RedHanded - Episode 155 - 'Repent or Die': Panama's Jungle Death Cult

Episode Date: July 9, 2020

Following reports of strange riutals and bizarre religious ceremonies, in January 2020 Panamanian police headed into the country's remote jungle. What they found in a makeshift church, in the isolated indigenous village of Alto Terrón was something straight out of a 70s exploitation horror movie... Sources: The Missionary podcast: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-the-missionary-61230211/  https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-46336355 https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/04/13/a-missionary-on-trial https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/03/young-missionaries/551585/ https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2016/04/worlds-panama-indigenous-panama-papers-160408102014340.html https://www.zegrahm.com/blog/indigenous-cultures-panama-introductory-guide https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-21/panama-survivor-recounts-chaotic-cult-rite-that-killed-7/11885124 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-17/panama-exorcism-ritual-leaves-seven-people-killed-15-tortured/11876878 https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/28/panama-sect-massacre-indigenous-official-neglect https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/16/panama-burial-pit-children-exorcisms-religious-sect https://www.scmp.com/news/world/americas/article/3047128/screams-jungle-mystery-panama-cult-sacrifices-children https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-the-religious-death-cult-that-massacred-seven-in-panama?ref=scroll https://www.telemetro.com/nacionales/2020/01/16/congreso-ngaebe-lleva-registro/2445714.html https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-51144629 https://www.eluniversal.com.mx/mundo/secta-religiosa-torturo-y-sacrifico-6-ninos-y-una-mujer-embarazada-en-panama?amp See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Red Handed early and ad-free. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made. A seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. Follow Hollywood and Crime, The Cotton Club Murder on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Saruti.

I'm Hannah. And welcome to Red Handed. Got nothing to say today. Voting's closed now Oh yeah Will we know by the time? No we won't Possibly Because it's the Saturday before

Is it? I don't know Maybe No no It's the Thursday before the actual So we won't know We won't know But we've been sent boxes of things in the post

Oh yeah I just opened mine Just now So it's all like party materials There's like a streamer And like party hats Bunting whatever but we've been sent boxes of things in the past. Oh yeah, I just opened mine just now. So it's all like party materials, like there's like a streamer and like party hats, bunting, whatever, that all say British Podcast Awards on them. And then also the little like do-do-do things that you have at parties.

I have asked 17 people, nobody knows what they're called. What is the word for them? You know the things that the little like tongue thing comes out, you know, like a snake? Oh, I don't know. Exactly. Nobody knows. Nobody knows.

Nobody knows what the actual name is. It's just lost knowledge, one of those things. Because you don't buy them individually, do you? You just say, oh, those things that come with the balloons. Party blowers, that's the thing. But yeah, so we don't know. Maybe we do know. I don't know at this point that we are currently recording it.

But thank you to all of those who voted. Regardless of what happened, we will fill you in possibly next week. I don't know, at some point in the future. With that being said, should we talk about 2020? Please. Because I know we're halfway through,

which is a terrifying thought in and of itself. But I feel like 2020, understatement to say it's been a tough year for everyone. Probably. Not been great. Obviously, we're in COVID hell. If we cast our minds back all the way to the beginning, you'll remember the bushfires in Australia.

Who can forget Iran and the US teasing war threats? Who knows what's going to happen? India, they've gone hardline on the Hindi nationalism, which has been horrifying to watch. There's big floods as well, isn't there, in India right now? Oh, there's all sorts. So big, you can't keep up with it. I can't keep up with it. China are building more of those concentration camps. There's obviously the protests in Hong Kong over their freedoms. Then the protests all over the world following the murder of George Floyd. Then there were locusts in Africa, in case anyone missed that. The world's

obviously now also teetering on the edge of a global depression. The murder hornets. Do you remember those that were going to be big this year? I do. I saw an amazing tweet that was like, why introduce them as a character if they're just like a plot hole? What actually happened to them? I don't know. I don't know. I saw a great tweet that was like, it's like someone is time traveling and they keep trying to fix a mistake and they just keep making it worse and worse. And they were just trying to fix the murder hornets. So I don't know what happened to them, but apparently they were a thing. I don't know. It's all culminated in very weird things happening, like me retweeting Piers Morgan for the first time in my life. And of course, the realisation came in 2020

