S3 E34 His Way Ministries - Granddaughter of a Pro-Life Activist and Cult Leader - The Cult Vault

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Crime Con UK is coming to London in twenty twenty
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(00:23):
and welcome to the Cult Vault podcast, your dedicated podcast
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Before we get started, a word of caution. Today's episode

(00:44):
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and covers a variety of human rights violations that may
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(01:04):
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(01:46):
pledge not only gives you exclusive access but also directly
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and today we have a special surprise. Our guest, Emily,
has been writing some really powerful music about her Caltic

(02:07):
experiences and some of the difficulties that she has had
throughout her life. Emily has kindly shared some of her
music with us today to be played on the podcast.
A one minute sample of her new song will be
played at the start of the episode, and the full
song will be played at the end. The full song
is particularly prevalent because it features Emily's late brother, so

(02:29):
please do hang on until the end of the episode
and listen to Emily's song in full. Thank you so
much to Emily for your strength and bravery and for
entrusting myself on the podcast in sharing your artistic work.
I hope you enjoyed the song and my conversation with Emily.

Speaker 2 (02:59):
Starting tutus.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
You sas frown, I trust, nices STANDYASTI stand.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Hello. Hello, Hello listeners, and welcome back to another episode
of the Cult Vault podcast. Today we are going to
be diving into a group that has not been covered
on the podcast before. I can't believe I'm still saying
that some four hundred episodes in, but we know how
many cultic groups exist, so I'm so on it to

(04:01):
welcome onto the show today. Emily, Hello, and welcome. Emily. Hi.

Speaker 4 (04:05):
Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (04:09):
Would you like to start by introducing yourself to the listeners.

Speaker 5 (04:15):
Yes, so, my name is Emily. I am a third
generation cult survivor. My grandpa is a cult leader or
he was he passed away, But so basically that was
my whole life. The first half of my life, I
did not know what it was like to have love
and support around me. I did not have freedom to

(04:36):
be myself. And so I'm just really happy to share
that I finally have a good life now and I
get to create. I love to do music and art
and makeup art, and I have a beautiful family. I'm
in an open adoption. I have a beautiful daughter and
her first mom is like very close to me. And

(04:57):
so all these things in my life that I never
dreamed I would get to have came true. And if
anyone out there feels trapped in a cult or wants
to have a hope, I just hope I can show
that hope today.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
That's a really strong message to start on, especially when
there are themes of, you know, existential threats that come
through a lot of the interviews that happen on the show.
You know, if you leave, you'll never be happy, If
you leave, you'll never have this, you'll never have that,

(05:32):
you'll never have unconditional love. And yet here you are
with all of those things, despite not being in the
cult anymore.

Speaker 5 (05:39):
Thank you, thank you. Yeah, every second that I get
to be free, I just I keep smiling and I'm
just so grateful.

Speaker 1 (05:48):
Group is a new one. I was surprised to read
of the details of this particular cult when your email
came through, especially because it seems to be a pretty
prominent group at a prominent time where lots of these
groups kind of sprouted up. So your granddad he was

(06:10):
a cult leader. How does that happen? Did he always
know he was going to be a cult leader or
was it something that morphed over time? What is the
story of his way ministries?

Speaker 5 (06:23):
So my grandfather was a military chaplain, and then his
whole life was very bizarre. He grew up in during
the Great Depression, so actually from when he was a
very young age, he lived with borders in his house,
so he lived in a community setting in his own home,
and I believe that's where his attachment issues came from,

(06:48):
where he just really became accustomed to getting close to
people quickly who weren't that close to him, and being
comfortable and having kind of a fanly type role in
the house with these strangers who moved in. This is
back in the nineteen thirties. But that's just my theory

(07:08):
because through his whole life he didn't really have a
present father in his life, and he did have these
strangers move in and he lived in a communal situation
since the nineteen thirties. Then in the sixties, he was
a military chaplain and he was away from his family,
a lot away from his kids, my dad.

Speaker 4 (07:27):
And you know, my grandmother.

Speaker 5 (07:30):
And then after he left the military, he decided to
start this ministry where he started welcoming basically teenagers and
becoming like a fatherlike figure to them. And I think
in his mind he must have thought that this is

(07:50):
something he didn't get to have when he was growing
up and he wanted to.

Speaker 1 (07:54):
Pass that on.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
So, yeah, does that answer your question?

Speaker 1 (07:58):
Sorry? I went on a yeah, A great, a great
summary of how this group came about. It's giving me
kind of like teens for Christ. You know, the early
renditions of the Children of God, when David Berg would

(08:21):
proselytize to teens on the beach and they would get together,
and that's kind of what his early ministry looked like.
And I believe it was around about the same period
in history that this this group kind of got its
momentum going as well. Mm hmm. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (08:36):
I really believe that a lot of the cult leaders
from that time period were affected by the military right
before that and maybe even the Great Depression when all
the communal living was happening, because that was when you
when your attachment issue or form is when you're like
five years old around then, is when you form your
primary attachments. So can you imagine living with a bunch

(08:58):
of strangers during the Great Depression. I mean, just my theory,
but yeah, so my grandpa he had basically a lot
of people that looked up to him like a fatherlike figure.

Speaker 4 (09:12):
They Yeah, he really.

Speaker 5 (09:17):
Spent time with them in a nurturing, fatherly kind of
way that he never did with his own family. He
just didn't know how to do that. And so he
had multiple locations in California, including Pleasant Hill and San Francisco,
and he did a lot of pro life activism stuff.

Speaker 4 (09:39):
But we can get into that.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
He starts this group, he is a father figure. He's
the kind of a nurturing, charismatic leader that is seen
at the forefront of a lot of kind of destructive groups.
But it sounds like it starts off as like a
pleasant group quite benign. Is that how you Is that
how you think it was happening at that time, or

(10:20):
do you think even from the beginning there was some
undertones of kind of things to come.

Speaker 4 (10:29):
My understanding is that his.

Speaker 5 (10:32):
He was very abusive when my parents or when my
dad was a kid, and so my understanding is that
he always had just a very toxic way of being.
But he Yeah, I really think it was pretty toxic
from the beginning from what I understand, But he really
branched out into having more locations. There was a time

(10:56):
period before I was born where they had a commune
that was on the same street as Jim Jones, and
I'm told that people would like show up at his
place at his way thinking it was Jim Jones because
they have the same first two names, James Warren And yeah, just.

Speaker 4 (11:19):
I'm sorry, what was your question again.

Speaker 1 (11:22):
Oh, Storry, It wasn't it was. It was just kind
of like asking whether you know that there was always
a kind of a dark undertone to the group, or
whether it started off with good intentions and slowly turned
into something really controlling.

Speaker 5 (11:38):
Yeah, No, I believe he was always very controlling, and
in fact, when he left the military, I'm told it
had to do with his behavior and that he didn't
want to work on Sundays, and he tried to petition
that he wouldn't have to do military work on Sundays,
and he ended up being discharged from the military. So
I believe he's always had some issues with his personality

(12:01):
and stuff.

Speaker 1 (12:04):
His name, James Warren name as the guy down the road,
James Warren Jones who becomes the leader of the People's Temples.
So the People's Temple church is just down the road
from one of your one of your granddad's locations at
this time.

Speaker 4 (12:20):
The same block.

Speaker 5 (12:22):
That's that's where as far as I know, I think
that's where my mom moved in, and that's where they
got married, like really quickly after that.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
Wild, Yeah, what are the chances? What are the chances
of that? I mean, it wasn't long after that that
the the group moved over to South America. So that's
just wild to me. That blows my mind.

Speaker 4 (12:49):
Yeah, yeah, there's there's a lot of tea for sure.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
The fact that they have the first two names as
well is just really strange.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
But you've mentioned here your third generation that your mom
and dad met and they married really quickly in the group.
So what is the story there between your your mother
and father. Did your mom's mom become a part of
the group, but is she that is she second generation

(13:20):
or did she join or get recruited on her own.

Speaker 5 (13:25):
So my mom came to San Francisco when she was
a young woman. She had Yeah, she had left Oregon
and came to San Francisco to volunteer for what she
understood to be a ministry street preaching, passing out bibles
around like hate Ashbury and stuff like that. And so

(13:47):
that is what she signed up for, and it involved
free lodging at his waying ministries. So she moved in
with them in this big house kind of building. I
would this was before I was born. I don't have
memories of this building, but yeah, and then my understanding
is that they got married within three months of meeting

(14:07):
each other at my grandfather's chapel.

Speaker 4 (14:12):
My grandfather connected the wedding.

Speaker 1 (14:15):
I was going to ask that question, that is fast,
and I know that that can happen in these groups,
but oftentimes at that pace, it's because two people have
been matched or paired or encouraged to be together by
somebody and leadership. So that is that what you believe
happened here.

Speaker 5 (14:37):
Without saying too much about my father, I really think
he has that kind of personality just like his father,
that's very quick to be charming and charismatic and you know, narcissistic,
And I think that's kind of how things move so quickly, right.

