48 Hours - "48 Hours" Presents: The Family -- A Cult Revealed

Episode Date: February 25, 2018

Allegations of stolen children, drugs, abuse and a leader who claimed to be the second coming of Christ.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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to a remote base near Joshua Tree National Park. They have to alert the military. And when they do, the NCIS gets involved. From CBS Studios and CBS News, this is 48 Hours NCIS. Listen to 48 Hours NCIS ad-free starting October 29th on Amazon Music. The reason I'm going home is to see the children. They starved us, they beat us. Being drugged daily.

She believes that she is the reincarnation of Christ. What could be more grand than that? It was an incredible story. This has got to be looked into properly. Anne Hamilton Byrne was the leader of what we would call a hybrid New Age cult. I had to start it. That was divine orders. That was my mission. That was the divine vision. The cult at its peak had branches in the United States and in multiple countries in the world. I think she simply set about it as a project, you know,

I'll collect as many kids as I can. Once she became the leader of the cult, I think she would get whatever she wanted. I think one thing that she wanted was lots of little children, little perfect little children in perfect little dresses with perfect little blonde hair. Why did you start to take in the children? I love children.

you start to take in the children? I love children. I'm looking right at each one of you. You are the initiate. You're staring into the awakening. I think she believed that the world would end in some sort of apocalyptic event and we would be so perfectly trained and so disciplined that we would be able to lead the world into the next epoch. There were all those pretty blonde hairs with beautiful voices because we all sang as well. beautiful voices, because we all sang as well. She got someone to make us those clothes, the sailor's shirts,

the skirts. I wanted them to look like brothers and sisters though, I must admit this. I love them in their little smocks and jeans and the long hair and ribbons. It was beautiful. My mother was a very glamorous, gorgeous, beautiful woman. I adored her. She would either be a magic queen or a wicked witch. This is the moment of rebirth upon a new planet. We've received the call. and great things will be done.

You had to go through an experience called going through. And going through meant that you were given LSD and you were put into a darkened room. The world just went crazy. The walls sort of bending in and out. I remember thinking and seeing lights and shapes and colours. Anne was there and it was done under her instruction. and it was done under her instruction. She said if we did ever tell the police that they would throw us into burlap sacks

and beat us and rape us. Eventually I did go to the police. The police decided then to do a raid, get the kids out. Okay everybody, I'll explain to you what's gonna happen. They're taking it somewhere. We realize realise it's very very stressful for you. We're going away. We are. You can trust us. Great big deep breaths. Well investigations are still underway into a religious sect in Victoria known as the family. Children stolen at birth, brainwashed, beaten, even given mind-altering drugs like LSD.

brainwashed, beaten, even given mind-altering drugs like LSD. A case that unfolded in Australia came to its dramatic conclusion outside this house in the Catskill Mountains, Hurleyville, New York. My whole life was wrapped up in this investigation. She is the most evil person that I've ever met. As a kid growing up in Chicago, there was one horror movie I was too scared to watch. It was called Candyman. It was about this supernatural killer who would attack his victims if they said his name five times into a bathroom mirror. But did you know that the movie Candyman was partly inspired by an actual murder?

I was struck by both how spooky it was, but also how outrageous it was. Listen to Candyman, the true story behind the bathroom mirror murder, early and ad-free, with a 48-hour plus subscription on Apple Podcasts. Hotshot Australian attorney Nicola Gaba was born into legal royalty. Her specialty? Representing some of the city's most infamous gangland criminals. However, while Nicola held the underworld's darkest secrets, the most dangerous secret was her own. She's going to all the major groups within Melbourne's underworld,

and she's informing on them all. I'm Marsha Clark, host of the new podcast, Informants Lawyer X. In my long career in criminal justice as a prosecutor and defense attorney, I've seen some crazy cases, and this one belongs right at the top of the list. She was addicted to the game she had created.