that it wasn't Naomi after all, but it was Tyra Banks all along who was the villain. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Where has that come from? Yes. I'm standing by it. I'm standing by it. I've missed this. Tyra Man. I mean, I feel like it was always there to be seen, but we all just chose not to look at it. And then there was all these compilations put together of all of the incredibly problematic and toxic things that went down on America's Next Top Model. And I watched it and I was like, shit. Oh, right, right, right, right, right. So it's like an America's Next Top Model

in isolation, not the like Naomi Tyra rivalry. As in like the whole bullying thing. And they were just like, never really happened. They had Naomi on the Tyra Banks show for them to like have it out. And basically all that happened, Tyra was like, no, Naomi, you called me the B word. Oh, shut up. Oh, no. A fashion show with a bunch of models who haven't eaten for seven days.

I'm sure the B word has been thrown out quite a lot. Do you remember when I was talking about that influencer that I follow that's like, oh, if I'm getting preparing for a shoot, like I eat like this. And everyone's just like, well, it's totally non-restrictive. Well, it is though, isn't it? I follow Charo, who's like a famous dancer and model. And like, she's like the queen of the cruise ship. She's on Drag Race all the time.

She posted on Instagram the other day, a picture of her when she was younger in like a bikini shoot she was like hi guys like really hope you like this picture because i didn't eat solids for five days before it i just drank pineapple juice and i'm like that is the clarity i need that is the transparency we all deserve exactly and then we can all have a little bit of reality and then just get on with our lives exactly but that was the thing it's like tyra being like naomi called her a bitch and that was her big... Like, Tyra, Tyra, have you watched back the incredibly problematic things that you said and did on America's Next Top Model? Never in my life have I yelled at a girl like this. It's got to be one of my favourite pop culture moments.

Second only to, who is she? Where did you find her? Of course, absolutely. And we were all rooting for you. Don't get me wrong. They are super iconic. And I watched it all. I watched it all. But when you look at it now and you're like, mate, just the things that went down on that show, they wouldn't fly. And they're not flying now. Oh, yeah. There was one. I can't remember. It's quite a late season, actually, where one of the black models, they were in Paris doing a shoot. And one of the male models refused to shoot with her because she was black and Tyra was like just get over it there was so much like that there was so much like anti-blackness on that show I'm just gonna say it because there was um and I hated it now I look back at it I hate it at the time I didn't realize what the fuck was going on and also speaking of the Tyra Banks show does anybody remember the episode where Tyra Banks ran around frothing at the mouth pretending to have rabies. What was going on?

What's happening? I don't know. Tyra! So yeah, it's been a big year for everybody. Realisations have been made. Horror has happened. So with all that going on, you'd definitely be forgiven if our story today flew under your radar. And if it did, oh mate, are you in for a shock? On the 14th of January 2020, Panamanian police headed into a remote and isolated part of the jungle on the country's Caribbean coast. They were heading for the village of Alto Teron in the El Teron Comarcal or district Nebocas del Toro. The region is home to the indigenous Engo Bugle peoples. And normally, the police in Panama would not venture out that far. Because Comarcals are semi-autonomous regions, and they are governed by the indigenous people themselves. So basically,

Panamanian police have severely reduced jurisdiction there. I've been to Bocas. I went for Christmas. Did you? Oh my God. Is it? So basically one of the natives in this story, he basically describes it as, there's no one left there. It's just full of gringos now.

Yeah, 100%. It's just an archipelago of fucking party islands. Like that's it. I went for Christmas and like my clearest memory is on Christmas day, fucking 2014 it must have been. We were in this bar that was like out over the water and everyone was jumping to the music so much that the entire structure of the bar was shaking. But it's like very beautiful. But yeah, it's gringo central.