Speaker 1 (14:56):
Yeah, how long after that until you're born? Then?

Speaker 5 (15:01):
So I arrived this earth in the let's see the
mid eighties, nineteen eighty six, and I have two older
siblings and then yeah, later, I'll get into that leader
bit later. When we found out my mom was pregnant
with my little sister, that was the same time we

(15:24):
found out we're moving to the middle of nowhere in Kansas.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Right yeah, So there's this big shift that happens where
so there's there's three of you about to be four.
Do you have any context for the change in your
grandpa having multiple settings in kind of urban areas to

(15:50):
wanting to move to somewhere more isolated, Like do you
have how old were you at this time and do
you have an idea of why that choice was made?

Speaker 5 (16:00):
So I believe I was about five years old when
we moved somewhere around there. Could I you mentioned asking
me about earliest memories? Can I share a memory of
his way?

Speaker 1 (16:13):
Yes? Please do?

Speaker 4 (16:14):
Hey, yeah, thank you so.

Speaker 5 (16:17):
I I will never forget this. But I was in
his Way Chapel as a little girl, and everyone one
was singing this song called as the Deer and waving
their hands in the air like singing praise music. And
I remember my grandpa his voice sounded so kind and comforting,

(16:38):
and I actually looked forward to the services at that
time because that was the one time I got to
see him behave like a kind grandfather. And after the services,
he had dozens of followers who all behaved like aunt
and uncles to me, and they gave me gifts, and

(16:59):
they were always kind and played with me and spent
time with me more than my parents really did. And
they always told me you were so lucky, Emily, that
Jim is your grandpa. He's such a great guy. And
yet when they were not there, when it was just

(17:20):
my grandpa and our family, my grandpa always made fun
of them, and he always made fun of their This
is just on my mind now as so many people
are affected by colts at this time. But my yeah,
he had so many adoring people, but when those people
were not around, he always made fun of them and

(17:41):
and called them jackasses and and yeah, and talked about how.

Speaker 4 (17:45):
They were going to pay for his next venture.

Speaker 5 (17:48):
And uh, forgive me if that, if that goes off
the trail from what you're asking.

Speaker 4 (17:54):
But anyway, what forgive me?

Speaker 1 (17:56):
What was the question? Don't don't don't? Don't apology does?

Speaker 5 (18:00):
So?

Speaker 1 (18:00):
I think usually when people just let their thought streams go,
that's where the you know, the And I love listening
to people remember things in real time. And I, as
I said, I'm making notes as we go so we
can always come back to where we were that there's
nowhere no stress with that at all.

Speaker 5 (18:17):
And so to to kind of answer your question, I
went from being around my grandfather's followers in the big
city and always at these riots like pro life rallies,
holding signs as a little kid outside abortion clinics, and
being at gay parades, and my dad was filming a

(18:40):
documentary series at the time at these gay parades. And
yet when we moved to the country, which was very
last minute, we all I could see was big fields
and almost nothing there and almost nobody there. And it
was I felt like Laura Ingeld's Wilder from Little House
in the Prairie. Like, I just felt it was so different,

(19:01):
it was so new.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Yeah, when you are living in the city, the city
areas and you're going to all of these protests, what
is your life like at home? At this point? You
mentioned that you didn't have as much contact with your
parents growing up as you did with some of the

(19:24):
other followers of your grandpa. What was it like, education wise,
like friendship wise. I know you said you moved when
you were around five, but my son is five and
he has more of a social life right now than
I do. We just got back from a kid's birthday party,
so some five year olds are super busy. I'm just

(19:45):
wondering if you remember what your kind of day to
day life was like at that time.

Speaker 4 (19:51):
Oh, in San Francisco.

Speaker 5 (19:52):
Yeah, yeah, So most of our friends were his way
member and I really didn't have any friends my age
at that time, so it was me and my two
older siblings who I love very much, and we would
be I remember we were folding leaflets for one of

(20:13):
Grandpa's political campaigns. I was not even five and I
was here folding papers to pass out to people for
his campaign. But we made up this song together, and
that is such a good memory, just joking around, because
that helped us get through while our parents, their whole
lives were revolving around his way and just constantly volunteering.

(20:37):
So we would spend long hours just the three, just
as three kids in grandpa's office that had like pro
life signs taped all over the walls. And yeah, but
if you want, I can sing you this off it.
I don't know, please, that'd be great. Okay, so this
is out of time when we literally folded hundreds of

(20:58):
leaflets from my grandpa's campaign at San Francisco City Hall
and my dad was like making all his commercial video stuff.
So my older sister started singing this and then we
all started laughing. We sang together.

Speaker 6 (21:14):
Watch my video gym Rap Vincent, I told you a.

Speaker 5 (21:20):
Thousand mind anyway, we just I don't know, it's just
we try to get through with a sense of humor.

Speaker 4 (21:28):
And yeah, that's anyway.

Speaker 1 (21:31):
That was great, I thought of my so hot.

Speaker 5 (21:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (21:36):
So I think.

Speaker 1 (21:37):
It's important to reflect on the positive memories from those
times as well and the people that get you through
those trying periods, because that's like child labor, isn't it.
You're five years old and you're folding leaflets.

Speaker 5 (21:53):
Yeah, And on my dad's video series that he shot
of the the gay praids and everything. He did a
seven part documentary series about the homosexual lifestyle from a
Christian point of view. But we were like his production assistants.
He had us carrying his microphones and everything. So it

(22:16):
was so I definitely should not have been at those
events as a little kid. I wish I didn't have
to be, but yeah.

Speaker 4 (22:24):
It was such a weird time.

Speaker 5 (22:26):
Just signs, you know, people yelling and carrying signs around
and stuff. It definitely was not an environment I should
have been as a child.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
Do you recall when the pro life kind of teachings
aspect came into his way ministries? Was it always something
that your grandpa had as a part of the group
or did that kind of manifest over time. I know,
I'm asking you lots of stuff about from when you
were really young, but I don't know how much context

(22:58):
you've had added from you know, all the adults and
things since your childhood.

Speaker 4 (23:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (23:03):
So there was a time period around when I was
four when my family was going to another church and
I think it was my family's way of trying to
have a little bit of independence from my grandpa's family
with the sermons and everything. So we went to a
different church founded by somebody else, and he actually founded

(23:26):
the first crisis pregnancy center in northern California. So I
was at the Grasshoots Tovit. I was in and out
of there as a little kid, seeing people donating diapers
and baby clothes and yeah, so that was that was
quite Yeah, that was a whole nother thing. But can

(23:47):
you remind me the question again, just wondering how the
pro life aspect of the group started. Yeah, my grandpa
he was counseling women and he had in his office
he had models of like fetuses and stuff like that.

Speaker 4 (24:07):
And I remember.

Speaker 5 (24:11):
He actually was in jail when I was really little,
and I'm told it had to do with something he did.

Speaker 4 (24:16):
Outside of abortion clinics.

Speaker 5 (24:18):
To this day, I don't know what he did that
lended him in jail, but I visited him in jail
when I was a little kid, and there was like
a glass wall in one of those phones with the
core detached, and yeah, I visited him with my dad
one time, and I remember my Grandpa always bragged about
his experience in jail as like something to be proud of,

(24:42):
like that he did it for his faith, and he
compared himself to the Apostle Paul being in prison. And yeah,
but it had something to do with my theories. It
was he was harassing women at an abortion clinic. But
I don't really know. I wish I could find that out.

Speaker 1 (24:59):
Yeah, and at some point this pro life aspect of
the group transforms into your grandpa running for some position
in like the local council or the local government.

Speaker 5 (25:17):
Yeah, I do not remember what the position was. I
could probably find that out, but it was around nineteen
ninety and it was at the San Francisco City Hall.
And oh, he also knew Dan White. If you're familiar
with Harvey Milk and Dan White. He was actually the

(25:40):
minister to Dan White in prison after Harvey was killed,
if you've heard of that. But yeah, so he was
very active there. But I don't know what position he
was trying to be elected for.

Speaker 1 (26:14):
I wonder if that came off of the back of
him having so much support and being popular within his
own ministry, and you know, if people think, oh, maybe
I should run from there. Or maybe I should try
this because I'm really popular here with my people, so
maybe I will be out on the streets.

Speaker 5 (26:33):
Yeah. I remember he was confronting one of his co
leaders for his Way about the election, because I think
he had this expectation that all of his Way followers
would be voting for him, and not everybody wanted to
because he wasn't paying them properly and they were kind
of starting to stand up for themselves a little bit.

(26:55):
So I remember overhearing a conversation where he was like
really stern with a guy named Dave who was helping
kolead the operation it his way, and he was like,
you have to vote for me, and the like was
setting some boundaries basically, and it wasn't going over well.
So yeah, I was just a little kid, but I heard.