She just didn't know how to stop. Now, through dramatic interviews and access, I'll reveal the truth behind one of the world's most shocking legal scandals. Listen to Informant's Lawyer X exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, and listen to more Exhibit C true crime shows early and ad-free right now. It's incredible. Absolutely incredible that I'm standing here. It's an unbelievable feeling.

Here in the Catskills region of New York State, Lex DeMann is far from home. A former detective with the Victoria Police Department in Melbourne, Australia, he's here to retrace the steps of the biggest case of his career, hunting down a dangerous fugitive cult leader. Lex, for a man who has been emotionally as well as professionally involved in this case for so many years, to see this house for the first time, what has this day been like for you?

It's been a tough day. It brought back memories for me of some of the victims. Innocent victims, children who had no choice, and true believers who Lex says fell under the spell of Anne Hamilton Byrne, a one-time yoga teacher turned cult leader who convinced followers she was the

female reincarnation of Jesus Christ. If you would learn how to tread the path of attainment, you must go to the one who has successfully passed through it. Her cult was known simply as the family. The family still lives. Well, even today, the family still lives in Australia. It still exists. Now, some of the cult's children are telling their stories

of what life was like inside the families fenced in compound in Australia with its leader, Anne Hamilton Byrne. It is possible to make contact with the secret source of life of the Most High. At the core of that life were Anne's mystical teachings. Each week, hundreds of her followers gathered at a lodge to worship Anne. We get ready to enter the next universe. Under the influence of LSD, she had this vision

that she's got to collect all these children from birth. Because the end of the world was coming. Most of the population of the world's going to perish. She was preparing us to re-educate the world, what's left of it. Adam Lancaster and Dave Whitaker grew up in the cult. Only one rule, do absolutely everything she tells you.

There were 28 children in all, ranging from toddlers to teens. Some were the offspring of cult members, others were taken from unwed mothers, tricked into believing their newborns were going to good homes. A few, investigators say, were children stolen at birth. The cult doctor arranged for my biological mother to be drugged and made to sign an adoption form. Sarah Moore, who had believed Anne was her birth mother, only learned the truth when she was an adult. During my

birth, a pillow was put over her head. She was given major tranquilizers. And as soon as I was born, I was taken away instantly. She wasn't even allowed to see, look at me. Anne did have one child of her own, a daughter, who was a young adult by the time Anne started her cult. Later on, when Anne was in her 50s, she'd sometimes explain the arrival of new children by telling followers that she was their mother, and even took to wearing maternity clothing. She once told a young Dave Whitaker that she'd given birth to triplets.

She just looked me straight in the face and said, I had these three children. I'm thinking, you didn't have those three children. You must think I'm a bloody idiot to tell me that. But I just said, oh, yes, OK, agreed with her. She's not somebody you argue with. The children who were adopted by Anne were all given the last name of Hamilton Byrne and believed they were brothers and sisters. Anne even groomed them to resemble one another. We all did look the same. We all had blond and bleached hair.

Not all of us. Some had red hair because Auntie Anne was actually naturally red-headed. I wanted to show you a couple of pictures from the family. How about this one? That's a really harrowing picture. Steve Eichel is a psychologist and an internationally recognized cult expert. To me, that represents children who are clearly being controlled, who are having their individual identities

destroyed. The average person, though, would think, what lovely children. How could this group possibly be evil? The Colts' home movies made it seem like a paradise. But Sarah Moore and Anna Rae Trina Byrne say they were carefully orchestrated. She'd sometimes, you know, brush our hair herself or put us in curlers the night before. The photographs and stuff which we've taken. So much effort to get that scene on film. Why wouldn't you want to be part of this?