Yeah, basically I didn't go but during like my year away traveling, I really wanted to. But what I realized was you cannot get really, well, at least at the time, from Panama into Colombia overland. And I was trying to do as much of it overland as possible. You had to fly an incredibly expensive flight or get the boat through the San Blas archipelago. And I was like, I'm the most seasick person in the world. I can't do it. And apparently those waters are particularly rough. San Blas archipelago and I was like I'm the most seasick person in the world I can't do it and apparently those waters are particularly rough San Blas is beautiful though I used to live with a guy in Costa Rica who did like when he was in season he would just do like I love it

when he's in heat not him personally when it was season when he was in season I mean he was uh he was doing plenty of heating let me tell you and would just, he had his own boat and he would take tourists around San Blas on like four week long sort of excursions. And that was his job. And then when it was off season, he'd live in the guest house where I lived. But yeah, if you've got to pick between Bocas and San Blas, I'd pick San Blas, I think. Yeah, maybe one day when I figure out how to keep my stomach contents inside when I'm anywhere near water. I'll get there. So we're leaving the Party Islands and we're going into the semi-autonomous regions where you may find the indigenous people. And on the 14th of January, the police had absolutely no choice but to go into the indigenous regions where they usually would never go.

Three villagers from the hamlet of Alto Terron had turned up at a hospital a few miles outside of the district and they showed the signs of serious trauma, including injuries consistent with violent beatings, sharp stab wounds like they'd been hacked at and burns all over their bodies. Two of them even had their mouths and tongues roasted. At first, no one in the hospital was sure what on earth was going on.

Many of the indigenous Zango Bugle population don't speak any Spanish. And so given that, on top of the tongue burnings, communication was pretty tough. But the people who come to the hospital seem to be describing strange rituals and sinister goings on deep in the jungle. These three men were also plainly terrified and they begged the police to go to their village immediately. But it wasn't going to be easy. To give you an idea of just how far these men who had escaped had travelled for help, well, they had hiked for hours down steep and muddy jungle paths to the nearest town of Rio Luis. Then they had taken a two-hour canoe trip,

then hitched another two-and-a-half-hour ride to the hospital in which they arrived in the city of Santiago. With the village being so remote and inaccessible by car, the police got going immediately, but they only made it to the village the following day, so on the 15th of January. They weren't sure what they'd find, but they knew, given the state of the men at the hospital, that it probably wasn't going to be good. But there is no way they were prepared for what was awaiting them. And I really wanted to get a sense of just how how isolated this village was and like what it actually looked like.

And I did manage to find a video of a man who had gone to this village on YouTube. And isolated is putting it mildly. There's nothing there. It's just jungle. And I don't want to sound overdramatic, but it's like so green. Even when I was watching it, when he'd shot it clearly just on his phone and it was a YouTube upload. It almost hurt your eyes how green the jungle was and it's just dense thick forest and like a thick fog that hangs over the entire place and in the footage you can just see there

are sort of like scattered houses made of like wood and corrugated metal and tarpauling clearly just like whatever building material they could get their hands on to build these huts and it's just very sparse that's the word but a few months before the police were summoned so at the end of 2019 a new addition had popped up in the village of alto teran. It was a church. The police, when they arrived, found it odd that this structure, especially considering that it was seemingly a place of worship, had almost been hidden away. It was covered in trees and plants. You could still see the outside, but the windows and doors were completely obscured. When the police got closer, they noticed on a wall of the church that was visible, there was written in blue chalk, Iglesias de Dios Fuente de Salvación.

And that means Church of God, Source of Salvation. There's a house. So I'm trying to buy a house at the moment, sort of around Stoke Newington. And I keep walking up there to like have a look at different roads and different houses. And there's one house that says evacuate detention centers, end COVID-19, which I'm like, yeah, cool. Because my cousin works for a modern slavery unit, and she had to go to a detention centre. And she said that they're all in there, packed in. And remember, these people have not committed a crime. It's not a prison, it's a detention centre. And they have to pay for soap to wash their hands and they don't have any money.

