The Ant Hill Kids: Canada's Most Horrific Cult

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Rock Therialt was the maniacal leader of the Ant Hill
Kids, a small group thatinitially appeared to be an
innocent community offree-thinking folks who
supported themselves throughself-sufficiency in their
commune in the quaint Canadianwilderness.
However, life inside the communewas much more disturbing than
anybody could have ever imagined.
Torture, abuse, mutilation andmurder made up the four walls of

(00:21):
a literal house of horrors forthe members of the group.
Welcome to today's episode onhuman wreckage, where we uncover
one of the most disturbingstories in Canadian history.
This is the story of RockTherialt, the maniacal leader
behind the infamous Ant HillKids, a story of manipulation,
violence and the devastatingconsequences of blind devotion.
In the late 1970s, a smallcommune in the remote Quebec

(00:45):
wilderness was formed, anidealistic group searching for
truth and freedom.
They called themselves the AntHill Kids and they were led by a
man named Rock Theriot.
On the surface, he was acharismatic leader, promising
enlightenment and a life freefrom society's constraints, but
what began as an innocent questfor something deeper soon
spiraled into a nightmare ofunimaginable cruelty.

(01:07):
Theriot was not just a leader,he was a master manipulator.
His power over his followerswas absolute, his control
suffocating.
What started as a spiritualcommunity quickly descended into
a place where violence, fearand punishment were normalized.
Theriot believed that pain wasnecessary for purification, and
he used this belief to justifyhorrific actions, beatings,

(01:30):
psychological torment and evenmutilation, all in the name of
spiritual discipline.
He isolated his followers fromthe outside world, creating a
place where only his version ofreality existed.
The anthill kids became a cultin the truest sense of the word,
a group so utterly consumed bytheir leader's control that they
couldn't see the hell they wereliving in.
It wasn't just about power, itwas about domination.

(01:53):
Daryl twisted their faith,breaking them down, forcing them
to believe that they werenothing without him.
Over time, his crueltyescalated.
Those who tried to escape orquestion him were met with
unimaginable punishment.
His followers were subjected totorturous acts that defy belief
, actions that would eventuallylead to his capture and the
unraveling of the Ant Hill Kids.

(02:14):
In this episode, we'll uncoverthe horrifying details of Rock
Theriot's reign, thepsychological and physical toll
it took on his followers, andhow his dark ideology led to
deadly consequences.
The Ant Hill kids were trappedin a nightmare from which they
could not escape until the worldfinally learned of their
suffering.
Prepare yourself, because thestory of Rock Therialt is one

(02:37):
that will send shivers down yourspine.
This is the dark reality behindthe anthill kids.

(03:17):
Rock Theriot was born in theSaguenay Valley of Quebec in
1947 to Hyacinth and PerretTheriot.
According to Theriot, hisfather would be abusive towards
him throughout his childhood.
However, the elder Theriotwould staunchly deny these
claims.
Theriot dropped out of schoolat just 13 years old and
developed an obsession with theapocalypse and the Old Testament

(03:37):
, especially the strict code onmasculine authority.
While Theriot was raisedCatholic, he converted to the
Seventh-day Adventist church andfollowed their way of life.
He relinquished alcohol,tobacco and processed foods.
His time with the church,however, was short-lived and he
was removed after attempting togain leadership.
While Theriot was removed fromthe church, he had already

(03:59):
managed to secure himself anumber of followers.
By the mid-1970s, theriot hadconvinced himself that he was
the people's savior.
He strongly believed that hewas put on earth by God to save
the world from evil and theupcoming apocalypse.
Theriot now had a new goal tocreate a free-thinking commune
where his accolades could listento his teachings and live as

(04:20):
equals.
He forced his followers toabandon their homes and abandon
their families after convincingthem that the world and their
loved ones were corrupt.
Therialt and his followerslived according to his personal
representation of the Bible andthey accepted him as their God.
By 1978, therialt's delusionshad grown exponentially and he
predicted that the world wouldend in February of 1979.