You know, it looks idyllic. In some ways this is like a marketing campaign. It's absolutely a marketing campaign. And show them to her followers. Showing off to the world that she's normal with lots of children, lots of happy children. Happy children with beautiful singing voices. Anne, who would never be mistaken for Julie Andrews,

nonetheless dreamed her children could one day become Australia's version of the von Trapp family from the film The Sound of Music. We were brought up that we've had many millions of lives. And Auntie Anne promised us that this was our last life if we stood by her. Those who are devoted to me, they are united with me. Those who are not devoted, they don't know me. The adopted children lived apart from the adult cult members in an isolated compound near Lake Eildon, about three hours outside Melbourne. The stark reality behind the images of a carefree childhood the children say

was a constant fear of the woman they called mother and the cult women she assigned to take charge of them. The women that looked after us were called aunties. Leanne Crease lived in the cult from her birth until she was 17 years old. They starved us, they beat us, they did all sorts of horrible things to us. Deontes were to be avoided at all costs. If someone wet the bed, they'd get cold showers. One of the youngest girls did not speak until I think she was five. At the age of 18 months, Ben Shenton was sent by his mother,

a grateful cult member, to live at the children's compound. One of the boys had asthma. He was wheezing and snivelling. So these nurses would put him outside in the cold at night. One could never be sure what could happen next. We were frightened for each other all the time. Have you ever wondered who created that bottle of sriracha that's living in your fridge? Or why nearly every house in America has at least one game of Monopoly?

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the brink of extinction. Listen to the Pitcairn Trials exclusively on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Ann was waiting for me and just welcomed me and took me in and looked at me and I was known right through to my toes. Ann Hamilton Byrne's magnetism and command always seemed to hypnotize some of her followers. It's hard to put into words, but it's the most amazing, wonderful feeling. It was just a feeling of being known and understood. Like true believer Michael Stevenson Helmer,

who was 19 years old when he met Anne. She just radiated it out. Don't you know that? Haven't you experienced that? Don't you know that? Haven't you experienced that? Even those who later broke away from the family are still awed by Anne's seductive strengths. When Auntie Anne walked into her room, you knew she was there. She had the airs and the graces of the Queen of England.

In fact, Anne told her devoted believers that she had descended from royalty. We, as children, thought she was beyond the Queen of England. There was one time where Mum said that she'd even spent time with the Queen having cups of tea. So we just assumed that Aunty Anne was in the same league as the Queen of England. We all believed as children that she had a perfect childhood. But Anne's childhood was far from perfect, as the children would learn years later. Her mother was psychotic and the father worked on the railways and was absent a lot of the time.

She came from an extremely impoverished and horrible background. Which may explain why she tried to create her own von Trapp family. I think that she was trying to portray this perfect life and this perfect family, something that she didn't have. As an adult, Anne turned to yoga and began studying Eastern religions. I had been teaching yoga quietly because that was my master's last utterance. I had to start it. That was divine orders.

That was my mission. That was the divine vision. She created a new persona, a new age guru available to those in need of spiritual guidance. But she needed credibility and zeroed in on a highly respected British physicist and author, Dr. Rainer Johnson, who had a large following. He was a very kindly old man, very clever, but very, very, very gullible. So gullible, he believed Anne was Jesus Christ.

Anne had received some inside information after having sex with Johnson's gardener, but pretended she was clairvoyant, and Dr. Johnson bought it. She appears at his door in the middle of the night saying that she knows that he's going to go to India with his wife, and the wife's going to get sick over there, and that she's's the Messiah and after that he was hers. Convinced Anne was a Messiah, Johnson began sending her referrals, students and friends, some of whom were suffering personal crises. This lovely voice answered me. It was an entrancing voice full of depth and love and encouragement. Fran Parker was an early follower. We didn't think of ourselves as a cult.

Everyone there seemed to be on a similar wavelength. They were just lovely people who were sincerely looking for this spiritual dimension in their lives. In Australia, there was a huge interest amongst upper and middle class people in alternative spirituality. Anne's teachings struck a chord. With her newfound credibility, courtesy of Rainer Johnson, she began to attract more and more followers, and the cult known as the family was born. and the cult known as the family was born.

