Episode 197 - Manna From Heaven - The Bad Taste Crime Podcast

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Yeah, their arrivals unspeakable. I'm not they it's got to

(00:23):
worry about.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
Something.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
If I couldn't keep them there with me whole, at
least I felt that.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
I could keep their skeletons.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Hello and welcome to the Bad Taste Crime Podcast. I'm Rachel,
I'm VICKI I'm congesteded. Oh boy, we're here in the Midwest.

Speaker 3 (00:44):
Oh god, it's like when you can't decide between winter
and spring.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, we don talk about the the weather at the
beginning of this podcast.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
My god, you're right, and it cracks me up because
it's very Midwest.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
It is very it's just cultural. It's our culture. Talk
about the talk about about the weather and to eat
and not talk about our feelings.

Speaker 3 (01:05):
Yeah, we're coming to the end of soup season too.
It makes me really sad.

Speaker 2 (01:08):
It's always soup season in my heart.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
What's your favorite soup? I personally like cream soup, like chowder. Yeah,
like a cheddar broccoli Right now, I have in my freezer.
It's a roast roasted garlic, cheddar broccoli and cauliflower soup.
Oh that sounds really good. So yeah, like the cream

(01:32):
based I'm not big on like ChIL I don't like
chili bean soup.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, I'm not big on those. I do like a
good chicken soup soup or a chicken stew.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
Yeah that's true. Yeah, that's true. Anyway, moving on from
soup chat, we're going to head over to the news.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
Room watching.

Speaker 2 (01:56):
To day.

Speaker 1 (01:57):
We had fifty this week.

Speaker 3 (02:05):
Our news comes from our lovely state of Illinois, speaking
of Midwest, but it was all in there.

Speaker 2 (02:12):
It involves a priest from Detroit who is also known
as an exorcist.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
Oh okay, okay. There was an incident in November of
twenty twenty four where he allegedly flost his teeth with
the hair of a teenage girl.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Eh.

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, so you're looking at a misdemeanor battery charge. The
article this is from m Live. It says he was
in Illinois November while working as a traveling priest. He
allegedly approached a thirteen year old girl about her hair
and asked her if she ever floss her teeth with
her own hair. Barns then picked up some of her hair,
placed it in his mouth, and made a flossing motion.

(02:59):
It then said that he was sitting in a pew
behind the same girl and was like growling at her.
So there's that.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Was he getting like high off his own supply and
just like was like infested with demons.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
This guy's also got a podcast apparently. Oh hellok its Exorcism.
Oh we should all pick it up. Now, what a freak.
That's disgusting that poor girl.

Speaker 3 (03:25):
Yes, not charged with anything or I mean, he's charged
with misdemeanor, but he hasn't been convicted of anything.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
So it's convicted of being a fucking weirdo.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
In my heart, that's kind of It's very it is
very strange. I will agree. It gives me very We're
gonna move on to Netflix and kill This week we
are talking about Jerry Springer. Oh fights, camera action, very catchy,
very catchy. It is this sort of interesting look behind

(03:55):
the scenes the making of Jerry Springer.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
And it was obviously it is on Netflix. Obviously the
show is I would say controversial. It was at a
time where like shock value television was very big. I mean,
this is the same time that like Girls Gone Wild
got super popular.

Speaker 3 (04:17):
And like Maury was really popular. Around the same time,
I loved Howard Stern, like his show soared to popularity
because he was just like wildly inappropriate, horrible hate. And
so it talks about them getting guests on the show
and how everything worked by the scenes. You're probably wondering

(04:37):
why I'm bringing this up at a crime show. Yeah,
so there is actually an instance where guests on the show.
A guest on the show was involved was murdered by
It was one of these like love triangle things where
he was like dating the mistress but he was like

(04:57):
sleeping with his former wife on the side type the thing.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Yeah, not a good idea to put those things onto. Yeah,
And the way that they were getting the guests on
the show was like kind of sketchy, like they weren't
necessarily being told the whole truth all the time and
we're told to sort of play it up. Right, That's
like that one where like they had the guy on
the show and like his friend confessed to like being
in gay love with him and then he murdered him. Yeah,

(05:22):
not a good idea. It's on national television, and so yeah,
so one of the people involved in right right, right,
one of the people that was involved in this love
triangle was murdered and it's sort of like then all
of a sudden they were doing like Jerry Springer from
the Caribbean and oh yeah, it's kind of it's it's

(05:43):
pretty wild. I mean, it's just like it's a little
peek into this very popular piece of pop culture and
sort of like what are the ramifications of bringing people
into this kind of environment and then literally sending them
out with like zero follow up, like no like mental support, Like, yeah,

(06:05):
very interesting. It's called Jerry Springer fights camera action. So Netflix, yes,
is that part of the show or you say content
may not.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Be appropriate for all listeners. It may not, It may not,
it may not. Definitely not. It is not. Mine is
not you know, it's going to be a pretty dark
episode today.

Speaker 1 (06:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, like warning for everything. I feel, yeah everything.

Speaker 3 (06:26):
So what what grim ass topic did you choose? Rachel?

Speaker 2 (06:30):
Hello, Kitty Island Adventure.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
Oh you can't get over that, right? I want to
play it looks so fun alert.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
Well shocker shocker, Uh to say, listeners, it is time
for the very topical topic. Cults.

Speaker 3 (06:49):
Okay, cal Colt cults one of my uh personal favorite
mine too.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
I was excited to do this, but I can't wait
to hear who you picked. I know you find cults
just about as fascinating as I do. I know we
talked not too long ago on the podcast about Jonestown,
which I know is another one.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Of your special interests. For specialties, for sure.

Speaker 2 (07:11):
Jonestown was a massive cult, having at its peak around
nine hundred active members, nearly all of whom would die
via suicide or murder by the other cult members, which
was obviously a gigantic news story. But I think smaller
cults tend to be a bit harder to spot, especially
when it appears on the outside just be kind of

(07:31):
a bunch of adults choosing to live near each other.
I personally know a bunch of people, especially in like
our generation. We're both millennials now choosing to like live
communally with their adult friends as opposed to having a
single partner just sort of as a way to save
money and have a support system nearby.

Speaker 3 (07:49):
Which is not a terrible idea.

Speaker 2 (07:51):
It's really not. I'm going to be like a little controversial.
I think that is my dream lifestyle. I would absolutely
love to live that way. Yeah, but when you in,
oh god, the cult aspect, Yeah, that's when things become problematic.
So if you'd like to set up a commune with
us call.