Speaker 1 (27:19):
When you would go to these rallies. Do you remember
the types of things that you were You were holding
up signs, right, We've seen things like this in the
Louis Theroux documentary with the Westboro Baptist Church. So is
it the same sort of set up with kids just
holding up signs that they can't even read because they're
so young. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (27:41):
Yeah, they used to put ribbons in my hair and
make me wear a cute dress. And they told me
if I looked cute enough that maybe a mom out
there would change her mind about abortion. Maybe somebody out
there would see, oh, this is what it would be
like to have a cute little girl like And so ironically,
my mom had to get support from a crisis pregnancy

(28:04):
center when she was pregnant with me. And there's so
much about that story I don't know, except that she
didn't have a lot of support around her when she
was pregnant with me because my dad and grandpa were
out of state. So yeah, I just felt like this
poster child for the pro life movement, and I didn't
really want to be. I just wanted to have a childhood.

(28:25):
And one thing that really has stuck with me for
the rest of my life is just the severe lack
of education they had about adoption and just just horrible,
horrible things. Just they believe in coercion. It's just so bad,
and really my life today, I have a open adoption.

(28:47):
My daughter's first mom is a huge part of her life,
andy huge support to her life, and I wouldn't have
it any other way. But it's just so different than
anything I was taught as a little kid.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
So, oh, go ahead, there you go, you go.

Speaker 5 (29:01):
Oh. I just wanted to say one of the things
that really stuck with me that I did not agree
with that I had seen in the you know, pro
life events as a little kid, was the Christians were
very rude to the women who were going into these
abortion clinics, and they treated them like they were less

(29:22):
than you know, like that they weren't people of worth.
And that always really bothered me as a little kid.
I had to do a lot of therapy to work
through that. Even just that by itself was Yeah, that
really messed with me. That to see that level of unkindness.

Speaker 4 (29:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (29:39):
Yeah. So for any reason, a person would be accessing,
you know, that type of support or that that type
of facility, even without the context. I mean, the context
doesn't really matter, but you don't know the personal circumstances
from person to person. You know, there could be somebody
that is dealing with like doctor Warren Harnt said on

(30:01):
the show a few weeks back, somebody could be in
a life or death situation. It's either carry this baby
to full term and die or don't continue with the
pregnancy and live and I know it's not that black
and white, and I know the context that doesn't matter
person to person, but it's like the harassment of every
person going into this facility, It's like, you know, it

(30:22):
doesn't it doesn't make sense to just to just harass
every person, even just the people that work there, you know,
going there to do a job and they're getting harassed
on the way in. Yeah, it's it's a lot, isn't it.

Speaker 4 (30:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (30:36):
Yeah, I definitely don't think women should be ashamed ever
like that. And that is a huge part of why,
even though I calm myself a Christian, I do not
agree with the pro life moment.

Speaker 4 (30:47):
I find it to be rooted in a lot of darkness.

Speaker 1 (30:51):
So yeah, imagine that current affairs and the political climate
make things kind of almost like triggering in some ways.

Speaker 5 (31:02):
Definitely, Yeah, definitely, And my heart goes out to anyone
else feeling that, because boy, it is it is stressful.
It definitely requires a lot of self care to get
through this time.

Speaker 1 (31:16):
When your move to the countryside happened, was this on
the back of your grandpa, like not getting the elected
position he wanted, or was there a reason behind the
kind of country over the city.

Speaker 5 (31:34):
Yeah, so he had a falling out with some of
Thehway members and I remember it's so wild. I remember
my grandma asked me to come to the table. She
had a pair of like kids like toddler scissors, and
she was like, come over here, and I thought she
was giving me paper dolls to play with, but it

(31:57):
was actually she wanted me to cut out people's faces
from the like the group photos who had left his Way,
and that just really affected him.

Speaker 7 (32:07):
Me.

Speaker 5 (32:07):
But to this day, I have a relative out there.
To this day, I don't know their name. I don't
remember what they looked like because we had to cut
out their freace from all the family photos and stuff.
But as far as like my grandpa leaving to go
to the Midwest, I believe it had to do with
his losing the election. And then he had some of

(32:31):
the members of his Way set some boundaries and he
didn't like it, and so he kind of didn't have
the same power he had before that with people there.

Speaker 4 (32:40):
People were standing up to him a little bit.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
So, yeah, was it a case of like, anyone that
wants to stay with me can move over to this
part of the country side and we're gonna start again.

Speaker 5 (32:55):
Well, we always me and my siblings would joke that
his way actually meant Grandpa's way, not God's way. But yeah,
so it ended up just being my grandpa and grandma,
a secretary who had just newly joined this beautiful woman
in her thirties, really kind lady to me for many years,

(33:17):
and then my parents and then my siblings, Emmy. After
being in this group that I would guess was about
eighty I don't know, because I could tell you about
probably like three hundred people over those years in my
early childhood, but I really care. Say, but if you
can picture just the group suddenly getting a lot smaller, yeah, And.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
Do you remember the move any particular aspects of those
moments stand out, because I imagine it's quite a significant experience,
you know, a young person going from being around all
these people and having all these sermons to go to
and having a busy kind of city life to going

(34:03):
and living almost in the middle of nowhere. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (34:08):
I remember I traveled by airplane with my grandma and
my mom because my mom was high risk pregnancy with
my little sister, and then the rest of the group
traveled by van. They used his way van to travel.

Speaker 4 (34:24):
It was this big blue I think it was a
forty kno line.

Speaker 5 (34:27):
Maybe I'd have to go look it up, but it
was this huge van and they took my cat with
them and they they just packed everything up in this
giant van. And then when we get there, I remember
just feeling terrified because I wasn't used to seeing bugs
and the in the city. I only saw like a

(34:50):
house fly or something. And then one day as I'm
walking on the farm, I walked past this tree and
dozens of butterflies, like you, huge butterflies flew out at me,
and it was like terrifying.

Speaker 4 (35:02):
I was sobbing. It was so scary as a little
kid to not be used to that.

Speaker 5 (35:08):
Yeah. So just we basically went from living in the
city to starting basically our own farm, like our own.

Speaker 4 (35:18):
Homestead.

Speaker 5 (35:19):
Yeah, building everything from scratch, installing the plumbing, electricity, everything.

Speaker 4 (35:26):
Wow.

Speaker 7 (35:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
And what level of work was required from you as
a young child during this process?

Speaker 5 (35:35):
In the building process, I remember they would have the
frames up for the buildings.

Speaker 4 (35:41):
Like my dad and Grandpa built.

Speaker 5 (35:44):
The house I grew up in on that farm. It
was kind of in the shape of a large barn,
and I remember before the sheet rock was down, I
had to like nail the frame. And this is before
I was eight years old, So it just was so
wild that I even had to do that. But yeah,

(36:04):
so I spent hours, like using stain on the porch,
like staining the front porch, hammering nails, sanding wood, like
using sandpaper on wood, and what else. Painting when they
were finishing the bedrooms, I had to help paint them.

(36:27):
And then when we got animals, we got buffalo. We
had seventeen buffalo and I had to help shovel their manure.

Speaker 4 (36:38):
That was not fun.

Speaker 5 (36:40):
I had to shovel manure for horses, buffalo, sheep, and
we had a miniature horse and just a lot of
labor on the farm. And we also had chickens and
I had to gather eggs and feed the chickens.

Speaker 4 (37:00):
Yeah, so you asked about my education.

Speaker 5 (37:05):
I was homeschooled this entire time. So I was homeschooled
up until I was eighteen years old, and.

Speaker 4 (37:15):
My family got a like a Christian curriculum.

Speaker 5 (37:23):
That like taught the Bible and stuff like that, and
basically I would have books put in front of me
until they had to learn it.

Speaker 4 (37:29):
But I didn't have like a proper teaching experience.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
The roles that you had on kind of the homestead
in the day to day operations. If I'm doing like DIY,
my kids always want to get involved. They're like, let
me use the hammer, let me use the sword. I'm like,
they're not really for children, you know. How about you
help me glue some things over here? Yeah, And I think,

(37:56):
you know, kids often have chores. They have you know, like, oh,
you can wash the dishes after dinner, you know, and
then maybe at the end of the week, if you've
done your weekly jobs, you get some pocket money and
you can spend that on, you know, whatever you want.
So I think there's a balance between involving your children
in day to day jobs so that they can learn,

(38:17):
you know, transferable skills, and giving them responsibilities and jobs
so that they maybe they can earn some pocket money,
or maybe they can get some you know, like trips
out to the cinema or whatever. But this, what you've
described is something completely different. This is like child labor
and exploitation. And I think it's always really important to
highlight the differences between those things. So I didn't know

(38:38):
if you wanted to kind of add anything to that
and just kind of highlight the severity of your situation
in comparison to like, you know, just letting your kids
join in so that they can learn a thing or two.