The cult was made up of professional people, architects, solicitors, barristers, nurses, professional people within society. How do you get someone so smart to do something that the rest of the world perceives as just so stupid? That's a question that haunts all of us all the time. Cult expert Steve Eichel. One can be extremely highly educated and yet have a real psychological naivete. And a lot of times people who are really smart, are really educated,

mistakenly believe that they are now invulnerable to any kind of influence, because I'm too smart to be conned. Lex says Anne targeted anyone who could help her amass power and money. She set her sights on Bill Byrne, a successful and married local building contractor. I think that he was captivated by her charm just like everybody else was. Ah, there, Bill. Bill divorced his wife and married Anne.

Say something. Love you, darling. They became the unquestioned leaders of the family. And I love you, darling. Love you, honey. Sharing the new last name, which would become known around the world, Hamilton Byrne. Love you, honey. Anne's adult followers agreed to live by her rules.

Unseen, unheard, and unknown was the cult's motto. They kept their jobs and congregated on one street, miles from the children's compound. In the 70s and 80s, the majority of the family owned the whole street, every house in the street, because they wanted to be near Auntie Anne, and Auntie Anne wanted them to be near her. Anne had a surefire way to keep many of her followers under her thumb. The mind-altering drug, LSD. I just remember being in this world of color. Purples to pinks to reds to greens to blues. It was as if I'd walked into jelly. Learn more about the family from a true believer at 48hours.com. Ann Hamilton Byrne

is the most evil person that I've ever come across. And I've come across quite a few evil people in my life. In Australia, locals would call Detective Lex Duman a copper, and investigating Anne Hamilton Byrne had been this copper's life's work. When you look at what she did to children, what she did to young mothers, taking children, breaking marriages up, taking money off people, she is an evil, evil person. She'd just change your whole world. She'd turn it upside down overnight.

Sarah Moore, taken from her unwed mother at birth, grew up watching Anne manipulate her disciples, children and adults, with unquestioned power, combining love with fear. They'd have a marriage. They might be in love with someone, or they might have a kid or whatever, and she'd just take that away overnight and say, no, you're with this person now, or no, you're having this kid now, not that one. That was the way it worked. But there are also stories of Anne winning over converts by allegedly performing miracles.

Ben Shenton, who grew up in the family, describes how Anne won over his mother, Joy, after a life-changing encounter. Joy is completely bedridden. She's been that way for months. Scoliosis, a calcified spine, she is on death's door. Anne knocks on the door, my eldest brother gets up, opens the door and Anne comes in. And she says to Joy, Joy if you serve me, I will heal you. Within six weeks, Joy is up and walking around, and from that moment, Anne was, as far as she's concerned, exactly who she claimed to be. The reincarnation of Jesus with the power to prove it.

By the 1980s, the family's membership topped 500. Lex says Anne began ordering her followers to take LSD in bizarre ceremonial rituals she called clearings. Once they were administered the LSD in a dark room, the door would appear open and here would be Anne standing there in a flowing white gown. Behind her was a bucket of dry ice, which permeated like smoke. And under the hallucinogenic drug, LSD, they were actually convinced that they were seeing the Almighty, that they were seeing Jesus Christ. So all Anne needed was a bucket of dry ice, some LSD, and this production,

and she could convince some of the smartest people in Australia to follow her. Professionals, absolutely. It's a bizarre story, but it's a fact. Is this crazy or what? Well, it certainly looks crazy to anybody outside of the group, outside of a cult. In a cultic group, typically there's a separate reality. And through a process of brainwashing, individuals basically come to believe

that the leader is the ultimate arbiter of truth. The purpose of purifying individuals was to increase their belief in Anne Hamilton Byrne as Jesus, as the Messiah, as a pure spiritual being. And that's exactly what happened to Dave Whitaker, who was a teen when his father, also a cult member and a doctor, injected him with LSD. member and a doctor injected him with LSD. Anne would come in every now and again and sat down beside me and whispered in my ear, who is Jesus? And then somehow the thought popped into my head, you're Jesus. And she goes, that's right, David. You always knew I was the Lord. Over time, some members grew disillusioned, left the cult, and dared to speak out. We were contacted by one of the members who had become disaffected.