Speaker 3 (08:10):
In it will be a non cult community.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Yeah, that's the line. Everybody has lines that's ours. No
cult stuff, no cult, no culty business. Leave that of
your other. The cult I chose to focus on was
called Angels Landing. Okay, I have not this is I
really heard of this one, but it sounds very is
it like, is it more of a modern cult or

(08:35):
is it older? This is modern? This isn't like the
two thousands, because it sounds Angels Landing has a very
like seven sort of new age.

Speaker 3 (08:47):
Feel to it. It does. Yeah, so it's.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Just like really on a small scale, which is why
I found it.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
You know, I have not. I am not familiar. I've
never heard of them.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
You will get ready to get familiar, familiar rise you.

Speaker 3 (09:01):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
I remember watching an episode of the show Deadly Cults
that focused on Angel's Landing. I actually rewatched it to
prepare because it's really informative. It's a good show. It's
like I think an oxygen Okay, is it oxygen or ID?
They're kind of this. They're very similar, similar production value. Yeah,
but but this one had a lot of interviews, like

(09:25):
from like people who were in the cult, it was
really worth watching.

Speaker 3 (09:29):
I liked it.

Speaker 2 (09:30):
I'll Lincoln in the notes. It's streaming on Hulu right now,
so you can go check it out. If you have Hulu,
you should so you can watch what we do in
the Shadows, but not the last season.

Speaker 3 (09:40):
I was watching that this wording it's terrible.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
I was so mad that last season was trash. I'm
gonna fight, like in a parking lot. I like, so
mad at him.

Speaker 3 (09:49):
I liked it.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Why didn't Nandor and Gearmo kiss? I'm mad at him?
That's the point of the show. I mean, they did okay,
but like they aren't together forever, so who cares.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
They did in the the anyway? This is not this
is what.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
We do in the Shadows podcast. And now I'm so
going back to what I said about some people now
choosing to live communally.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (10:11):
Real estate agent Jennifer Hudson thought that sounded like a
really swell idea. Not the Jennifer, not the Jennifer Hudson. No, no, no,
no no. This was a white one. And she was
like not talented and a bad brother.

Speaker 3 (10:22):
Oh cool, great, awesome.

Speaker 2 (10:24):
So you know, I feel like it's okay to like
go and like sort of run off and join the
commune if you're like single. But she had this like
pesky husband and children. So she divorced her husband and
yanked her two kids because she met this guy, Lou Castro.
Lou was a man of very particular real estate needs. Okay,

(10:46):
so I wanted to buy this commune and she was
a real estate agent. So he was like, hell, yeah,
how can we make this happen together? And she was like, actually,
this all sounds fucking sweet.

Speaker 3 (10:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
So during these meetings, as they were looking at different properties,
the two got to talking, as you do, just normal stuff.

Speaker 3 (11:02):
Do you like dogs?

Speaker 2 (11:03):
What's your sign? I'm an angel?

Speaker 3 (11:06):
Okay you know god? Oh no, literally, I said, I'm
an angel.

Speaker 2 (11:12):
Like, by the way, I'm an angel from heaven. How
are you? I'm like a real angel? Cool? Trust me,
pro cool yep. Lou Castro revealed his totally true truth
to the religious yet emotionally unfulfilled Jennifer, who again was like, oh,
absolutely on my way and rush just split from her
husband and move with her two young daughters all the

(11:32):
way to Kentucky. Moving in she was taking the kids
with her. Oh, She's like, goodbye, Okay, I'm going. It's
called time girls, Let's go girls moving in with Angel
Cakes and his group of loyal followers I mean besties now.
To be fair, living on the commune was actually pretty nice.
It was on twenty acres outside of Wichita, Kansas. Okay,

(11:54):
so real like farmy, real like rural. Yeah, there's lots
of footage of it, and it's like a series of
bills and like pole barns on like a good stretch
of lands. So everybody kind of had their own area
but could come to like communal space, which I think
is kind of the way to do it right. And
Lou even though he never had a job, was able
easily to provide for all of them. Every time they

(12:16):
had a need, he would fill it. The fridges were
always full of food. Everybody had kind of the best
of everything. It had a really nice pool.

Speaker 3 (12:24):
Oh kiss So.

Speaker 2 (12:27):
Well, because he's magic ficking Okay, he's an angel from
the Lord from heaven.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, okay, doesn't need.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Money, you just you know, like wishes for it or something.
I'm gonna be real, I don't know what angels are
actually supposed to do besides like floating and like magic tricks.

Speaker 3 (12:44):
They bring messages.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Oh, no, wait, Magic tricks is Chris Angel, Yes, freak.
It was certainly enough proof for the group, who described
their community as a little piece of heaven.

Speaker 3 (12:58):
Okay, all right, heart, I'm just gonna put it in
audio format. I'm skeptical.

Speaker 2 (13:05):
You know what, hot spical, I really don't believe that
spic real feathery angel from up in the clouds.

Speaker 3 (13:16):
Skeptical.

Speaker 2 (13:17):
How could you even think to questions?

Speaker 3 (13:19):
But you know what, I just got a gut feeling.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
You know what, I actually have trust your gut tattooed
because I'm basic. So we're just gonna We're gonna go there.
Part of Lou's so killed angelic powers included not only
knowing when someone was going to die, but being able
to stop and reverse death. Except right, except you know,
he couldn't because angels aren't real, and even if they were,

(13:44):
Lou Castro spoiler alert was not one.

Speaker 3 (13:47):
I know an angel.

Speaker 2 (13:48):
No, I'm sorry, he wasn't called it. I know what
God was. This was proven in two thousand and three
when group member Patricia Trish Hughes did the unthinkable. That's right,
she passed away.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
Okay, the real estate agent.

Speaker 2 (14:06):
No, this is another one. This is like she was
one of like the og cult members, Like she's been
with him throughout like much of his life.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
Okay, okay, so.

Speaker 2 (14:18):
She was like a core member and all of a
sudden she turned up dead. It's like, weren't you supposed
to bring people back from the dead. That's kind of
the whole reason why we were here, bitch, right right,
On a regular Wednesday evening, the Kentucky PDE received a
frantic nine woman call from Jennifer real Estate, Jennifer's eleven
year old daughter Emily, who had found Trish deceased in
the compounds pool.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
Oh no, yeah, Trish.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
Had been like a second mother to Emily and her
sister Sarah, because honestly, I'm just gonna say, Jennifer did
not seem like mother of the year at all.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
Did they well? And I could see them having like
a communal child care, That's the thing.

Speaker 2 (14:54):
There was also a baby on the who I think
was Trisha's son, yes, who lived there as well, And
I think they all kind of like shared all of
the duties of childcare. But I feel like their mother
was like kind of.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
Not sure sure, so she was there.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
Often to take care of them. So it was a
very hard blow to both of the children, and Trish
was only twenty six years old. According to the autopsy,
Trish had fallen into the pool, hit her head and
had sadly drowned.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
Oh No.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
Detectives on the scene were, of course slightly skeptical, and
they were like, I'm sure some of you are starting
to squint suspiciously at angel boy over here as a
possible suspect.