Speaker 5 (38:52):
Yes, so his way would have volunteers who are coming
to help fill the ministry property they're gone was to
build a retreat center for pastors to be staying there overnight,
to have a respite, that's what they called it. And
so we were building these places for people to sleep

(39:13):
overnight in addition to the house we built on our own.
And so, but my grandpa didn't really pay people properly.
So basically he would pay people. At first my grandma
would feed them this really beautiful feast of like a
like a pot roast and everything that just seemed very

(39:36):
like comforting and at home kind of style cooking like
you'd get from your grandma. And then these people would
be reeled in, they would move in to be volunteers.
And then after a few weeks, my grandpa would stop
paying them and tell them that, well, you're serving God,
so you don't have to be paid. So what ended
up happening was I don't want to speak for my siblings,

(40:01):
but I can say that I was sex trafficked, and
some of my siblings were as well. Where the ministry
volunteers we were set up to be with them, and
I remember my grandma called. She lived next door to us.
My grandma and grandpa lived next door to us in

(40:22):
this mobile home, and she said, Emmy, can you come over.
I want to introduce you to somebody. And this was
before Google Maths or Google Earth, where you can look
anywhere in the world and see what the land looks
like and everything. And she introduced me to this man
who was a aerial photographer. He photographed the land in

(40:48):
that area, and he had stopped by the property to
try to sell his photo of our ministry property, and
my grandma really wanted a copy of it, but it
was a few hundred dollars that he was asking for
and my grandma did not have that money. So what
ended up happening was she introduced me to him. She said, Emily,

(41:08):
look at this photo.

Speaker 1 (41:09):
It's so cool.

Speaker 5 (41:11):
And that was the first time I saw how desperate
my situation was. I saw this property, just a handful
of buildings in the middle of nowhere, and I saw
it from a bird's eye view, and I saw all
the land surrounding it for many many miles, and it
was all empty, and it just was the first time

(41:31):
in my life I realized I was trapped, that I
was isolated, and that I didn't have a way to
get out. And that man, the photographer, my grandma nodded
to him. She left the room, and then he asked
me to sit on his lap, and he groped me
for a few minutes. And I don't remember everything that happened.

(41:53):
I know he kissed my hand. I was only like
ten years old. That should have not happened, but yeah,
because he spent time with me, she ended up getting
the photo for either for free or way discounted. And
then that photo of the ministry property she ended up

(42:13):
showing to all the women from Bible Study who would
come over to her house, and she would like brag about, look,
we have this this awesome photo of the whole property
we have, and it just always hurt my heart to
see that photo.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
It's always difficult to know what to say after somebody
shares an experience of child sexual abuse.

Speaker 4 (42:50):
Oh, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1 (42:52):
Yeah, no, no, I am, I am sorry. It's not
I I'm sorry, and I and I know how hard
it must be to relive those experiences and to share
them here, And I am so thankful and honored that
you feel comfortable and safe enough to do that. But
I don't underestimate the impact that it has reliving those

(43:14):
experiences and just hearing you talk about how isolated you
were as a child, and having those things happen at
the behest of your own like direct family. It's a
really tough thing. Yeah, And I know that you're talking
about it from a place of healing and recovery, but

(43:37):
the fact that it happened to begin with is a
really hard thing to think about. So I just I'm sorry,
thank you.

Speaker 4 (43:46):
Yeah, Well, I think.

Speaker 1 (43:47):
I don't know what happened to grandma, But Grandma and
Grandpa they are not a good pair, either of them.

Speaker 4 (43:53):
No, they made some huge mistakes.

Speaker 5 (43:55):
And I definitely, I really, honestly, I feel like I
didn't really get to grow up with actual grandparents. That's
how I feel in terms of like having well being
supporting people. I didn't really get to grow up around that.
But but that photograph that guy took is such a

(44:16):
huge moment for me as a cult survivor to recognize
the danger I was in because that was the first
time I got to see our buildings, my home, our
property in the middle of dozens and dozens of miles
of almost no.

Speaker 4 (44:33):
Buildings at all.

Speaker 5 (44:34):
So that really, as hard as that experience was, that
photograph I hold in my mind is like, that's what
helped me understand that I need to escape, that I
needed to be free.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
And I know that there was several other things that
impacted your independence and critical thinking. I suppose support that
you did get from others that you hadn't had before,
and just kind of like the chain circumstances that you
had gradually over time. And I know that there's some
things that you don't want to speak about directly, but

(45:07):
I wondered if you could just talk us through how
things changed for you from that point on and the
people that came into your life that had a positive impact.

Speaker 5 (45:19):
My parents when they finally made the decision to leave
the firm, that was life changing for me, but it
was so.

Speaker 4 (45:26):
Difficult to adjust.

Speaker 5 (45:28):
So they had a falling out with my grandparents, and
they saw in themselves that they needed to make some
changes that were positive and even though it was not perfect,
like because they left and lived in a town that
changed my life for the better. So my parents moved
to a town that was an hour away, and for

(45:49):
the first time in my life, I got to experience
like shopping at old Davy and not having all my
wardrobe come from a missionary box or from my brother's closet,
like I wore all his old hand me downs, and
I wore prairie dresses and everything on the farm. Suddenly
I was in a town where there was shopping, There

(46:10):
was grocery stores that I could go to regularly, and
it felt like Disneyland. It was just so new to me,
things like using an ATM for the first time, like
it all felt like learning a foreign language. But there
was still a lot of strict roles in our family,
and one of them was that you have to go

(46:32):
to church every Sunday. And I recognized to myself that
I did not want to go to church with my family.
I was being so controlled and abused. And I found
a church that was within walking distance from our house,
and that was my only option because I didn't have
a car or anybody to give me a ride to

(46:54):
anywhere else. So I walked to this church and I
met a lady there, Mary, who was really kind to
me and she greatly impacted my life today. She was
always welcoming, she didn't judge me, she always just.

Speaker 1 (47:11):
Let me be me.

Speaker 5 (47:12):
And she invited me to the youth group that she
was leading with her husband and some of the other
adults from the church, and.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
That was.

Speaker 5 (47:27):
Just the first time in my life that I got
to be around teenagers my age for very much, and
it was so awesome, Like actually, it was the only
time that week that I would get to have consistent
food because the church was serving pizza to the teenagers,
and it just meant so much to me to get

(47:49):
away from the abusive home and be somewhere for two
hours every week around Mary and some other people I
really liked. So yeah, she just there was a praise
band in the church and she invited me to sing
with them, and so I got to as a young,

(48:12):
like fifteen sixteen year old kid, I got to sing
up front at church and well, her husband was playing
bass guitar and she was also singing, and I just
remember discovering I love music and feeling empowered singing out
loud when I come from a place where I couldn't

(48:34):
use my voice out loud. I couldn't do art without
being punished or anything like that. So yeah, that was
really meaningful.

Speaker 1 (48:42):
Absolutely loved Mary. This is like a dichotomy. You've got
your grandpa starting a group targeted towards teenagers and being
really controlling and you know, conditionally loving towards people, and

(49:04):
then you know what sounds like, purposefully isolating you and
your family on a homestead that is just really detrimental
to your development as a child. And that's without you know,
the lack of education, the sexual exploitation, the child labor.
Then you've got Mary, who you know, outreaches to teenagers,

(49:27):
feeds them, nurtures their creativity, fosters a community of young people.
This is all of the things that on the surface,
you know, your grandpa was supposed to be doing when
he first started his Way ministries. And then you've got
this woman that just comes out of nowhere and she's
doing all of those things and she's doing unconditionally. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (49:48):
Yeah, she was amazing. And there was a song we
sing in the church that everyone stood in a circle
and held high hands, and I remember that that song
is both a painful memory and a good one. But
do you want me just singing a little better.

Speaker 1 (50:09):
You're comfortable with her. I would love to hear it.

Speaker 5 (50:14):
They will know we are Christians by our love, bye
our love.

Speaker 6 (50:21):
They will we are Christians by Helon, and I pray
you may want baby restored.

Speaker 1 (50:33):
They will know we are Christians.

Speaker 7 (50:36):
By our love, by our love.

Speaker 6 (50:40):
They won't you're Christians by our love.

Speaker 5 (50:45):
That was oh gosh, that's oh sorry, I feel shy,
but that was one of the last songs I got
to sing with Mary and and I think she really
meant it when she sing that song.

Speaker 1 (50:59):
It was beautiful. Thank you so much, Emily. That was lovely.
I mean, I'm not a religious person, but I can
understand the impact that music has, you know, on spiritual practices,
because I get shivers from music when I'm just driving
in my car. You know, to have unity and community

(51:21):
and to sing songs of love together with a group
of people that you feel loved by and comfortable with
must be, you know, an elevating experience.

Speaker 5 (51:34):
I felt like I belonged and I felt accepted, and
I felt like that was a place where they told
me about Jesus. But I didn't feel like I was
in danger. Well, I thought that anyway.

Speaker 4 (51:46):
But then things changed, and can I go ahead and
tell you about that.

Speaker 1 (51:56):
You tell me at your own pace the things that
you want to talk about today.