(04:43):
To prepare for the apocalypse,therialt and his followers four
men, nine women and fourchildren moved to Eternal
Mountain near the Gaspé villageof St Jogs.
Here the group built a communeof tents and log cabins.
However, february of 1979 cameand went, and the apocalypse
didn't materialize.
According to Therialt, theworld didn't end because of the

(05:04):
differences in the Israelitecalendar and the Roman didn't
materialize.
According to Theriot, the worlddidn't end because of the
differences in the Israelitecalendar and the Roman Catholic
calendar.
Soon enough, life in the communehad become bizarre.
Theriot had wanted to increasehis followers, and did so by
marrying all of the femaleswithin the commune and
impregnating them.
He fathered 20 children by ninedifferent women.
Therialt had a maniacal streakthat triggered brutal

(05:25):
punishments.
In 1981, he sliced open thepenis of two-year-old Samuel
Gilger after the young boy haddifficulty urinating.
When Samuel wouldn't stopcrying after the so-called
surgery, therialt ordered one ofhis followers, guy Veer, to
beat the young boy, whosubsequently died from his
injuries.
In a bid to conceal the death.
The commune then set the boy'sbody on fire as punishment.

(05:48):
Therial castrated Veer andordered his followers to say
that Veer had been trampled by ahorse.
Nevertheless, the truth cameout and police raided the
commune and discovered thecharred body of Samuel.
Therial and eight others werearrested and charged with
criminal negligence causingbodily harm.
They were all subsequentlyreleased.
Following the releases, theriotand his followers established a

(06:10):
community near Burnt River,ontario.
Here Theriot ruled over hisfollowers, including 26 children
, most who were his own, and hisremaining followers who
remained loyal during hisincarceration.
Here, his followers supportedthemselves by making maple syrup
, preserves, bread and smokingfish.
Theriot compared his followersto ants working on an anthill.

(06:31):
Thus the anthill kids were born.
While initially the communeappeared to mesh within the
community, theriot begandrinking heavily and his
drinking increased.
So did his violence.
He exerted control over hisfollowers in cruel ways and they
were too weak, both physicallyand mentally, to escape.
He forbid them from speaking toeach other without his

(06:51):
permission and conductedgladiator tournaments.
During these tournaments,therialt would force his
followers into a dirt ring andfight.
He became increasingly paranoidthat his followers were
thinking of defecting and becamemore violent.
Therialt first of all hit hisfollowers with belts, but soon
introduced hammers and the flatside of an axe.
If Therialt thought that afollower was thinking of leaving

(07:13):
the commune, he would suspendthem from the ceiling and pluck
their hairs out one by onebefore defecating on them.
Therialt even had his followersprove their loyalty by breaking
their own legs withsledgehammers.
In addition, he ordered hisfollowers to sit on lit stoves,
shoot each other in the shoulder, smear feces on one another and
cut off each other's toes.
Therialt also took to sexuallyabusing his followers and

(07:36):
forcing them to eat their ownfeces.
Even the children in the communeweren't exempt from violence or
sexual abuse.
They would be stripped nakedand whipped, and if one
allegedly misbehaved, theriotwould nail them to a tree and
force the other children tothrow rocks at them.
Then one evening, during ablizzard, a mother placed her
newborn baby outside, allegedlyto escape from Theriot's violent

(07:58):
outburst.
The baby died from the cold.
The death led to aninvestigation and in 1987, 14
children were removed from thecommune and placed into foster
homes.
While this could have a regimeof abuse, children's aid were
only interested in saving thechildren and not seeking justice
.
So the commune continued, withjust two men and eight women.

(08:19):
Following the removal of thechildren, theriot became even
more violent.
While drunk, he believed he wasa doctor who could perform
medical acts on his followers.
One evening he placed a rubberband around the testicles of one
follower.
The scrotum became swollen andinfected after around eight
hours and Theriot removed thetesticle and cauterized the
wound with a hot iron.