Speaker 3 (15:33):
God okay Wu.

Speaker 2 (15:34):
Was nowhere near the scene and had the solid alibi
at being at a dealership, a car dealership with other
cult member Jennifer's other daughter Sarah Okay, which like, Okay,
can't angels fly? Why do you need a suparu? Explain
it to me? Where does this have lots of room
for all my halos and such and such and such

(15:56):
my harps and things. Yeah, togus. But the police, having
no other evidence with which charge him, had to drop
the case, except for one guy, Detective Ron Goodwin, who
was like, Hey, if this dude can lie about being
an angel, what if he also lies about being a
murderer and doing other stuff? And he was very much
like the police were kind of looking around the compound, like, boy,

(16:18):
this is a really nice place. You got here how much?
So what do you do for work?

Speaker 3 (16:21):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (16:21):
You're an angel? Okay, so can we see your tash trecker?

Speaker 1 (16:25):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (16:25):
I still like how are they even getting like where
is he getting food from? Like where is he getting
money to?

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Like guess money? But you know where's it come from?
Don't even worry about it.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
And that's that's what I'm wondering. I'm with the police,
like what I'm never with What is the magic? What
is the magic in this case? Yes, what is the magic?

Speaker 2 (16:44):
I want to know it's real magic. So Ron Goodwin,
being a good detective, started to sort of sneakily keep
his eye on everything that was going on, and he
had to do a fifty state check like of all
the databases cause he was trying to find out who
is this lou Castro guy? Types said lou Castro, no

(17:04):
paper trail.

Speaker 3 (17:05):
Nothing.

Speaker 2 (17:06):
He couldn't even find like a birth certificate. Okay, so
like what but having no paper trails not a crime.
So his official interest had to kind of end, but
he did continue to like keep tabs And there's like
a cute little thing at the end where like he
went to like every court like he was involved forever.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
I'm just surprised. So no paper trail to me would
also signal like no birth certificate and our social Security number.
And that's not a red flag, right.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
I don't know how they couldn't do anything, but it's
a red flag for me.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
For me, that's kind of a red flag.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
I don't know if it was because it was like
rural Kentucky's people aren't like hurting anybody, you know, I
don't know, I guess, but like, no, I'm with you.

Speaker 3 (17:48):
Everybody's got a number, you know what I mean, like.

Speaker 2 (17:50):
Right, right, and this is in the two thousand, so
you'd think that they'd be like, I'm sorry, hello, right, okay, sorry,
I don't know. I am totally with you.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
It's so weird.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
They were like, okay, I have fun doing called stuff
by yeah.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
Now.

Speaker 2 (18:04):
The Call was left reeling by Trisha's death. The person
who was surely most affected was Trisha's husband, Brian, also
a CALL member. Okay, he became they really only associated
with people in the cult. He became more and more
depressed until one day he was working on one of
the commune's cars, an activity that he loved. Tragically, as

(18:25):
he lay under the car, the jack malfunctioned and the
car fell on him and killed him. Oh no, now
here's the thing. A lot of the like documents and
stuff around this, and like he was, Lou was never
charged with his death, but like it was he was
a mechanic, and that Lou was a mechanic, and it

(18:48):
was rare for Brian to work on cars alone. Like
I feel like that has to be like a mechanic
failsafe you don't want to have. But he asked car
on top of you and not have like a small sense,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (18:59):
So they thought it might be a little suspicious, but yeah,
didn't have anything other than a hunch, really right.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
Okay, yeah, yeah, because I have a hunch fast foot,
So just a little chestnut there. Fast forward to two
thousand and five, our girl Jennifer, who was allegedly happy
and enjoying her fun life with the cult, unexpectedly passed
away as well. In line with a string of seemingly ordinary,

(19:25):
accidental explainable deaths, Jennifer died in a car accident, which
is a kind way of saying she drove her car
into an eighteen wheeler.

Speaker 3 (19:35):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (19:36):
Onlookers said that there was no way that she hadn't
seen the truck, so it was ruled Wow, a suicide.
Oh okay, because like she like went under the truck.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (19:47):
The cult members, including Jennifer's two daughters, were left devastated
by her loss and thought how unlikely it was that
she would commit suicide. Okay, it was not in her character. Yeah,
yet another tragic death. And yet there was this silver
lining trish when she passed. When she had drowned, had
a substantial life insurance policy one point two million dollars.

(20:09):
First it went to Brian, who you know, lived in
the cult, so he would funnel it into the cult.
But then when he died, it went to the cult,
like all of it right, okay. Jennifer also passed her
money to Angel's Landing, where it among with the other
members policies continued to fund their lifestyles. Are we noticing
a pattern here?

Speaker 3 (20:29):
Okay? So the people who in some way, shape or
form have left their money to Angel's Landing.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
Now it helps them buy more pole barns and pools and.

Speaker 3 (20:40):
Tow Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
Okay, Well, this pattern had been patterning far before the
introduction of Jennifer Hudson and such as it must have,
because where did.

Speaker 3 (20:49):
They have the money before him? Oh?

Speaker 2 (20:51):
My God, Okay, exactly God, such as back in two
thousand and one where a friend of Lou named Mona Griffith,
her boyfriend, friend, and twelve year old daughter were killed
in a mysterious plane crash. Mona, of course had a
recent seven hundred and fifty thousand life in shell insurance
policy which was originally supposed to go to her daughter

(21:14):
who died in the plane crash with her, but if
her daughter was not able to receive it, it would
go to her daughter's lifted listed caregiver, which was Trish
hughesh and so the money continued to fund their cult lifestyle. Now,
these deaths, although attributed to Luke, could not exactly be
proven in court because he wasn't in the plane. Well,

(21:35):
and it seems like he is always if if he
is the one orchestrating these things, he does a good
job of keeping himself at art. Oh yeah, he's like,
I wasn't there. I was somewhere else, and I have
lots of friends.

Speaker 3 (21:52):
That is the case. It is.

Speaker 2 (21:53):
Yes, However, I will say I think he did it,
and I'll tell.

Speaker 3 (21:57):
You why later Okay, so, okay, put that on plats.