Philippe de Montigny is an investigative journalist. The people who are disaffected, they refer to things like brainwashing, husbands and wives swapping all the time, children who didn't know who their parents were. No matter which way you looked at it, it seemed wrong. He confronted Anne's mentor, Dr Rainer Johnson, about all those rumours. It's been suggested that drugs are used within your group. Can you see any cases for this? This, of course, I deny. I deny, absolutely.

We're respectable citizens, as I've tried to indicate to you. Those obedient citizens included Fran Parker. Anne turned her life upside down one day by unexpectedly giving her a baby boy. She said, Francis, your little baby has arrived. And I just fell in love with that baby at first sight. I took him home, and I was just so happy. He was gorgeous. But Fran's joy was short-lived

when Anne ordered her, for no apparent reason, to divorce her husband. She said, why don't you just go home and leave a little note? Anne succeeded in ending the marriage. No adult dared cross her, in part because one of her cult members ran a local psychiatric hospital. There was always the threat of the mental hospital, she said. It only takes two psychiatrists to commit you. Anne could be ruthless and was greedy as well,

says Adam Lancaster, who lived in the cult for decades. Auntie Anne sucked as much money out of people as what she possibly could. Anybody who joined the family had to pay dues. She was offering them a way into heaven. With those dues, Anne's critics say she began enriching herself, buying up properties in England and New York State. She and Bill began to travel more frequently,

sending back short, gushy films to her followers and the children. Aren't they the sweetest? No, they're really beautiful, right honey? They're beautiful boys. Oh, stay like that for a while. That's beautiful. I kiss the top of their faces.

That's about it. Not the bottom. Beautiful boys. And the children. Oh, they're lovely. In truth, Anne's collection of 28 young children was getting to be a bit of a pain. While she was traveling, Anne often left them at the compound with those so-called aunties. And the aunties carried out Anne's instructions with brutal efficiency.

The philosophy behind that was it was better to have a dead child than a child that lied to you. Anyone who saw this house, they would think it would be a lovely holiday house. For us, of course, Eildon was a dreadful place to live. Anna Rae Trina Byrne was a child of the family cult. Now, as an adult, she's revisiting her childhood home, back where her nightmares began. It was very hard to relax. I don't know if I even knew what that meant, I don't think. It was just a terrible place to be.

I uselessly dreamed of going to Mars and living there. Anna Ray was actually Bill Hamilton Byrne's biological granddaughter. As an infant, she was given to Ann and Bill. As she grew older, she wondered about the outside world, sometimes sneaking off the property. We did go for midnight walks, and we would peer into people's houses, and we were very curious as to what exactly it was they were doing.

Anne Hamilton Byrne has always insisted the children were well cared for. It was love, just love started it. But Anna Rae and the other children say that's a lie, that day-to-day life swung from the fear of severe discipline to mind-numbing boredom. Usually every single day was the same to the exact minute. 5.30 in the morning, we would be woken up. Always too early for me.

My bed was just right here. There would be the Hatha yoga meditation. And then set up the boys' room for school. These children were registered for homeschooling. Journalist Marie Moore. So there were the occasional education department checks. You know, there was these wonderful equations on the board to make us look advanced and sophisticated,

you know, above our level, which was never true. And the children certainly were too frightened to tell outsiders anything that was going on. Anna Ray says she fantasised about telling the education inspector the truth, but never got the chance. He was never in the room with us by himself. The aunties were always around. Behind the mask was a harsh reality.

The rules change, and you just work out what they are and decide how you're going to play the system to get what you need to survive. The aunts were the disciplinarians. But the aunties were just following Anne's orders. You never questioned it because you'd be slapped across the face. There were times when she would want to hear us scream for being naughty over the phone.