Speaker 5 (52:02):
So I reached that point where I felt accepted by
this church. I felt the kindness of the people there.
The church was extremely kind to young teens and kids
in foster care, which is something I deeply value. And
there was a boy in my youth group who I

(52:24):
really liked being around. He was a funny, funny guy,
and I remember my church was supporting him as he
was about to age out of foster care. They were
getting him furniture, betting towels for his new apartment, for
his future apartment he was preparing to move to. And
I just remember seeing that and thinking to myself, this

(52:47):
is what the church is supposed to be, this is
what Jesus is supposed to be all about, like helping
people and just unapologetically letting people be themselves as they are.
And I also remember feeling a little bit of jealousy
because they were helping him and I didn't have anybody,

(53:07):
even though my family led ministry and all that, like,
I didn't have anybody to help me as I was
going to go to college and all that. But one
Sunday at youth group, this kid, I will call him Kevin.
He It was a night when there was pizza and soda,
and I just remember just being so excited to be there.

(53:30):
But Kevin was telling other kids in youth group that
he was going to set his apartment on fire. And
I walked across the room and I just couldn't believe
they said that.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
And one of the.

Speaker 5 (53:48):
Very first adults I told was Mary, because I trusted
her and I knew she would take me seriously. And
she whispered to me to tell her husband. I won't
tell you her husband's name, but she she whispered to
me to tell her husband and the other youth leaders.
So I went there with one of the other girls

(54:10):
from my youth group.

Speaker 4 (54:12):
She and I agree, we.

Speaker 5 (54:13):
Got to tell the adults, and so I went to
her husband. Mary's husband, he was about to leave the
building and his back was facing me. And when I said,
Kevin says he's going to set his home on fire,
this guy my youth passed her just froze. His arms

(54:37):
stiffened to his side, like and he kind of slowly
turned around and he's like Oh, well, he's not actually
doing that. He's a kid, he's not really going to
do that. And then he just didn't he didn't take
it seriously. And then I went and told somebody else who.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
I hill, you love this person like.

Speaker 5 (54:58):
She was so kind to me, one of the female
youth leaders, and she kept trying to assure me. She said,
teenage boys say things.

Speaker 4 (55:08):
You know, it's not really going to happen. And so
that night.

Speaker 5 (55:14):
I went home and I told my mom because I thought, surely,
you know, I've told all the adults in the church.

Speaker 4 (55:21):
I'm going to tell my mom.

Speaker 5 (55:23):
And she was in her sewing room. The window was
open and she was facing her sewing machine and there
were like crickets outside singing really loud. And her response
was not easy. I told her, Kevin said he's gonna
set his apartment on fire. He says it's gonna be,

(55:43):
you know, the biggest fire he'd ever seen. And she said, oh, Emily,
you're overreacting. Stop bothering me. You know he's not really
going to do it. Boys say things. And that night,
by the end of that night, I had told at
least day adults and nobody listened to me, and I

(56:06):
was this scrawny teenager, you know. I I was quiet,
I was timid at that time, and nobody listened to me.

Speaker 4 (56:16):
And then.

Speaker 5 (56:18):
A few months went by and then my mom tells
me that my friend Mary had been murdered. She said, Emily,
have you seen the paper?

Speaker 4 (56:29):
And I hadn't. And it turned out that Mary had.

Speaker 5 (56:34):
Been murdered by asphyxiation, and her husband, my youth leader,
was the main suspect. And I just felt so shattered,
like I felt like, man, I really tried to find
a good church, you know, I tried to I tried

(56:58):
to find a healthier thing, and I thought I found
a good thing. And I went back to church the
same one after that at some point, and the pastor
was announcing that they were raising money to support my
youth pastor in the murder trial. And I just remember

(57:19):
feeling so disheartened, like that just didn't seem like the
right thing to do. And they even talked about trying
to get him out for a little bit so that
he could come back in attend church. This man who
was in charge of leading kids and was a murderer,
like and as a you know, a teenager, that just
felt so uncomfortable to me, and I stopped attending and

(57:41):
then forgive me, I'm doing my best here with being
very traumatic for me. So I know trauma, Like I
try to say it chronologically, but you know how it
can be.

Speaker 1 (57:54):
It's like.

Speaker 5 (57:57):
So anyway, it turned my youth pastor had been having
an affair with another woman, and that that's why he
decided to murder his wife, my friend Mary, and he
ended up going to prison, and he, as far as
I know, he married that woman woman and some of

(58:21):
the members from the church even attended the wedding. That
just blows my mind that these people who were friends
with Mary went and attended the wedding of.

Speaker 4 (58:30):
His new wife. It's so wild. But anyway, so I
at that point detached from the church completely.

Speaker 5 (58:38):
I was becoming an adult and I was on my
own and I found a local news station that would
have internships and I got a job there, and that
was a really big opportunity for me because I had
nobody supporting me to go to college.

Speaker 4 (59:00):
Or anything.

Speaker 5 (59:01):
And then this opportunity meant I would be able to
have free training and camera and graphics for the news
in audio engineering and things like that that just were
so meaningful to me to learn, to even have the
chance to learn that for free. It just I felt
very grateful. So one night, you know, I'm this young

(59:21):
woman going there walking walking both ways each way, and
I was doing graphics for the news. It was about
ten minutes before we were gonna go live on air.
It was in October. And when you get a graphics request,

(59:42):
it's like an email that comes into your inbox and
it says, hey, can you make this picture that's gonna
go above the news anchor's shoulder. I forget what they
called that back then, but I would have less than
ten minutes to make this graphic in photoshop that would
go live on the news. And to my dismay, the

(01:00:06):
email subject wide was Arson. And I opened the email
and it was the face of my friend from youth group.
He had gone through with it with the apartment fire,
and I just remember feeling just like it felt unreal,

(01:00:33):
like it felt I had to hold in my emotion
and get through photoshopping his face into this graphic with
flames around it and stuff, and I just remember feeling like,
how can I even speak up about this?

Speaker 4 (01:00:45):
I didn't know.

Speaker 5 (01:00:47):
I was just trying to survive and pay rent to
that point, and I needed that job. But yeah, so
that night at the news station, I felt like I
couldn't say anything because I was just trying to hold

(01:01:08):
it together. You know, we had to go live at ten.
I didn't say a word about me knowing this kid,
and I didn't say a word about knowing that he
actually did it, that it was premeditated, because I just
was so shocked. I was.

Speaker 4 (01:01:25):
I was absolutely shocked. Three people passed away from that fire, and.

Speaker 5 (01:01:35):
I've had a lot of people over the years ask me, Emily,
do you feel guilty that you couldn't stop it? And
I really don't, because I really did everything I could.
But it hurts my heart so much to know that
these people didn't listen, and I don't know. It just
hurts my heart. But so I went. You know, I

(01:01:58):
got through that night a word, and I didn't say anything.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
So in some of the correspondents you sent me about
your experiences, you mentioned that at some point the police
became aware of your knowledge of Kevin's premeditation and they
reached out to you.

Speaker 4 (01:02:41):
To ask you to confirm what you knew.

Speaker 1 (01:02:46):
And I'm just wondering if you could explain to the listeners,
like how that happened from you going in the news
station of finding out about the apartment fire to the
police tracking you down and asking you what you know?

Speaker 4 (01:02:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:03:00):
So I was still even though I was not living
with my family at this time, I was still at
their house a lot, visiting my little brother who I
helped raise him, my little brother Nason. So I was
spending a lot of time over there, and I remember
when everything went down, when Kevin went through with it.

(01:03:22):
I talked to my mom and eventually she apologized for
not listening to me, and I really appreciated that, but
it was very painful. And then from my family's house,
I called one of the other youth leaders, the lady
who I really respect and love, and I told her

(01:03:43):
about it. I was like, do you remember I told
you Kevin Saudy was going to do this, And she
didn't believe me. It was like she didn't remember it.
But I'm also trying to have grace for her that
she was very close to Mary and Mary had been
murdered after I told, you know, tried to warn people.
So the way I look at it now, I really

(01:04:04):
think that was so much trauma on there in their
experience that maybe they really didn't remember me warning them,
and I forgive them that they didn't listen to me,
but she ended up being so upset she hung up
the phone on me. And then the very next month

(01:04:26):
after the fire, my grandma had a stroke. My grandma
fleda and I was told I had to go to
the hospital to go say goodbye to work. And then
I saw her face and it was unlike anything I've
ever seen before. Her eyes were always glazed over when
I lived with her on the commune and everything, they

(01:04:48):
were always glazed over, and she was always seemed brainwashed
and just weird. Yet when she had her stroke and
half of her face was like paralyzed, her eyes looked
so clear, and I remember just thinking, this is the
first time I get to see my grandma like this.

Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
This.

Speaker 5 (01:05:06):
I wonder if this is who she was before she
joined his way. And I don't know the answer to that,
because I never got to talk to her again after that.
That was the last time I saw her alive. But
that was such a unique experience. And then with that
going on, right after the fire happened, and then the

(01:05:29):
whole family was going to revolve around his Way things
again because a bunch of his Way members came out
for Grandma's funeral. Me talking to authorities just didn't occur
to me. I just was so traumatized from everything going
on back to back, including my dad.

Speaker 4 (01:05:48):
Showed up at every job I had.