Speaker 2 (22:01):
Now back to two thousand and eight, Jennifer had just
had her tragic death by way of a mysterious car accident,
and Lou decided it was probably time to do what
he did best, which was to get the hell out
of Dodge. So he took Jennifer's daughter Emily with him,
like leaving her other daughter Sarah behind, and fled to
Tennessee just like got new properties. Left Sarah, who had

(22:23):
lived with the cult essentially all her life, was left
feeling more less and unsure of where to go. Okay,
so she's twenty four at this point, Yeah, I don't
really know. So she started kind of trying to build
a life for herself. She had freedom for the first
time in her life. She was able to go as
will because there's a lot of life skills you don't get,
and she didn't. She was very confused in that show

(22:46):
that like a Dangerous Cults episode, there's a lot of
interviews with her where she's talking about like I didn't
know what the hell to do, Like, yeah, super confused. Luckily,
she met a wonderful and frankly he's high. Okay, Frankly
hot man named Daniel McGrath who she would go on
to mary and they're still together today.

Speaker 3 (23:06):
He's like a very nice guy.

Speaker 2 (23:07):
I think they have a child together.

Speaker 3 (23:09):
Very good, it's very good. Now.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Of course, she had to eventually tell Daniel about her
unusual childhood, because I'm sure he was like, so, how
are your parents. She was like, oh, let's not talk
about it. And she was just kind of like, oh,
you know, it's just kind of the situation whatever, and
she had no reference, and Daniel, being a normal guy,
was like, so that's a cult. That's a cult. That's
not okay. And at this point, she was still in

(23:34):
contact with Lou because he had her sister. So they
would call and she had like she had like a
normal job, but he would still like call and ask
her for money and call and like yell at it
because he was a dick. He sucked. He would call
and he would yell at her. And so at one
point when he called her and Daniel, her hot boyfriend,

(23:56):
saw her like getting upset. He was like, hang the
fuck up, hang up on this guy. I don't talk
to this guy anymore, Like I'm not gonna let him
talk to you like that. But The nature of the
conversation kind of alarmed him, so he sat down with
her and was like, so, like, what what was your relationship?
What kind of stuff did you guys do together, like
when you were a child. And that's when she realized, like, oh,

(24:18):
I think I've been abused. She didn't know it wasn't normal.
Lou had been sexually abusing her, her sister, and any
young girl who would come in and around the cult.
Oh no, So Daniel was like, okay, time to call
the police. Police time, So go Daniel.

Speaker 3 (24:40):
We love Daniel. Daniel is good for man.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
Yeah, I love him. This is really sad. Lou would
constantly tell Sarah that he was raping her to fix
her because he's an angel and he has angelic powers.
So he would tell them horrible and it's he would
tell them that they were broken. You'll never be able
to get me married because there's something wrong with you.
And then when you die, you won't get to heaven.

(25:04):
So like, let me start what a piece of shit?
So this like really affected her Psyche and he she
knew nothing else, and everyone in the cult like truly
believe like he is an angel from the Lord, so
like gotta yeah, so yep, Lou was a disgusting pedophile,
and as police, alerted to this by Daniel the super Husband,

(25:24):
began to dig. They discovered that Lou's sexual perversions actually
were the motivation behind all of his awful crimes.

Speaker 3 (25:31):
Oh god.

Speaker 2 (25:32):
As soon as the young girls had moved in with
Lou and the others, when Jennifer joined the cult, he
began telling everyone that he needed a pure person of course,
a young female virgin to sleep with him in his bed,
which is very like Gandhi, gross disgusting. He told them
all his angelic powers depended on his closeness to young girls,

(25:53):
and so he had unrestricted access to Jennifer's two innocent doctors.
I have I don't know, I feel like I mean,
but like I have a lot of I do have
a lot of sympathy for people who get involved in cults,
but lesson is when they're like mothers with children. Yeah, like,
get your fucking kids out of here, Get out of there.

Speaker 3 (26:10):
Yeah, I'm mad.

Speaker 2 (26:11):
And this is also not like the first time that's happened,
absolutely very common. Oh, it happens all the time.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
Series of events.

Speaker 2 (26:18):
Do not leave your chi Oh my god. Yea as
police would discover this was not Daniel's first rodeo. Oops
did I say Daniel? I did, because guess what, Lou
is not even his real name of course not, of
course not. His real name is Daniel Perez and once
police figured out his real name, they were able to
search the sex offenders registry and found a bombshell. Our

(26:38):
angelic cult leader had a long history of assaulting and
raping young girls arranged in age from sixteen down to
eight years old.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
Oh my yeah.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
He would constantly move around to dodge charges for this crime,
these crimes, and would take on new identities as he fled.
This is really creepy. In fact, he came to the
name Lou Castro in a crazy way. Remember Mona who
passed away in that wild plane accident. Lu Castro was
her brother's name. He took on that identity after she died.
Oh seems like that's a nice name. Oh no, I'll

(27:11):
take that identity yo. Right in twenty ten, when police
caught up to Lou or Daniel or whatever the fuck
his name is, I mean Joe venega is because that
was the new name that he had, so at this
point now he's Joe.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (27:24):
They were in luck because he was literally like robbing
a bank when they found him. Throw back to the
last episode Recruits, So he just like pieced out from
this cult that he was running. Yeah, he was like all, bye,
just dipped, Yeah, bye bye, I'm gonna go over here
and do a different cult now.

Speaker 3 (27:36):
Oh okay.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
It was like trying to like drum up.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
That's a strategy.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Yeah, and he was just like robbing, like doing like
other kind of money fraud.

Speaker 3 (27:45):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (27:45):
So right, Yeah, with all these like financial crimes, they
were able to put him in jail because at this
point the police had this case but it still wasn't
solid enough to Vicky. But it was cool because now
they were like, well we have two years because he's
in prison for two so we can't go anywhere.

Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yeah. So it was very like tense.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
They're trying to get everything together since this asshole was
in jail where I sincerely drop hope. He dropped the
soap every single day. Emily, Sarah's sister, who he had
like fled with to Tennessee. Obviously they rescued her and
were like, girl, you're in a cull and she's like,
oh yeah, that's that tracked.

Speaker 3 (28:17):
That makes sense.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Actually not to say that that makes sense. She was
now free to talk to the police, and talk she did.
In fact, she added an incredible factor to the case.
Trisha's death by way of pool was not an accident,
and in fact, Lou had premeditatively murdered her.

Speaker 3 (28:34):
You don't say, I know, you don't say.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
Poor Emily, Yeah, only been ten at the time and
was a pawn in Lou's evil plan. He made her
instrumental to this whole thing. He forced her to participate.
He told her about his plan beforehand, but like all
in the guise of like he would say things like,
it's you know, I've talked to the Lord, talked about
El Jeebis and it's Tricia's time to go. She needs

(28:59):
to go to heaven. So it's okay, you know, she's
not really dying. He'd tell them all kinds of bullshit,
but yeah, so what is she supposed to do? So
he told her all kinds of things yep, and had
her help him come up with an alibi before forcing
her to call the police and report Trisha's death herself.