She'd ring up and ask to listen to us receiving beltings. Even Anne's own granddaughter, Rebecca, couldn't escape the punishments at Lake Eildon. Her mother had placed her under Anne's care. Rebecca remembers one hot day when her grandmother tried to cool the kids down. Because the water was so cold and I was so hot, I squealed when the water hit my chest because it was sudden. And that got me sort of quite a flurry of hits around the head for daring to make a noise. Sort of quite a flurry of hits around the head for daring to make a noise.

Leanne says the children suffered other terrifying tortures, similar to waterboarding. They used to fill up buckets of water and one by one they would hold us down and put our heads in the water and ask us questions and pull your head up and ask the question again and put it down in. And you remember absolute terror. That's the horror when it was uncontrollable, which is what Bill would do. He used to have a very, very bad temper. Watching her being belted with a buckle,

being beaten to the point where she's wriggling out of her clothes. Just horrendous. Worst of all, Leanne says, Anne starved the children. Sometimes she withheld food to punish them and padlocked the fridge. But her cats and dogs had all they could eat. Oh, the animals are fed so much better than we were.

It was of interest for some of us to perhaps try some of their food every now and then. I remember loving the bacon bones so I'd watch for them for when they'd put them out for the animals and I'd go and scavenge. Pretty awful but... Even more appalling was what happened

when one of Anne's pets died. Leanne says Anne honoured them with a macabre memorial, making the children share their bedrooms with the decomposing animals. So white sheet would be put on the bed and the dog would lay on the bed for three days. And then we'd have a burial for it, a burial service, and it would be buried in the garden. But the most important ceremony happened when a child turned 14. the initiation into the family which meant getting that hit of lsd sometimes by injection sometimes by mouth well she had me under lsd for

days she'd just come in like every 12 hours or so and give me another piece because I wasn't working hard enough. I just more or less flipped out into some sort of psychotic state. Struggling to make sense of their feelings, some children at times mimic the abuse. I trapped my cat in my room and I used to throw her around and then the anger would subside and and I'd hold her and I'd rock and I'm sobbing and I'm sorry and I'm sorry and no one ever heard no one ever came and said are you okay what's going on Why are you doing this? Sometimes the children screamed into the night. Neighbors across the lake called police, but Anne was prepared.

Her aunties welcomed the officers in and served tea, distracting them while the children hid. They didn't even know we were there because we were stuffed into this little hole. And through that hole right there is where we all managed to fit. At one point I think there were 28 children thrown on top of each other into this space and then they put the covering back over the wall and then a painting on top of it. And we were too scared to make any noise whatsoever. We were taught that everyone out there was evil and police, you know, would put you in a bag and beat you.

One time, Sarah says, the children couldn't hide in time. Still, Anne had a backup plan. The kids stuck closely to her script, reciting rehearsed lines that nothing was wrong. I do remember one question the police people asked us, and that was, are you being fed properly? Well, that's a very difficult question. You know, I was surviving, I was alive.

Yeah, sure, I'm being fed properly. You know? Well, how much are you supposed to have? You know, I had no idea. We were all very protective of our parents and of what was happening at the time. You know, I had no idea. We were all very protective of our parents and of what was happening at the time. Nobody would dare say anything. As a child, of course you love your parents.

It doesn't matter what they do to you, you love them. But as the horrors wore on, Sarah and Leanne finally had had enough. They were determined to find a way out. The children's futures were about to change forever. I agreed to talk to the police, even though I knew that was betraying her. And I didn't think that, you know, it would tear the whole thing apart. As children, Sarah and I used to talk about escaping. From 14, 15 age, you see the hypocrisy. I don't want to be part of her cult.