Speaker 5 (01:05:50):
I was taking voice lessons from one lady at a
place that was kind of close to where the fire
had happened, like from a few blocks away, and he
showed up at her house when I was not there,
and he quit my voice lessons while it was not there,
and he threatened her. And then he did that to

(01:06:11):
a daycare job I had. I was working multiple jobs
to try to pay rent and stuff, and he threatened
my boss at the daycare. And so when I showed
up for work, they all told me, Emily, your dad said,
you quit?

Speaker 4 (01:06:24):
What are you doing here?

Speaker 5 (01:06:25):
And I had to like prove myself to them that
I never wanted to quit.

Speaker 1 (01:06:30):
And so he's doing this. You're a you're an adult
at this point. You've left the you've left the ministry,
you've left your your like other church. What why is
he doing this? Why is he sabotage in your life?

Speaker 4 (01:06:44):
He did that in so many ways casey.

Speaker 5 (01:06:47):
I I had an uncle, his brother who was so
kind to me, and he paid for me to do
at home college course in graphic design. And when I
a computer and I was working on that college course
almost getting my final or preparing for finals that my

(01:07:08):
dad's brother paid for and supported me in, my dad
dismantled my computer and deleted the software so I could
not succeed. I had to push through that. I had
to push through that.

Speaker 1 (01:07:21):
It's just the kind of like your father taking your
grandpa's place and just controlling every aspect of your life.

Speaker 5 (01:07:29):
Yes, definitely. He has shown up at every job I
had when I lived in Midwest, and you know, every
you know, my voice lessons that I was paying for
out of pocket. I think it was one hundred and
fifty dollars at the time an hour. When you're a
young twenty something year old kid who's like working multiple

(01:07:51):
jobs just to pay rent, that was a big sacrifice
on my part to even be able to do that.
But yeah, he really didn't want me to use my voice.
And even when my mom came to pick me up
for my dad care job after I had convinced her
to let me keep working there, my mom made me
go to where the fire happened weeks after the fact,

(01:08:11):
when there was just a pile of ashes there. She
made me stand right where the ashes were, and it
just made me feel like, Emily, this is what will
happened to you if you use your voice again. And
in fact, one thing my family said for many years
after that event is, Emily, if you ever use your voice,

(01:08:32):
if you ever create out loud, if you ever do anything,
this is what Kevin is going to do to you. Two,
Because you had to be a witness in his murder trial.

Speaker 4 (01:08:44):
You were the one.

Speaker 5 (01:08:45):
I was the one person testified that he had premeditated
this fire and three people were killed. And you know,
I forgive me. I skipped some of the details because
you know, it's just all over the place. But yeah,
I ended up having to let me let me circle back.

(01:09:07):
You're asking about the when the cops found out I
was involved, so basically with my family trying to silence
me so much, I didn't know that I could go
to the cops. I really didn't. And then I was
so fed up though that I ended up anonymously commenting
on a newspaper article that was about the fire, and

(01:09:29):
all I said was like, you know, Kevin said he
was going to do it for a long time. I'm
not surprised. I just felt like I was just fed up.
And that is when the detective showed up at my
family's house and asked to talk to me, and they
were extremely nice to me, but they said I'm not
in trouble, but they did wonder why I hadn't gone forward,

(01:09:52):
and then they asked me to go with them to
the station to talk to them, and they gave me
a ride there, and yeah, I talked to them, and
I just in that moment, you know, just told them
as best as I could everything that could. But I
hadn't mentioned the stuff with my grandma dying. I hadn't

(01:10:13):
mentioned my family threatening me. I really didn't know how
to communicate that at the time. I was just just
trying to get through one thing at a time. So
the detectives ended up telling me that I would have
to there would be a mistrial of the the Arson
trial going on, and I had to testify, and yeah,

(01:10:34):
I was a key witness in this murder trial. And
it was very scary because I had nobody supporting me,
and but I did it, and I did my best
and I had to see people I went to church
with testify against me, and that was really hard. But yeah,

(01:10:56):
all I have in my heart for those people.

Speaker 4 (01:10:57):
Now is love.

Speaker 5 (01:10:58):
Like I I really think that event with Mary was
just so traumatic that it just jumbles up the truth,
you know, it just makes it really difficult to Yeah, if.

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
They are raising money for Mary's murderer's murder trial, and yeah,
Mary's murderer's new wedding whilst in prison, I mean that
speaks volues to the level of control that he had
over his own group of followers.

Speaker 4 (01:11:26):
That's true, That's very true.

Speaker 1 (01:11:30):
So I guess we just don't even know how much
influence he had on them testifying against you. This is wild.
So your dad, your father, is he like he doesn't
want you to test he doesn't want you to go
to the police, or he just doesn't want you to
have a life. He wants you to come home and

(01:11:50):
live under his control. What is his motive for doing
all of these things to you and stopping you from
having a job and hobbies and being creative? Is there
a reason for these things?

Speaker 5 (01:12:05):
He always had creative dreams, and I think as a
somebody who struggled with narcissistic personality disorder and sociopathy. He
he always saw me as a threat to that whenever
I created, and so he always wanted me to be
smaller than him in what I did and what I

(01:12:26):
put out there. In fact, I hate to say it,
but he probably won't be happy on doing this show.

Speaker 4 (01:12:33):
Oho, Hi Dad?

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
Yeah, I mean if we make it about him, he
might be happy about it then, But I don't know.
I mean, that's how narcissism works.

Speaker 5 (01:12:41):
Yeah. Yeah, So I actually had a concert. It was
my first concert in a bigger venue, and I was
so excited. I actually invited my family to it. That
was back when I thought they might support me and
cheer me on it. Would you believe it? Like the
moment before I went on the state It was a

(01:13:02):
night where there were wats of different artists playing.

Speaker 4 (01:13:04):
The moment before I went.

Speaker 5 (01:13:05):
On the stage, there was an announcement that the backstage
was on fire like and I couldn't sing my song
that I had spent weeks preparing. Yeah, I I to
this day, I don't know if that's connected to my dad,
but I kind of wonder. Oh, you just mean, like
I know it sounds paranoid.

Speaker 4 (01:13:22):
But he literally showed up.

Speaker 1 (01:13:24):
He's like, yeah, exactly, like he's going to a vocal
coach and coach and threatening her like it does not
sound like a fast stretch that you know, he might
have gone and started a little fire like.

Speaker 5 (01:13:38):
Yeah, and and I just want to mention briefly, even
after I moved to California, he showed up from out
of state at my house when I was not there
and I had no warning. All I had was my
roommate oh at the time, was like, Emily, do you
have a dad with a beard kind of like gave
a Lincoln And I was like, yeah, she said, you

(01:14:01):
tried to come in your house today. Yeah, this is
somebody who lives two thousand plus miles away from me.
He showed a bit mad.

Speaker 1 (01:14:12):
Yeah, and your roommate's just like, how do you even
begin to explain that to your roommate. You're like, yeah, sorry,
my dad's like a bit of a stalker. He's a bit,
you know, a bit of a harasser. This was like
a man and his and his wife or or you know,
like a woman and a celebrity, or a man and
a celebrity, Like there'd be lawsuits and and harassment. You know,

(01:14:34):
lawsuits involved, and what is it when you get a
thingy taken out against somebody, what's it called.

Speaker 4 (01:14:43):
With straining order?

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
Yeah, there'd be restraining orders involved if this was like,
you know, but with a parent and a child. I
don't think people connect the dots in the same way,
like this is still stalking and harassment.

Speaker 5 (01:14:57):
Yeah, well that and that wasn't the only thing that happened.
I honestly, I feel like when you leave a cult,
it is like needing to have a restraining order, but
with fifty people, they're all like messaging you and trying
to bother you.

Speaker 4 (01:15:11):
Yeah, that's what it feels like.

Speaker 5 (01:15:13):
So that's why that's true challenging to get a restraining
order because it's a lot of people involved in it.

Speaker 4 (01:15:19):
So yeah, oh my.

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
Gosh, that is wild. Your house is like, oh yeah,
by the way, this guy shows up, Oh my gosh,
your dad is trying to control every aspect of your life,
doesn't want you to be independent, doesn't want you to
succeed for whatever reason he you know, has in his mind,
and goes as far and your mum too, They go

(01:15:43):
as far as using the you know, the the arson
and murder that your friend committed to threaten you and
to intimidate you into not doing creative things, which is
just absolutely mind boggling.

Speaker 5 (01:16:05):
Yeah, I mean it was people who already wanted to
silence me before this happened. You know, I was the
family scapegoat. And then I think that, you know, Kevin
going through with that fire and the murder that happened
from that, I think they saw that as an opportunity,
probably to further silence me, because at that point they

(01:16:29):
told me I had to change my name. They told
me I had to disappear, like they were just and
maybe some of this was real fear they were feeling.
They were afraid for themselves, Like I remember they talked
about being afraid he would show up at their house.
But it really took me years to even feel brave

(01:16:51):
enough to reach out to that same detective I talked
to before, and he was just so kind of me.
He talked to me for like half an hour, like
a few years ago, and that just was healing to
have that reassurance and he's like, yeah, he just was
very kind to me, and he was reassuring. He's like,
I think you're fine, you know, it's gonna be okay.