Speaker 3 (29:18):
Oh No Blue had struck Trish.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
On the head before holding her under the water until
she passed away.

Speaker 3 (29:23):
Again.

Speaker 2 (29:24):
She was twenty six and had been loyal to him
since the start.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
Yeah, so he was she was like his life, right man.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
Right, So I'm like fuck you. As for their mother, Jennifer,
he had told Emily and Sarah beforehand that their mother
also needed to die and go to heaven, before convincing
Jennifer to take her own life. Wow, it was like,
it's cool, you'll wake up in copa cabana or whatever.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
Yeah, but she woke up up drunk. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
In twenty fifteen, lou Naniel, Joe whatever was taken to court.
Medical experts, insurance agents, cult members, cult experts, and other
concerned parties flocked to the courtroom to testify against him,
and luckily they were successful. Angel Boy was convicted of
over twenty eight counts of rape, burglary, assault, and of course,
the murder of Trish Hughes. Brian who got crushed by

(30:14):
the car and Jennifer car accident are both labeled as accidental,
but judged by judging by Lew's past as a car mechanic,
we can easily make assumptions, right, So there were also
kind of things of like, because I truly think that
he was in the garage with Brian and kick the
jack over whatever. I don't know, car stuff. I don't
know if you can kick it.

Speaker 3 (30:36):
There's certainly a way to release it quickly.

Speaker 2 (30:38):
Right, right, especially if he's under and he's standing up.
And then I know it said that he convinced Jennifer
to kill herself, but who's to say he wouldn't have
taken the brapes out of her car?

Speaker 3 (30:47):
Right?

Speaker 2 (30:47):
You know this is.

Speaker 3 (30:48):
Hell see or something? Right?

Speaker 2 (30:51):
Yeah, remember how I said earlier, I think that I
I like, as soon as you know the whole plane
crash thing with Mona and her daughter and her boyfriend,
it's like, well, you know that's a plane crash and
he wasn't on the plane. But guess what he did
when he was in the Navy plane mechanic. Oh, he
was a jet mechanic. Okay, So like that's not that's
not something that I can like look away from. So

(31:12):
I feel like he took the plane, breaks out or
whatever the fuck right. Daniel Perez was sentenced to eighty
years in Wichita Prison, which is a state prison where
Okay games to this day, good, he's creepy looking by
the way. Angels landing, although a smaller cult, having only
about seven members at its largest, is still a chilling
reminder of how cult leaders are able to manipulate innocent

(31:35):
people to literally give their lives to please their leader.
I truly hope that Sarah and Emily are living happily
and peacefully. Like I said, Sarah got married. Her husband,
you know, is the one who really helped tie this
whole case together. He was like going through yeah, yeah,
and did a ton of work. So like, that's amazing.

(31:59):
Don't join a cult that's crazy, Yeah, isn't crazy? Wow?

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Okay, So I want to start off by saying the
case that I'm covering is still ongoing, which is very rare.
Is not a ton of information, but there happens to
be a ton of information in this So I'm going
to go ahead and cover it. But I'm just saying.

Speaker 2 (32:35):
That that's so exciting because.

Speaker 3 (32:36):
It is an ongoing. Man, maybe we'll solve it.

Speaker 2 (32:39):
I mean, it's already, it's already, Rachel. So we are
going to talk about Good News International Ministries Oh yes, yes,
sometimes called Good News International Church and g n i
M for short. It's founded in two thousand and three
by Paul McKenzie and and this all takes place in Africa.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
Okay, oh my god, yes, are you familiar? Yes, yo,
I'm so excited. So before his rise to the head
of the church and ultimately cult leader, Mackenzie was originally
from a town on the Kenyan coast.

Speaker 2 (33:16):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (33:17):
He was one of nine siblings in an evangelical Christian family,
which is not uncommon in Kenya. They obviously have had
a lot of missionaries and things that come through the
area that have really spread Christianity in this kind of
interesting way spread and some Yeah, it sounded like he

(33:37):
was a typical kid who loved to go to church.

Speaker 2 (33:40):
He would like dance to gospel music at home, play fortnite. Now,
this is from an article in The New Yorker. Quote
he could quickly turn violent. When he was sixteen, he
got into an argument with another boy during a game
of hide and seek and began viciously hitting him end quote.

(34:00):
After school, he worked as a taxi driver in Nairobi
for six years before.

Speaker 3 (34:04):
Deciding to take up preaching himself. Okay, okay. When the
church started in two thousand and three, it was really
just like a small congregation, a very small congregation. But
as soon as things started. I mean there was definitely
some steam he picked up and things started ballooning. More
and more members started joining, and so he decided to

(34:27):
move the entire operation to Malindi where they had a
lot more room to expand a lot of times. It's
called a compound. I use the word compound. It was
called like twenty or like two hundred eight hundred something acres.
I mean it was like huge.

Speaker 2 (34:42):
Okay, So they moved out to Milindi to accommodate now
these members. Yes, the majority of his followers were from Kenya,
although he did have congregates from Tanzania, Uganda and Nigeria.

Speaker 3 (34:55):
So coming in, yeah, you must have something to say.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
Right, Yeah, so let's talk about the beliefs of the
church for sand So, like I said, I had a
quote from the New Yorker. There's a great article by
Alexis Akeoo about this called the Cult in the Forest.

Speaker 3 (35:15):
I'm gonna link it in the show notes. It was
a wealth of information, very very good article. Definitely check
it out.

Speaker 2 (35:22):
Oh that sounds good.

Speaker 3 (35:23):
In describing Mackenzie, they said, quote he was slender with
protruding eyes and a temperament that easily escalated from calm
to fierce, and was known as a fervent preacher of
the Gospels. He urged his followers to avoid television, sports
and other secular pastimes, to refuse Western medicine, and to
take their children out of school. I was told by

(35:46):
the spirits to tell the people that education is evil,
that it comes from man. He claimed to speak directly
with godw.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
I hate him already, so he was like yeah, yeah,
and they talk a lot too. That The inspiration for
Mackenzie's like gospel was from this guy named William Branham.

Speaker 3 (36:07):
I don't know if you're familiar with him.

Speaker 2 (36:08):
Or not familiar. He sort of sounds evil.

Speaker 3 (36:13):
Yes, if you picture an old white guy, you'd be correct.

Speaker 2 (36:18):
So he sort of like kicked off the big healing revivals.

Speaker 3 (36:23):
Post World War Two.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
In the United States, and he was a big like
End Times, second Coming of Jesus Christ preacher.

Speaker 3 (36:32):
Yeah, he did. Like faith healings was a big thing.
He got a huge impact on the televangelism movement. Like yeah, yeah,
that guy gross sot M. That's where G and I
AM and Mackenzie sort of get their inspiration from as well.
William Brandon. Oftentimes he was preaching doomsday and end times messages.