So it's just like rampant. So detention centers, yes. The house next door has signs in English and in Spanish. And the English one says, you have to repent, Christ is coming. And the other one says, creen Cristo y seré salvo, which means believe in Christ and be saved. Which I was not expecting, especially because that was more up towards Stamford Hill, which is a super Hasidic Jewish area. So I just wasn't really expecting to see it. And you don't, there's not that many, especially where I live, not that many Spanish speaking communities, really. No, definitely not. I'm really surprised by that. I went to go look at places in Walthamstow, every single window, hashtag BLM. I'm like, all yeah chill sick cool but also like when I first saw the um the crisis coming uh sign I was like to be honest this time they might have a point

BRB going to repent anyway so the police go inside this odd-looking obscured church and they found a horrific scene nine men dressed in ceremonial outfits were violently beating a terrified group of naked, tied-up villagers with knives and machetes. The men were screaming at their captives, what the police would later discover to be, accept the word of God and repent or die. The armed police were able to stop the attack and restrain the men and once they did they were able to fully take in the nightmarish scene that lay within that church.

There was a large wooden stage at one end of the building on which two naked pregnant women lay bound with ropes. In front of them was the bloody carcass of a slaughtered goat. Also on the stage was a wooden pulpit with a Bible, open at the Book of Revelations. There were overturned pews and random belongings like children's toys scattered everywhere across the floor. A red accordion and a drum laid to one side. And underneath, in the moss, were scratched seven crosses.

The police would soon discover the disturbing meaning behind these symbols as they continued their search. Because just a mile away, they found a mass grave that contained the bodies of seven people, including another pregnant woman, five of her children aged between 1 and 11 years old, and another teenager. The bodies were badly injured and they had all been decapitated.

The 15 captives that the police had rescued from the church were clearly intended to be next. They too had been beaten severely, hacked at with sharp objects, and most, just like the men who had turned up in Santiago, had their tongues burned out. It's painful enough burning your mouth on a lasagna. Imagine. I can't. I won't do it. But yeah, it looks like they had been using just like hot embers and just like putting them in people's mouths. I mean, I cannot even begin to think about what that must feel like. The area was so remote that helicopters had to be called in to move the victims to hospital. The police now had to figure out what in the hell had been going on in Altos Terón and why these men, who were themselves indigenous people from the village,

had murdered and brutalised their own people like this. As we said, Altos Terón is a very small village. It's made up of just about roughly 300 people, most of whom are related to one another, either by blood or by marriage. People have been living like that in Panama forever. Like this isn't like they've been put in this isolated place for some reason and then suddenly started behaving like this. There is some other catalyst because that's just it's the way of life is not strange to them in such an isolated place. Definitely. So before we move on with our story, that's actually a really important part of the conversation we need to have, because what we're going to do now is do one of our red handed rundowns of an incredibly big topic in about 10 bullet points or so. On your marks. I actually forgot to go back and count how many bullet points or so. On your marks. I actually forgot to go back and count how many bullet points, so I don't know. Roughly, I'm going to say. Because,

yeah, we do really need to understand a few things about the indigenous population of Panama to put this case into context. So there are seven unique indigenous cultures of Panama, which make up about 13% of the country's population. These cultures are typically divided into four major groups. And these aren't sort of individual tribes. These are groups that have been put together based on similarities they have in language, traditions, and geography. And these four groups are the Ngobugle, the Kuna, the Embera Wunan and the Naso Bribri. The Ngobugle people will be the main focus of our story today as they are the group involved with this case. So the Ngobugles are Panama's largest indigenous group with an estimated population of about 285,000 people.

Most of the Ngobugle inhabit a protected comarca in the northwest of the country. And remember that a comarca is, as we said, a semi-autonomous district governed by the indigenous population. And they usually have their own political systems, political leaders and laws. The indigenous population, even if it is a protected comarca, does not always own the land themselves. And over the decades, there have been numerous land battles between the government, indigenous people and various corporations. Many indigenous people throughout Latin America have been hounded by outsiders hungry for land and resources, well, for centuries, and driven deeper and deeper into remote land. We also see escalating

