about a man and a magical potion, something he says
will save the world for just a few dollars of vile.

(00:22):
But there's a catch that potion. It might also kill you.
This is no run of the mill elixir, though it's
a miracle cure, a cure that people all over the
world believe in. Factions form for and against it. Spiritual

(00:43):
warfare has ignited, at least in places like Reddit and Telegram.
Real damage has been done, Lies spread, lives hang in
the balance. This is the story of what happens when
it's hard to sort the facts from the fiction. There's

(01:05):
this one video I keep coming back to. It starts
with a black screen, white text. It reads a growth
negligence of the First Amendment being observed in real time.
Real time is in all caps. It flashes on the
screen like a warning. It gives you the impression you're
about to see some sort of shocking miscarriage of justice.

(01:28):
You are not, anyway. It's stated April right at the
beginning of the pandemic. You're crossing property. Okay. The video
is a grainy handheld recording, probably from a phone. We
see an officers standing on the front steps of a
single family home with a front yard covered in dirt

(01:50):
and patchy grass. It looks like the South. The camera
is trained on his back about five ft away. He's
posting a piece of paper to a door, and the
man in the camera his name is Jonathan Grennan. Jonathan's dad,
Mark Grennan, is that man with the magical potion. The

(02:10):
salesman and the cops have just showed up to shut
them down. What's your name, deputy? Okay? You two. The
camera swings around two other men who are watching over
the scene. They're armed, badges hooked onto their belts. Okay,
I got you guys. Guess what. I'm going to the
sheriff with this. The First Constitute right, the Constitution, the

(02:33):
First Amendment says there's in the Congress will make no law. Okay,
I I don't have a law, and you are harassing me.
The cops aren't just here for Jonathan, they're here for
his family too, because the thing, this miracle product Jonathan's protecting,
it's a family affair together. They've built a whole business

(02:55):
empire around it, a church, global following, and a fortune.
It's no wonder. Jonathan is pissed. The cops are here.
There's a lot at stake. You guys, you guys, you
you should search your souls. The three men start to
walk away. Jonathan follows them, chasing them to the street.

(03:15):
So guess what. You are going to be followed up,
and we're going to talk to the We're going to
talk to the sheriff. You should stay away from here.
One of the cops gives Jonathan a thumbs up dismissively,
he gets into his car. You should never be coming
here again because Jesus Christ's Lord, and he will come
one day and he's gonna save us from this. You
have no right here. You are nothing to me. You

(03:37):
are nothing. But the police on that video did have
a right, in fact, a responsibility. The piece of paper
the cop posted to their door it was a temporary
restraining order signed by a federal judge. For years, the
family had been hawking their miracle cure around the globe

(04:00):
and in dark corners of the Internet. It had brought
thousands of people hope that it would fix any manner
of things that ailed them. Often, though the so called
cure did the opposite, It made things worse. The document
pinned to the door ordered the Grinnin's to stop making
and distributing their potion, what they called their sacrament. For years,

(04:24):
the Grinnins successfully shielded themselves from this kind of police intervention.
Over time, they'd come to believe that certain laws just
didn't apply to them, would never apply to them. But
Jonathan's camera captured something different that day. That's what I
find so interesting about this video. Why keep coming back

(04:44):
to it. There's this fury, this desperation in his voice,
almost like he knew the jig was up. Jesus Christ
is Lord, and he is gonna come back, and he's
gonna save us from this evil. I'm fire. The camera
shakes as it follows an unmarked black sedan as it
slowly rolls past Jonathan and down the narrow suburban street.

(05:09):
You don't come back on my land again. This is
the land of the Lord Jesus Christ. You stay away
from here. They would be back from Neon Media, Sony

(05:37):
Music Entertainment, and Bloomberg News. I'm Kristen B. Brown and
this smoke screen Deadly Cure, a podcast about how family
on the Fringe convinced thousands of people across the globe
to buy a miracle liquid made of poison. The international
conspiracy it ignited, and the people who fought to take

(05:57):
them down aw