(36:53):
Things that were Western are evil. He was not a
big fan of the United States, United Nations and the
Catholic Church. He was like, these are all tools of Satan.

Speaker 2 (37:03):
Okay, you know, two out of three I agree, but
right I'm not going to start oc cult about it.
He even talks about this in this song that he
made called the Antichrist. I listened to it.

Speaker 3 (37:17):
It's very reggae, and it's very reggae, but it's in
a language that I don't speak, and it's a song
apparently about the Antichrist. So that's fun. I love it.
He did seem to throw a date out there too,
as you do for the end time. Oh yeah, that
always works out for them really well when they do that.
It was April fifteenth, twenty twenty three. Oh my god,

(37:40):
do we miss it? I missed it? I said, clearly.
It hasn't happened yet. I'm still waiting, wait, still waiting.
So the GNIM started off innocently enough. It was a
congregation of people who got together and read the Bible
to understand teachings. But then things started to get a
little funny.

Speaker 2 (38:01):
Okay, after a while, there are reports that by twenty sixteen,
Mackenzie had followers selling their property and then donating the
money to.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
Him or to the church. Oh my god, there was
one member who sold their property on this island for
twenty million Kenyan shillings. You guys gave all the money
to the church. Churches don't need money. They don't pay taxes.
Well here's the thing. Here's the thing.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
Well, I don't know what it is in Africa, to
be honest with you, what the tax situation is. But
there still the church need things that he needs, things
like properties and vehicles, and the broadcasting company that he
wanted to open, called Times TV, where he planned to
spread sermons and teachings.

Speaker 3 (38:49):
So he bought a TV studio. I hate money. He
had also been going hard on the whole not sending
your kids to school thing great, which was generating some
negative publicity, I should hope, so public officials were publicly
denouncing him for this particular view. Yeah. Then in twenty seventeen,

(39:12):
quote Mackenzie was charged with promoting radicalization through the church
and failing to send his own children to school. He
was acquitted. Two years later, he was arrested again and
found guilty of running an unlicensed TV studio end quote.
Love that times TV not license.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
Shocker, and these, honestly, these were probably the least of
his worries.

Speaker 3 (39:37):
Oh yeah, because another big part of GNIM was rejecting
Western medicine. Right, this included children that needed healthcare. Oh
my god, in some form or another.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
You know, things happen, right, let that kid go to
the doctor.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
So along with the charges. In twenty seventeen, authorities recovered
ninety three kids from the GNIM after several had died
under their care. So it was like a handful that
had passed away. They came in, they like took all
the kids out.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
Good.

Speaker 3 (40:09):
But it doesn't really appear that there were any specific consequences.
Oh in that case, that's the thing. I'll very like abstract. Frankly,
there's a lot of children that go back, oh much
back to their carrier. By the time, yeah, by the
time I believe this is twenty twenty, oh wow, rolls around.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
Oh my god.

Speaker 3 (40:33):
Mackenzie had started the practice of fasting. Oh great, something
that was a holdover from William Branham, who viewed fasting
quote as a way of achieving atomic power.

Speaker 2 (40:47):
For thee but not for me, I'm gonna have a cheeseburger.
But you, my followers, just don't eat for a couple
of weeks. It'll be fine. And again from this great
New Yorker article quote. McKenzie eventually told his people that
the world was ending and that everyone would soon die.
The only way to ensure a place in heaven was
to starve to death. Getting to heaven is not as
easy as bread and margarine, he said in one sermon.

(41:09):
You have to deny yourself and go against yourself. You
have to get to the point of ending your like
life for the sake of Jesus. Children would also have
to fast. Let them die, he said, Is there any problem?

Speaker 3 (41:21):
It's Jesus who gave you those children? End quote what
ew fasting for Jesus?

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Oh my god, the fact that you had you have
to starve to death?

Speaker 3 (41:33):
Yeah, to get to heaven.

Speaker 2 (41:34):
I don't remember that from any of my I don't.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
Remember that my confirmation classes.

Speaker 2 (41:38):
Yeah, no, not at all, that's for sure. First they
skip that for me. I actually remember Jebas making like
fish and bread for people. Didn't he do that?

Speaker 3 (41:45):
He did?

Speaker 2 (41:46):
I feel like he was a fan of people eating.

Speaker 3 (41:47):
He did, you know?

Speaker 2 (41:48):
He was, you know, I would say, on the whole
generally God, and the fact that he was like, what
does it matter.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
Jesus gave you those children.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Right where, I'm just gonna return them, stamping on them.

Speaker 3 (42:00):
Set Now, by this point, mackenzie had put together a
sort of clin of security force within the G and
I M and they were tasked with making sure the
fast was going according to plan. That's crazy people who
were having problems sticking to the fast or genuinely needed food.

(42:21):
I mean not to say that everybody didn't genuinely need food,
but like things like nursing mothers or pregnant women or
children were sneaking food at night, and like drinking water
from the streams. They were like sharing streams with animals, Yeah,
drinking water. And the security force took their job very seriously,
punishing people who didn't want to fast or tried to

(42:44):
escape GENI AM. Oftentimes this took the form of tying
people to trees for like days on end. This is
har Yeah. Yeah. McKenzie had this view that when they
were dying, it was their quote unquote wedding day and

(43:04):
began calling the death's wedding so he'd be like, you know, Stacy.

Speaker 2 (43:09):
Is on her way to her wedding to what he's doing. Yeah,
that's disgusting.

Speaker 3 (43:14):
And and maybe to like rationalize it for himself, like
it's not people dying, it's a wedding.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
It's easier to do stuff if you don't talk about it.
I'm going to kill this guy. I'm going to kick him.

Speaker 3 (43:23):
With There were many times when people were close to
death from starvation, Mackenzie would show up and strangle them
or have them strangled so they could go onto on
their journey to heaven. It was like, I'll complete this
journey for you so you can.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
Go to And that's not to say that everyone who
was there was not totally on board with this, Like
there were definitely members who believed they were sick. Yeah,
believed heavily that Mackenzie could speak directly to God and
he'd been teaching these things and following the rules of

(43:59):
the fact because they genuinely believed that they were going.

Speaker 3 (44:03):
To see Jesus. Oh my God. Right, So it's not yeah, yeah, sorry.
And there was a big juxtaposition between the way the
followers were treated and the way members of the security
force were treated. Oh yes, followers were treated essentially as prisoners.

(44:23):
The security force were treated as kings. Obviously, they were
paid for their work there, and I saw in a
lot of places at in Kenya, it's really difficult to
get work, to get a steady job that provides well.
And they were getting paid like seventy five dollars a month,
I want to say to every two months.