(01:17:12):
And yeah, but that was after over a decade where
my mom like would tell me that this this kid
would come after me if I were talk.

Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
Yeah, okay, So that's like an aspect of wanting to
control all the elements of your life, but also a
fear of retaliation from Kevin. They're like, if you talk,
if you tell anybody about Kevin's premeditation, then that there
could be retaliation from Kevin.

Speaker 5 (01:17:42):
That's what they were thinking, right, And but they really
pushed that aggressively, Like I mean, there's no reason they
should have driven me to where the ashes were, Like,
that's just totally uncapped for because to me, that tells
me they're the bigger threat to my voice than Kevin.

Speaker 4 (01:18:01):
Never was.

Speaker 5 (01:18:02):
Like they showed up every job I had at my
house when I wasn't there. They even, oh my gosh,
in when I lived in Pasadena, I had a hospital
stay because I had a seizure test overnight. They sent
my childhood pastor to the hospital because he had access
as a military Like not, sorry, let me backtrack, not

(01:18:24):
a military chaplain. Sorry, I was thinking of my grandpa
as a hospital chaplain. He showed up in my hospital
room when I bought my hospital gown with no bra
and the wires attached to my head. Literally just living
my best life but needing privacy. And he shows up,
this guy I hadn't seen since I was five years
old in San Francisco.

Speaker 8 (01:18:44):
Yet that is, you know, random, I don't even know.

Speaker 5 (01:19:05):
Would you be like, I think it is surely not?
Oh yeah, forgive me. That was just so random to
put out there. But when people talk about leaving a
cult in the stocking that goes on, just believe them,
Like there's some crazy I mean, just be open minded.
If you're like, this sounds too crazy. No, they do

(01:19:25):
crazy stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:19:26):
Oh my gosh. Yeah, fair gaming experiences of cult survivors
is wild, but oftentimes provable. You know, sometimes if you
talk about a cult enough, you'll find some person standing
outside on the other side of the road just watching
your house a little bit, or you know, following you
around in the car. And that sounds insane, but it

(01:19:47):
is it is happening.

Speaker 4 (01:19:50):
No, it don really happen.

Speaker 1 (01:19:51):
So yeah, oh my gosh. And this anonymous post you
put up on a or comment that you put on
an online article about the fire, Yeah, were the police
able to trace like an IP address, and that's how
they found you or were you identified in another way?

Speaker 5 (01:20:13):
Oh? Yes, So the newspaper was connected to the news
station where I was working, and one of my coworkers
actually was like directing the local news and he was
really curious who this anonymous person was, so he did
his own like digging up stuff. He actually found a

(01:20:34):
blog I had, and he connected the dots that that
was me, I think through a user name or something
like that. Okay, I feel so bad about it because
I loved working with that person, and I never I
never wanted to be dishonest and not share what was
going on, but I literally just felt unsafe to tell

(01:20:57):
my coworkers about what was going on, everything that I
was going on, that I was going to with my
family threatening me and stuff. I think he maybe felt
that I was being I mean, I can't speak for
what he actually felt, but he after that he didn't

(01:21:18):
really like me, I don't think, and I think he
didn't agree that I hadn't spoken up. And so yeah,
for for several weeks at work after it did come
out that I was the surprise witness, every time I
walked by, he would say I hope they die in
a fire. That was the line he would say, and
it just hurt my heart so much because because I

(01:21:40):
didn't feel understood, I didn't feel like he got it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:42):
And yeah, it sounds like he took it personally.

Speaker 4 (01:21:49):
Yeah, I think.

Speaker 5 (01:21:52):
I think it absolutely would have been the right thing
to speak up to authorities right away, but there was
just so much going on. In fact, my grandmother's funeral
that happened the month after the fire happened, my dad
forced me to photograph her body at the funeral and

(01:22:12):
that was very traumatic for me. That was one of
those events that just further made me feel like I
had to be silent because it was so so creepy.
But yeah, he made me photograph her body in the
casket and then uploaded to his the family computer at home,
and basically it just made me feel further separated from

(01:22:34):
being able to reach out for support because yeah, I
just was faced with a lot of like scary stuff
at home.

Speaker 1 (01:22:42):
I mean, your cowork has taken it personally without any
context of the situation that you're red, which is particularly severe,
you know. Yeah, it's not just one tragedy or two
tragedies combined. It's several tragedies compounded into one period of
your life where you've already experienced significant traumat leading up

(01:23:04):
to these things happening one after another after another. So yeah,
it's I mean, I can understand why he would be like,
I don't understand why she didn't talk out about this,
but knowing all of the things that we know, of
course you didn't talk. Of course you didn't. Of course
your first thought wasn't like I must go to the
police and report this. Your first thing is like, wow,

(01:23:26):
I need to work out a way to survive all
of this, Like how do I exist through all of
these things? How do I take care of myself? How
do I breathe? How do I like eat? How do I,
you know, earn money? You're not thinking about, you know,
things like going to the police, And we understand that.
But I can see why he wouldn't. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:23:46):
Yeah, I got to see him a few years ago
at a party with other coworkers and I got to say,
you know, just I forgive you and I hope you're
doing well kind of and that was really really good.

Speaker 4 (01:23:58):
But to this day, I don't think he ever.

Speaker 5 (01:24:00):
It was my full backstory on what happened and yeah,
I just have you know, I just wish them well.
But yeah, that was really rough to have somebody every
time I came to work say that they hope I
Diana Fier like that was really hard.

Speaker 1 (01:24:14):
I mean, it shows us why we should always be
kind to people, because you never really know what's happening
to a Yeah, because I imagine a lot of people
you worked with never would have guessed that, you know,
you grew up the way you did, and that all
of these things were happening in your life at the
same time.

Speaker 5 (01:24:32):
No, I don't think most of them knew. Some of
them knew about the domestic violence I was going through
at home with my family, but they didn't. I don't
think they knew the full extent of what happened. So
and I also that was still when I felt like
no one would believe me. It was just such a
crazy experience to live on a camion and all that.

Speaker 1 (01:24:55):
So you are the sole person to testify that Kevin
premeditated this fire. He told everybody he was going to
do it, He had intention to do it. Despite having,
you know, friends from the church speak against you, you

(01:25:15):
stood up, You testified, and Kevin did go to prison.

Speaker 5 (01:25:20):
Yes, yeah, he'd served ten years in prison and to
my knowledgeable if he's out whilst I heard he is working.

Speaker 1 (01:25:30):
There's this period in your life where all of these
things happen and you don't feel like you can tell
anybody about it.

Speaker 4 (01:25:37):
But then you do get to a point in your.

Speaker 1 (01:25:39):
Life where you decide, maybe I'll do it a go,
maybe I will tell my story to somebody and see
what happens. And it's quite a liberating experience. And I
wondered if you could just talk the listeners through you
know that stage in your life where you're like, it's
a hard thing to talk about and I don't know
if you're going to believe me, but here we go.

Speaker 7 (01:26:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:26:02):
So so just being through so much trauma it I
had many years where I didn't think I was lovable
by anybody.

Speaker 4 (01:26:10):
I didn't think anyone would accept me.

Speaker 1 (01:26:13):
I was too much of a mess.

Speaker 5 (01:26:14):
And I also felt like it was all just so crazy,
so dark, that I felt like I was too much
if I opened up to a friend or anybody about it.
And then after many years of therapy, I did fifteen
years of therapy which.

Speaker 4 (01:26:29):
Really helped me heal a lot from a lot of this, but.

Speaker 5 (01:26:35):
I finally decided to open up to friends. And this
is my first time, by the way, to share this
publicly about what I went through.

Speaker 4 (01:26:46):
But I did open up to a few close.

Speaker 5 (01:26:49):
Friends and one of them, I remember, I was so
scared she wouldn't believe me, but she seemed to really care,
and so I was like, I'm gonna go ahead and
tell her. And she's a person that was from my
same state that I was living in in the Midwest,
and yeah, I finally opened up. I was vulnerable, I

(01:27:14):
was real, and I told her, you know, I told
her everything about it, and to my amazement, her dad
was one of the firefighters that night, and she knew
exactly what I was talking about. She knew exactly the
fire I was talking about, and she was kind. She said, Emily,

(01:27:38):
it's not your fault. She said, I just want you
to know the firefighters never thought it was your fault,
even though you tried to stop it. And it was
an event that not just greatly impacted me, but also
her family, and so opening up ended up just I
feel like grew our friendship even more.

Speaker 4 (01:28:00):
Yeah, that just.