(08:39):
Then, in September of 1988, heordered Solange Boylard onto the
kitchen table and stripped hernaked.
Earlier in the day, she hadcomplained about a sore stomach.
Theriot punched Boylard in thestomach and then shoved a
plastic tube up her rectum andperformed an enema with molasses
and olive oil.
He then made an incision on theside of her abdomen and pulled

(09:01):
out a section of her intestinewith his bare hands.
He then ripped a piece of theintestine out and stuffed the
rest back in her abdomen.
Boylard was then stitched backup.
Boylard remained alive and inagony until the next day when
she finally died, most likelybecause of digestive chemicals
leaking into her abdominalcavity.
Theriot next claimed that he hadthe ability of resurrection.

(09:22):
He ordered his followers toremove Boilar's uterus and saw
off a portion of her skull sothat he could ejaculate into her
brain and bring her back tolife.
However, when she didn'tresurrect, therialt instead
ordered his followers to buryher body on the grounds of the
commune.
But first he removed one of herribs and kept it in a leather
case around his neck.
Then, in November of 1988,another member of the commune,

(09:46):
gabrielle Lavely, complainedthat she had a toothache.
Theriot responded by rippingout a number of her teeth with
pliers.
Later that night, he chased herwith a knife and cut the tendon
of one of her hands.
Then, in July of 1989, theriotimpaled Lavely's hand on the
kitchen table after shecomplained of stiffness in the
hand.
He then decided he needed toamputate Lavallee's arm.

(10:08):
He grabbed a meat cleaver andhacked her arm off.
She lay in agony on the kitchenfloor until the stump was
stitched up.
The following morning, on the16th of August, lavallee managed
to escape from the commune.
She hitchhiked to a hospitalnorth of Toronto and the
disturbing truth of the communewas finally laid bare.
Theriot pleaded guilty to threecounts of aggravated assault

(10:30):
and one count of unlawfullycausing bodily harm.
He received 12 years in prison.
However, another member of thecult then led authorities to the
body of Boillard.
Theriot subsequently pleadedguilty to second-degree murder
and was sentenced to life inprison, without the possibility
of parole until 2000.
In February of 2011, theriotwas stabbed to death by his

(10:52):
cellmate.
As we come to the end of thischilling journey, the story of
Rock Theriot and the Ant HillKids leaves us with far more
questions than answers.
How could one man wield suchterrifying power?
How could a community fall sodeeply under the spell of a
leader whose promises ofsalvation masked nothing but
abuse, terror and control?
Rock Theriot's actions weren'tjust the result of twisted

(11:14):
beliefs or delusions of grandeur.
They were deliberate,calculated acts of cruelty.
He destroyed lives under theguise of healing them, and in
doing so, he left behind alegacy of pain that continues to
haunt survivors and horrifyanyone who learns the truth.
This wasn't just a cult in thewoods.
It was a prison mental,emotional and physical.
The people who followed himweren't foolish or weak.

(11:37):
They were vulnerable.
They were human.
And that's what makes thisstory so profoundly disturbing,
because, if we're honest, itshows just how fragile the line
can be between faith andfanaticism, between hope and
horror.
But out of this darkness thereare stories of survival, of
strength, of people who manageto escape and reclaim their
lives, even if the scars, bothseen and unseen will never fully

(12:01):
fade.
They remind us of theimportance of vigilance, of
education and of speaking out.
Abuse thrives in silence, butthe more we understand how these
situations take root, thebetter we can prevent them from
happening again.
Thank you for joining us forthis difficult but important
story.
If you or someone you know isin a situation where power is

(12:21):
being abused or where fear ispassed off as faith, please
reach out.
There is help and there is hope.
Thanks for joining me on HumanWreckage, and we'll be back soon
with another true story thatreveals the complexities of the
human mind and the shadows itcan cast.
Until then, stay safe, stayaware and take care of each
other.
Thank you, outro Music.