Speaker 2 (44:42):
Yeah, fuck so they I mean that's like pretty good
for that, like.

Speaker 3 (44:48):
So many of them. But because of this, because they
were like paid employees, rightually, most of them knew that
like the miracles that he was performing that m. Kenny
was performing were fake and like pre set up.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
Like tying fishing line to things.

Speaker 3 (45:03):
Yeah, or he was like healing somebody to walk again.
That was you know, like not injured. It's very stage right,
they're like pushing the actors around backstage right right. But
they continue to stay because they were making money. Their
families were not subject to the rules of the fast.
They even got bags of maize during harvest season along
with like meat and rice, so they got fed very well.

(45:25):
They were able to freely walk around the compound, and
some took advantage of their status and I heard or
I read also that This was sort of encouraged by McKenzie.
They felt free rein to rape the women yep, that
were there, and there was extra money in it for
the people who went around strangling, like the people who

(45:47):
were close to death from starvation. There was extra money
in it. So yeah, but even then, I mean, there's
a certain amount of monitoring that happens with the security
force they had. There were rules that they also had
to They weren't as extreme, but like they had certain rules.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
It was like if I ask you to do something,
you kind of have to do it right. But yeah,
definitely a lot looser for the hospital force. Yeah, for sure.

Speaker 3 (46:10):
Now this went unchecked for a while, but in twenty
twenty three, stories about what was going on at the
compound started leaking out. Huh, and a man named Chengawa Mangi,
who was an elder at a village nearby, These two
boys like escape from the compound into the village and

(46:30):
he takes these two boys in. They were ten and
twelve years old. They'd escaped jan I am. This is
again from the New Yorker article. Quote. They told Mongi
that he that they had been eating sand to survive,
and that one of their mothers had died of starvation unquote. Wow,
now this was so concerning that two hundred people from

(46:51):
the village go to the compound to investige village justice.
But as they get there, Mackenzie's security forces come out
with like machetes and bats and basically fight off the
villagers from entering the compound.

Speaker 2 (47:07):
That means normal things happening there. Yeah, and they're there
fight people, right, they're forced to retreat. They go back
to the village. But the boys were not the only ones,
like making it out of this compound with this kind
of story of starvation and like having to find food.

Speaker 3 (47:24):
Yeah. One of Mackenzie's deputies, Titus Katana, essentially defected after
witnessing starvation, beatings and public killings. He went to see
this guy named Victor Coudo, who is the head of
the Malindi Community Human Rights Center. Wow.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
So Katana tells Kudo the stories of what's going on
and is like he had made it out with some
videos of people being punished for not for punished for eating, right,
we're not following the fast. Oh that's good, that's good
that he has that. Yes. Yeah, although like in the beginning,
the police were not necessarily the most receptive to Like

(48:05):
they were like, we kind of need harder evidence, Like
it's hard for us to do anything because we don't
have any evidence. Maybe do you job, maybe maybe do
some detective work. I don't know.

Speaker 3 (48:14):
Well. In April twenty twenty three, police felt that they
finally had enough evidence to actually go and make an
arrest and start an in earnest investigation into what may
have been happening with GNIM. This started with arresting McKenzie good.
They arrested right away, but then he's released on bail
no and they continue their investigation. After a little bit,

(48:38):
he was re arrested and held in custody because they
were doing a raid of the compound when they got there,
using this Kudo, the human rights guy. They use him
as sort of a guide of the property. When they
got there, they discovered several math graves scattered across the

(49:02):
eight hundred acre properties, along with several people still alive
but starving to death, and more that had like heard
the police coming and escaped into the forest. So there's
still people out there that they're like, we're probably never
going to know or say again or whatever. Most of
the graves contained women and children. There seemed to be

(49:22):
some families buried together like they were not These are
not like hundred people mass graves, but they're like, you know,
maybe ten to twelve.

Speaker 1 (49:30):
Right.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
Bodybably did a big hole and rye fill everyone in fro.
Some of them were family members, all buried in one grave.
Some were not buried at all. They even found a
person that had been buried alive for three days that
was still they managed to take to the hospital and recovered,
but they had been buried underground for three days. At
hospital food tasted delicious, probably, but you have to be

(49:53):
careful because it's like just a little at a time. Yeah,
your system is like offload. Yeah. They they've also discovered
that there were organs missing from a lot of the
bodies as well, things like kidneys and eyes. Icye then
makes authorities assume that G and I M Is involved

(50:14):
in some sort of organ trafficking and trading. Very squid game.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
Yeah, and it's I mean.

Speaker 2 (50:21):
Very real, like very lucrative, very real. Hold on to
your organs, guys.

Speaker 3 (50:26):
Don't let nobody take your organs.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (50:28):
Now, as of the writing of the New York article,
this was in August twenty twenty four so August last year,
police had recovered around four hundred and fifty bodies from
the property. Although the government has not released an official estimate,
workers at the site estimate hundreds of bodies more. I
mean it's eight hundred acres, so I don't know what

(50:48):
percentage of the property they've gone through or like, it's
a lot of that's a lot of land. That's a
lot of land.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
One hundred and fifty people. That's sad.

Speaker 3 (50:59):
There's more.

Speaker 2 (51:00):
No, no, please stop stop immediately.

Speaker 3 (51:04):
In addition to McKenzie, ninety four accomplices have been taken
into custody, but many have denied any and all claims
of murder or for starvation. I don't know what you're
talking about, but many are still on the run. Yeah,
you know, a lot of them escaped. McKenzie is charged
with the manslaughter of two hundred and thirty adults, of

(51:26):
two hundred thirty adults through suicide pact, and the murder
of one hundred and ninety one children, and is currently
in custody awaiting trial.

Speaker 4 (51:34):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (51:35):
Interestingly enough, Alexis Akaoo, who wrote the New York article,
was able to interview mackenzie while he was in custody. Really, yeah,
And so I want to read a little portion of
that for you.

Speaker 2 (51:48):
Because it's interviewing. He had an elector no kidding.

Speaker 3 (51:51):
Yeah, he was there on a visit with his wife
and kind of like tells her to come in the room.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
It's a really good article. And I told you, yeah,
he said that this is quote.

Speaker 3 (52:04):
He said that he had advised his followers not to
go to hospitals or schools, but that he had not
forced them to do anything. His wife noted that he
was not the only one concerned over the types of
things children were being taught in schools, including LGBTQ issue,
and that in Florida the government was censoring textbooks. Mackenzie

(52:24):
said that he had stopped preaching in twenty nineteen after
his arrest, and that he had never set up a
formal place of worship in Shakahola, which was the name
of the compound. There's no church there, he said. There
was nothing. It was just shambas. He had lived there
as a member of the community. It was sort of
like a village, he said, quote.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
Yeah, sort of except for the piles of dead bodies.