I don't want her to be my guru. Fed up with the hunger, abuse and psychological torture of life under cult leader Anne Hamilton Byrne, psychological torture of life under cult leader Anne Hamilton Byrne, Leanne, now 15, found the courage to confront her face to face. She says Anne responded with violence. She had attacked me quite viciously, had slapped me. I was very angry with her, so I actually slapped her back. And I thought, oh God, I'm not going to hang around for this. I actually slapped her back and I thought, oh God, I'm not gonna hang around for this. So I jumped out the window and ran down to the lake.

Kept running as far as I possibly could get away from them. And I saw a light in a house and I thought, oh well, I will go to them and ask them to go and get the police. They were a lovely couple, old couple. I remember the wife being very concerned. She said, oh, are you one of those children from around the lake? All I could say to them was just, please get me the police.

When an officer arrived, Leanne told him about the horrors. But instead of rescuing her, the officer called the aunties at Lake Eildon, who convinced him that Leanne was unstable. I think that if you're confronted by a story like that, you don't actually want to believe it. So he actually took me back. Remarkably, Leanne wasn't punished. It would be two more years before she got the nerve to run away again.

Quite by chance, I ended up in exactly the same house. The husband was there and he said to me, oh, you're the same girl that ran away those few years ago. Incredibly, the police even sent the same officer. This time I said to him, I will sleep in the gutter if you don't do something. You didn't believe me the first time and I don't care if you don't believe me this time, but I'm not going back there. So he said, no, that's okay. He said, I've got someone I'll take you to. The officer brought her to a local foster family, but Leanne wasn't prepared to turn her back on the cult just yet. She clammed up about her past, instead focusing on her future in the real world.

We weren't taught anything about the outside world. I didn't even know how to cross a road. I remember going to the bank and asking them if I could borrow $50 to go and buy clothes. I mean, they must have thought I was really weird because no one asked to borrow $50. Meanwhile, Sarah was 17 and still living in the cult until she too had a fallout with Anne. I was excommunicated and asked to leave the cult. At that stage, I could have grovelled to her and apologised

and said, sorry, you know, great master and all that, and I just said, OK, I'll go and master and all that, and I just said, okay, and I'll go and die in the gutter like you've told me to. Sarah was quickly taken in by some friendly locals and reunited with Leanne. The two couldn't stop thinking about the other siblings they'd left behind. The kids were suffering so much

that I couldn't see it go on a moment longer. I actually was seeing a counsellor and one day she said to me, well what are you going to do? And I said, well I think I'm going to go to the police. Now police were hearing first hand how the Colt children were starved, beaten and given LSD. I feel as though any other members of the sex stole my childhood. In these police interviews,

the girls are understandably emotional. I resent not being allowed to go to a normal school and not being allowed to form normal relationships. I wanted so much for her to love us, and I don't think she really ever did. Once I betrayed her, I was the Judas. Every Messiah has to have a Judas, I guess. Sarah says there was a price to pay for spilling Anne's secrets.

Anne wrote her enemies' names on slips of paper and put them in ice. They were forever damned. I thought I was cursed to die. How did you believe you'd die? By what means? I don't know. I just knew that I was going to because you can't betray your master

and expect to sort of live. Journalist Marie Moore, who was investigating the cult, experienced Anne's wrath firsthand. I also had a long period of time where I'd be lucky to get a night's sleep without the phone going through the night. Hang up calls, hang up calls. But Mari wouldn't quit. The more she learned, the more she worried about the rest of the children. The stories I was told from day one were horrendous.

It wasn't just manipulation of their lives. It was also being subjected to cruelty on an unimaginable level. We needed to save the rest of the children that were in the sect. With Sarah and Leanne's chilling statements, cops now had an overwhelming mass of evidence and a sinking feeling the children's lives were at risk finally they hatched a rescue plan a raid on the compound at lake eildon They're taking it somewhere. We realise it's very, very stressful for you. I actually went in with the police.

Bill said to me, how could you portray us like this? This so-called Jesus Christ was nothing more than a heinous criminal. I knock with force on that door. What do you say? I say, FBI, open the door. What happened to the children?

To me, it'll be a great day. They bury the bitch six foot under.