and often violent conflicts with logging and mining companies and these indigenous tribes. The economy of the Ngo Bugle is mainly built on subsistence farming and the Bugle population remain perhaps the most impoverished of all of Panama's people. Few have access to schools, electricity, health healthcare, local law enforcement, water or basic sanitation, as government presence is, quote, practically non-existent and they are largely cut off from the outside world. And I think it's really important to put this plight of the indigenous population into context. In 2018, Panama replaced Chile as the richest country in Latin America with the highest GDP per capita in the region and according to the IMF so the International Monetary Fund

they are predicted to hold that spot for five years so this isn't just like a one-year win they are significantly smashing it if we can put it that way. And in the general population of Panama, the extreme poverty rate is just 6.6%. That is incredibly low. But in the Engo Bugle Comarca that we're focusing on today, that same figure, so the extreme poverty figure, sits at 96%. The difference is huge. The wealth inequality in Panama is incredibly vast between the cities and between the sort of indigenous populations that live there.

And Panama's so rich because it kind of has a lot of natural resources, it has the Panama Canal, it has a really like advantageous geographical location, has a booming services sector. And of course, it is a massive tax haven. So much investment, foreign investment specifically, is currently pouring into Panama. But much of the rural coastal communities, especially indigenous populations, are being completely left behind. And all recent studies by the World Bank show that indigenous populations do not

benefit from the economic growth being experienced by countries in Latin America. The state abandonment and social isolation has left many of the indigenous populations, of Panama specifically, incredibly disenfranchised and vulnerable to exploitation. And we bring all this up because it is a fundamental part of the story today. But with all of that being said, let's get back to the case. With the men now arrested and under control, the police were finally able to speak with the other locals, and it was clear that they were terrified. They revealed that the church was controlled by a religious sect called Nueva Luz de Dios, or the New Light of God. And it seemed that they had been operating in the region for only about three months. Most of the population of Alto Cerrón practice Mamatata, which is a mix

of Catholicism and animism, stemming from previous religious missionaries who'd been swing-balling in and out of these indigenous regions for centuries. Have you seen The Heart of the Serpent? No. It's one for a stable day. It's fucking heartbreaking. Basically, it's based in Latin America during the invasions of the Spanish and the Portuguese. And it's quite surreal. And it sort of follows this story of this man who's not really there.

I don't want to ruin it. But basically, all in Spanish. But it gives you a window into not only missionaries, but also all of the rubber tapping and all of that sort of stuff where the indigenous communities were completely obliterated. I watched it with Dami actually, because he, when he was, Dami's our mutual friend and the reason that we know each other and did Spanish at Japanese in university.

And he did Latin American studies. So he knew more about it than I did. But he was like, even though I know about this part of history, it was like really shocking so I recommend if you're struggling to come to terms with this as a concept watch the heart of the serpent the heart of the servant okay I will check it out and serpent as in serpent oh okay I see right good glad we clarified that heart of the serpent it's me the fact check fairy did you miss me it's been so long they've

been on top of their game, but Hannah has just made an enormous mistake. It's not called Path of the Serpent. It's called Embrace of the Serpent and it's on 4OD. So check it out as soon as you possibly can. Hannah needs to try harder and be better. Yeah, no, it's completely true. And with this population specifically, when I was reading about it, they're obviously in these protected comarcas now, but their ancestral land had sort of spread much, much further out into the country, obviously. But their populations have just been completely decimated by the Spanish in the like 16th and 17th century, and they were pushed further and further out. Totally. And in places like Costa Rica, there is none. Costa Rica was particularly hard hit by the Spanish to the point where, I might be speaking out of turn here, but my experience there, and my landlord was an indigenous Costa Rican, was that it's not like other Latin, Central American countries that are so in touch with their heritage, like Peru or Mexico, because it's just gone. They have no idea. And there are these huge stone spheres everywhere

and nobody knows why they're there. I've watched that on a YouTube top tens of like biggest mysteries in the jungle. And yeah, right. No one knows. And they just like sell them to rich people now to put in their gardens. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