Speaker 3 (52:46):
Yeah, He's like, I don't know, none of food. I
don't know anything.

Speaker 2 (52:49):
About a church. There was barely buildings there. I don't
even know out of here. McKenzie goes on to adamantly
deny that he or his security for had ever murdered anybody,
and that he had any knowledge of mass graves prior
to them being found by the investigating authorities. He's like, yeah,

(53:10):
He's like, I don't know anything. We had some sinkholes,
but got in know they were bodies.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
Wow, no idea they were that. That's what he says.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
That's where all those bodies went.

Speaker 3 (53:18):
Yeah, yeah, another This is another quote from the from
the article quote. He then claimed if his followers had died,
it was because Jesus Christ had come and raptured them away.
Jesus himself did it. He said.

Speaker 2 (53:32):
Nobody, nobody killed anybody. I did nothing, and nobody can
stand anywhere and say mackenzie did this and this. His wife,
who said that she had never been to Shakahola, was
more careful. She said that there seemed to have been
a mistrust of uh, I'm sorry, a mixture no, no,

(53:56):
a mixture of some fights and conflicts, and that she
was convinced this was the cause of the deaths.

Speaker 3 (54:02):
When I asked if.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
She, like her husband, believed the people had been raptured,
she said, I don't. I don't have a view of
that because I wasn't there a quote. Alexis aka Oho
goes on to say that quote. Since my visit, she
has been charged as an accomplice to manslaughter, child negligence,
and radicalization.

Speaker 3 (54:22):
She has pleaded not guilty. End quote. Oh my god.
And Mackenzie continues to assert that this is a total
attack on his faith and it's like religious persecution. Like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Now,
like I said, this is still an ongoing matter. Yeah,
and there's definitely been some interesting charging decisions in this matter. Now,

(54:46):
first of all, I didn't know this was a thing
because I do not know a ton about African law. Yeah,
but apparently in Kenya, suicide is a misdemeanor punishable by
up to two years in prison.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
What get up, You're going to jail.

Speaker 3 (55:05):
So as a result of this, sixty five victims had
been a rain for attempted suicide in June twenty twenty three. Obviously,
this decision is heavily criticized by human rights organizations for
the obvious message that it sends to survivors, right, Like
it's again, I don't know if those charges have been

(55:27):
dropped if they but originally were rained. I thought that
was an interesting decision because like, obviously there is coercion
yeah here, and like absolutely Also, that's a really interesting
law because if you attempt suicide and survive, then you
could go to prison for right.

Speaker 2 (55:44):
So it's just going to make people try harder. That's bad,
I get. I don't know, It's just a weird, strange
law to me.

Speaker 3 (55:52):
Stupid, yeah, moral policing, the Yeah. The other thing is
that although Mackenzie had been taken into custody while the
search of the compound was underway, he hadn't actually been
charged with anything at the time, so authorities had to
continue like going back to the courts to get an
extension of his detention time because they're investigating, they're investigating,

(56:14):
they don't want to release him. So they literally had
to keep going back to the courts and be like,
we still need to detain, we still need to detain,
and he'd never been charged with anything. Wow, Mackenzie is
now the longest detention without charge in Kenyan history at
one hundred and seventy one hundred and seventeen days in custody.

Speaker 2 (56:31):
Wow, I hope it doesn't get out.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
Shit. Well, he has now been charged. He has now
been charged, but he was long oh icic Yeah, And
they were primarily looking at the one hundred and ninety
one charges for the children, but the court also ordered
that the number of charges be reduced from one hundred
and ninety one to twelve, largely to avoid delays in

(56:54):
the court process. Okay, he's still a waiting trial, but
like when he's I think I said ninety four basically
co defendants, like accomplices that had been arrested. The breath
and like of these charges for all these people is
in the hundreds, maybe thousands, because for each of those accomplices,
you're talking about maybe a couple hundred counts of whatever,

(57:17):
depending on what their involvement was. Times ninety four.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
Holy shit.

Speaker 3 (57:23):
So the judge was like, we need to figure out
how to like reduce these to the really important things
that we can prove, because even with twelve children, like,
you're probably not going to get out of prison if
you're convicted, right, oh gosh, but like yeah, yeah, so
he is currently a waiting trial.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
I hope he's having a miserable time in prison.

Speaker 3 (57:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:44):
I hope he isn't eating anything now.

Speaker 3 (57:45):
He probably can't see his wife because she's charged.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
I hope she's also having a terrible time. I spit
in her food.

Speaker 3 (57:53):
Yeah. Yeah. Also, don't joy to call. Yeah, don't, don't
try ault, don't.

Speaker 1 (57:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
Instead listen to this podcast.

Speaker 4 (58:01):
Need an Escape. Vanish into the depths of a magic forest,
head out on an interstellar repair mission. Travel back in
time to change the future. Explore inside someone or something else.
Meet dragons, werewolves, birds, bears, aliens, merman, and a man
with a fish bowl for a head, All in ten

(58:23):
minutes or less. Every week, tune into six hundred seconds
Saga for your weekly science fiction and fantasy escape.

Speaker 3 (58:30):
All right, Rachel, that has been our episode.

Speaker 2 (58:32):
Oh my gosh, that was a heavy one.

Speaker 3 (58:34):
That was heavy. We haven't had a real heavy one
in a long time.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
I'm gonna have to go watch cheerful stuff.

Speaker 3 (58:40):
Yeah, ain't some food. I'm starving.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
I am. I felt really bad, but I was like, Okay,
this is actually making me like really hungry.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
Yeah, now I'm starving.

Speaker 2 (58:48):
What are you gonna have?

Speaker 3 (58:48):
I don't I don't know. Probably McDonald's or something.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
I just want, like a sandwich.

Speaker 3 (58:52):
Yeah, I just said Jimmy John's.

Speaker 2 (58:54):
Like the other Jonathan's.

Speaker 3 (58:56):
Oh I have that panda in my fridge remember. Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
Anyway, if you enjoyed this episode, you can find more
just like this at Bad Taste podcast dot com.

Speaker 3 (59:07):
Do you have any final thoughts.

Speaker 2 (59:08):
Before we wrap up here? I'm just excited for my sandwich.
A right, I can hate it because I'm not an occult.

Speaker 3 (59:15):
Excited for the sandwich. Our sound and editing is by
to Folman. Our music is by Jason Zakschewsky. Do your Enigma.
This has been the Bad Taste Crime Podcast. We will
see you in two weeks. Goodbye, Oh my god. That's
not the new not the new theme song. It's been
the Highway.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
It was as if the way which people washed over
with town wear it another

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Episode 197 - Manna From Heaven

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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;}Episode 197 - Manna From Heaven