Speaker 5 (01:28:03):
Blew my mind like that it was her dad was
one of the ferments this person why a reader opened
up with my story about three years like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:28:13):
There's so many there's so many coincidences that seem impossible
but they're happening. You know, your granddad's sharing a name
with James Warren Jones. You know you you speak at
you working at the news agency when the story comes

(01:28:34):
in about the arson, your friend having a father who
was working that night at the at the scene of
the crime. There's so many things in this story that
kind of bring everything full circle. You know, your grandpa
claiming to offer something that Mary was actually offering people.

(01:28:55):
There's so many things in this story that bring it
all around. And it's like in between. In between these
people in your life that use fear and threats to
control you and to make you feel like you're you're

(01:29:16):
never going to find love or that you're not worthy
of love, there are a few people that come through
and show you that you are. And yes, I just
want to take a moment to appreciate those people. When
we hear about heroes in these episodes, I always like
to feel like you're into those people because sometimes they

(01:29:38):
can be the difference between life or death.

Speaker 5 (01:29:40):
Literally literally, yeah, I do not know where it would
be without the people who are kind, who accepted me
the way I am, and who you know, people that.

Speaker 4 (01:29:52):
I've gotten to be creative with, to make.

Speaker 5 (01:29:55):
Art, film, music with, people who let me be vulnerable
and broken and still said I'm okay, you know, like
still still want to be my friends or you know,
still scept me, because you know, over the first half
of my life, like more than half of my life,
I spent without people like that. I spent without support,

(01:30:19):
without love and kindness around me. And I just am
incredibly grateful to have found some healing and to finally
finding out who I am, you know, through creating and
through vulnerability and just yeah, I'm I'm just so grateful

(01:30:41):
to be alive today. My little brother Nathaniel, I lost
him two years ago to suicide, and he was such
a dear friend to me, and he was the one
relative I had that acknowledged we grew up in a
cult and he was just endlessly trying to get out

(01:31:02):
himself and he I just respect so much that he
gave all he had, you know, to try to have
a good life and try to be free. And so
I made a promise to him after he passed that
I will never silence my voice again. I'm gonna always
speak up for him and for everything we went through.

(01:31:24):
And I want my daughter to know that she can
be proud to share her story too someday like that
you don't have to be a free to share your
story just because of what you come from, Like maybe
somebody out there might need to hear it.

Speaker 1 (01:31:40):
So that's so beautiful and empowering and also like breaking
the cycle. Because your grandpa was a certain way, your
dad sounds like he was the same certain way, and
here you are another one of those things. That's like

(01:32:02):
almost like an impossible coincidence. You have a beautiful family
through the adoption process despite being part of pro life rallies,
well it forced to be part of pro life rallies
as a child growing up. Like how wild are these?
How wild are these? Like you know differences, the contrast

(01:32:28):
now into your life is just like it makes me
smile so much.

Speaker 4 (01:32:33):
Well, you know, it just blows my mind.

Speaker 5 (01:32:37):
I have not had a single relative acknowledge my adoption
or my child, and I have got to be okay
with that because I believe no contact is absolutely the
healthiest thing for me. But it blows my mind that
after all the years we spent, you know, at pro
life rallies trying to talk to women about adoption, that

(01:33:00):
they would not talk to their own kid who adopted
a child one day. That just that's so weird to me.
But yeah, there's things that have happened in my family
since I escaped this cult that I'm just so grateful for.
Like the the same time that my daughter and her

(01:33:21):
first mom joined our family, the very same two weeks,
I had a nephew born from my husband's my sister
in law had a baby, and then shortly after that,
a relative reached out to me on twenty three and
me that I had no idea existed. He's amazing, he's

(01:33:43):
aging out of foster care, and he loves music and
tea just like I do. And it's just been such
an extraordinary gift to find these people that I never
dreamed of get to love and have a part of
my family.

Speaker 4 (01:33:56):
And Yeah, I'm getting to go see my daughter's birth
mom next week. I'm so excited.

Speaker 5 (01:34:02):
This is gonna be their first chance to give each
other a hug in person since my daughter was born.
And I know I'm gonna be crying. But I just
feel like love is really what makes a family, and
it can be different. My family sure was different to
begin with, you know, being a cult and all that.
But I am just so grateful for the family I

(01:34:22):
have today. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:34:25):
Absolutely, And you are just like gonna nurture and love
and be everything to your little girl that you needed
when you were growing up. And how beautiful is that?
Like it's it's like a really emotive, but it's great
at the same time, if that makes sense. Thank you

(01:34:46):
everything that you needed you get to be now for
somebody else, which just yeah, it's it's great.

Speaker 4 (01:34:52):
Well, well to.

Speaker 5 (01:34:53):
Team up with her first mom on this and give
her a good I mean, it's just I wouldn't have
it any other way. It's just amazing that we can
give her that together.

Speaker 1 (01:35:03):
So also, if you would have accessed abortion care for
whatever reason, or if you needed to go through that
procedure for whatever reason, I bet your family would have
reached out to you, then, wouldn't they we howe this
about you?

Speaker 4 (01:35:19):
Maybe?

Speaker 5 (01:35:20):
Yeah, I don't know what they think about me adopting.
It's so weird to me that they've just completely ignored.

Speaker 1 (01:35:28):
That, Well, you don't need any of them to have
a beautiful and happy life as you are experiencing in
real time, which is amazing.

Speaker 5 (01:35:41):
Yeah, I still care deeply about some of my family
and just I wish them the best. I hope they're
able to be free and be safe and happy and yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:35:55):
So what is next for you, Emily? You're on a
path of healing recovery. You are working through all of
these traumatic experiences and living a different life now. You
are a creative person and you use that creativity as
part of your healing journey. Do you have any plans

(01:36:19):
to put your creativity and your experiences together in like
a formal project like a memoir or like a book
of poems or a book of songs or are you
just kind of going day to day and taking things
as they come.

Speaker 5 (01:36:34):
Yes, I am working on an album with my friend
right now. I'm helping them with backup vocals on this,
but I am also writing music with them, And my
focus right now with creativity is creating things that are
helping people who don't have a voice. So I'm producing

(01:36:57):
this song right now that's about escaping the cult and
about starting.

Speaker 4 (01:37:01):
Your life over.

Speaker 5 (01:37:02):
And I'm also working on a film for refugees in
Pakistan who were affected by the war in Afghanistan, and
they have a free sewing school for girls and they
make doll clothing for eighteenage dolls. And yeah, we're doing
a film together in a couple of weeks and I'm

(01:37:22):
just so honored to be a part of that. I
really feel like, with the film and the music work
that I do as much as I can, I want
to help people's voices be heard and help you be
vulnerable and proud of who you are, and that's just
what I really care about.

Speaker 4 (01:37:40):
So yeah, I'm so excited.

Speaker 1 (01:37:44):
It's all incredible and really exciting, and again just empowering women,
empowering people that have had life changing traumatic experiences and
maybe don't feel as strong in their autonomy as they
should do, and you're helping people to recognize that, and
that's amazing. I can't tell you how thankful I am

(01:38:08):
for you coming here and sharing your story. You started
today with talking about how you want to show people
that they do have a voice and that they can
use their voice and that they can share their story.
And this is the first time that you shared your
story publicly, so you've just shown how you know you said,
people can recover, people can have a happy life. There

(01:38:31):
is love outside of the cult. Even if you are
battered and beaten down into believing that that can never happen,
you are living proof that it can, and that you
can reclaim your autonomy, and that you can speak out,
and that you can be brave and strong and break
the cycles of de generational abuse. And I just think

(01:38:55):
all of those things are amazing. Emily. I think you're amazing.
Thank you so much.

Speaker 4 (01:38:59):
Thank you so much, Casey.

Speaker 5 (01:39:00):
I really appreciate it, and thank you so much for
what you do on the show. It has meant a
lot to me as a survivor the last several months
to listen to it and thank you it. It means
so much. And I just hope that even if this
episode helps one person out there to feel heard and
know that they can keep going, I hope that it
helps them out.

Speaker 4 (01:39:20):
Thank you.

Speaker 9 (01:39:31):
Love by so Shame's jorty tous.

Speaker 2 (01:39:45):
You're a frown.

Speaker 7 (01:39:52):
I trust, I stand, I still stand.

Speaker 2 (01:40:15):
In miss All. We're still here. Oh my see we
have a her guys in me sol a kid days.

Speaker 7 (01:40:44):
You're a man too long?

Speaker 10 (01:41:03):
My whs breaking, I've lost everyone. There's water both me
that Wymond, you where I come from.

Speaker 11 (01:41:37):
Formal, a recious.

Speaker 2 (01:41:54):
Beady from us. Before my God.

Speaker 7 (01:42:12):
Asked you want submay.

Speaker 2 (01:42:17):
You com to us? I was afraid to.

Speaker 11 (01:42:31):
Think I have no.

Speaker 1 (01:42:40):
Ill to say.

Speaker 2 (01:42:53):
The site

Speaker 7 (01:42:57):
Proms hel

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S3 E34 His Way Ministries - Granddaughter of a Pro-Life Activist and Cult Leader

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}S3 E34 His Way Ministries - Granddaughter of a Pro-Life Activist and Cult Leader