It's really a really heartbreaking part of Costa Rica's history. I think this total disconnect from tradition is quite heartbreaking. But according to locals back in Alto Terron, Nueva Luz de Dios had arrived in the region after a villager returned to the community following a stint abroad, bringing back these unusual religious beliefs. The residents said that some had approached the church with interest, but mostly they had just ignored them. Some of the locals said that they were always dancing about and singing and it was odd, but no one thought it was dangerous. Until, that is, when one of the cult members announced that he had had a vision. God had come to him in a divine revelation and told him everyone in the village had to repent

their sins or die. This whole repent or die is very much their tagline, this cult's tagline. They love it. They can't get enough of it. And this guy in the cult said that God had demanded that he cleanse the village through exorcism. And if the people that he exorcised showed no evidence that the evil, the demons that were in them had left their body, then the church should end their lives. And so, on Saturday the 11th of January, members of the sect had started to turn up at villagers' homes, carrying machetes. They would kidnap various residents who they believed were sinners and drag them to the makeshift hidden church. There, they would beat them into submission, forcing them to confess to all manner of sins.

The rites that the sect practiced, including burnings and beatings, were meant to kill them if the person did not repent their sins to a satisfactory level. It was during the first set of raids and captures that those three men who'd turned up at the hospital had escaped. This hadn't deterred the sect, however, because they had just continued to round up more victims. And soon after the men had fled, a 21-year-old member of the group, who had renamed himself Mesaes Set, after the biblical character Seth, ordered the killings to begin. By the time the police had arrived, the cult was well into their

fourth day of ceremonial sacrifices and violent exorcisms, and the people of Alto Terón were trapped and terrified. But aside from the men who'd escaped to the city, the others were also raising the alarm. One such man, Josué González, was actually the husband of the pregnant woman who was found dead in the mass grave. Her name was Belin Flores and she had been just 32 years old when she was killed. Her husband, Gonzalez, said that the sect had come into his house armed with machetes and they had, quote, rounded his wife and six children up like chickens. His six-year-old son had somehow managed to escape and ran to find and warn González, who was working on a farm in a nearby village. He alerted the authorities,

but they weren't going to come any time soon. And what was even worse for Josué González, other than the fact that his wife and five children were all brutally murdered by a crazy religious sect, was that his father, 60-year-old Murillo González, was the self-described messiah of the new light of God, and the one allegedly responsible for killing Belen and her children. That's his own daughter-in-law and his own grandchildren. Murillo González and his two sons, Sojosui's brothers, seem to have been the main instigators of the violence. And according to the locals, at the end of last year, so 2019, when the cult had first made its appearance in the village, Murillo had jumped immediately on board and started performing rites in the church. They described him as a domineering character, saying, quote,

he was very machista, he wanted to be the only one in charge, and the family were the same. And it appears to have been somewhat a coup, because apparently, Mario and his sons, minus Josue, had kicked the original priests out of the church and said that they were the only ones now who could talk to God. Slowly, the police started to of the church and said that they were the only ones now who could talk to God. Slowly, the police started to piece the story together, and they had plenty of witnesses. Many of the villagers who were tied up when the police had arrived had been in the room when Belin and her children were killed. According to them, Mario Gonzalez claimed that he was carrying out God's orders to, quote, remove the demon from them. And horrifically, they told authorities that

Belin had been killed in front of her children before being killed themselves. One of these survivors, Dina Blanco, was able to describe in detail what had happened that day. And aside from the trauma and the physical injuries she had suffered, Dina was also the mother of the seventh victim in the mass grave, 16-year-old Ines Blanco. Dina spoke to the officers from the hospital bed she had been moved to in Santiago. She said that she had gone to a few prayer meetings held by the sect in the church, but soon the tone of the preachers had started to change. They began talking about being anointed to exterminate unbelievers

and saying that the village was full of these demons and Dina became reluctant to go anymore. But on the 13th of January a neighbour had come to get Dina to go to a meeting in the makeshift church and she had told Dina that she would have to come whether she liked it or not. So Dina went along with with her daughter Inez, who had epilepsy, her son and her father. But things quickly escalated. When they arrived, they were told to close their eyes and to grab each other's hands and pray. Suddenly, Dina felt something hard hit her head, and with that she dropped to her knees and lost consciousness. Dina's father and her son managed to escape but she and her daughter Inez were not so lucky. Cult members then used bibles, cudgels and machetes to beat Dina and

the others. And I've seen pictures of Dina in the hospital in Santiago after she's been airlifted there. She is covered in bruises, hack marks and scars from the ordeal, including like a huge gash to her forehead, which is probably maybe that first blow that she felt. Dina said that after this hit and after she lost consciousness, when she started to come back round, the preachers were yelling at her not to open her eyes and she realised that she was tied up.

As she lay there, she said she could hear drums, an accordion, screams and crying. While all this was going on, other neighbours who were unaware of the kidnappings said that they didn't suspect anything because they'd grown used to the church's weird and loud rituals that had been going on for months. And so all the screams that poured out of the compound,

as many people were being massacred, went totally ignored. The residents now told the police, as many people were being massacred, went totally ignored. The residents now told the police, quote, The noises they made were frightening, but I never imagined they would go this far. I just thought people were praising God. But the next day, everything changed when some of the badly injured victims managed to escape. That's when the locals found out what had been going on. When the police examined the bodies of those in the mass grave,

they realised just how extensive the torture had been. Not only had they all been hacked at with machetes, but their feet and faces had been burned with hot coals. And remember, there were six children and a pregnant woman. According to Dina, the screaming and the torturing had gone on for hours. And finally, in the early hours of January the 14th, a sect member had approached her, as she lay tied up on the floor of the church, to tell her that her daughter Inez was dead. The man told her, quote,

the birds of the fields shall dispose of her body. But in fact, Inez, just like Belen and her five children, had been murdered during the ritual, decapitated, and their naked bodies dumped in a freshly dug mass grave. Dina, when you read the interviews and see the pictures of her in the hospital, she's obviously completely broken by the murder of her daughter. Like we said, Ines had epilepsy and Dina was always incredibly protective of her. The family had spent almost every penny they made farming on her medication. And to think that she would no longer be there when Dina leaves the hospital

and goes home, it's just completely devastating. The 10 leaders of the sect, one being a teenage boy, were all charged with murder and kidnapping. They're currently awaiting trial. They still maintain that they were simply doing God's work. An elected leader of the Comacar, Ricardo Miranda, has called the Alto Terron sect demonic and said that it was an abomination that goes against everything their people believe. He and many other people blame the government for the state of abandonment that left people in the village vulnerable, with no law enforcement or healthcare to protect them. Villagers say that they need more and long-lasting support, more security, better policing and access to health and education.

The problem with the current system is that the Ngo Bugle have lived in the region for nearly 7,000 years, but the state has created a situation and an idea of poverty in which the only way to escape is to leave for the cities. People are therefore forced to choose between their ancestral heritage and a life free from poverty. Take into account that most of these people and children grew up with little access to education and the internet, and most speak little to no Spanish, it's almost a fallacy to say that they could even have a choice to get out of poverty. And the priorities of the government with regards to the indigenous population do seem a bit off. Because very little national infrastructure spending comes into the comarcas. It is mainly

concentrated in the big cities. And until the coronavirus swept through the nation, the mayor of Panama City's main plan for 2020 seems to have been to spend $120 million of government money to create a beach in the capital using imported sand. Your favourite? Yeah, my favourite topic. I love it. And you have to wonder, like, where are the priorities when you have people living, 96% of the population, a few miles away living in extreme poverty? I know it's hardly kind of unique to Panama. And I don't want to sort of stand here and pretend like it is because it's extreme poverty in England. We know that we're seeing it right now unfolding with who's dying when coronavirus hit. And also Panama City is like, it's like a very

cosmopolitan, metropolitan buzzing hub of like loads of money. And there's a lot of pharmaceutical money in Panama. And I know this because when I taught in Costa Rica, my most hated student was the principal of the language school, son. And he worked for Pfizer. And he would have to go down to Panama City all the time to do these like Pfizer conferences. So Pfizer, obviously famous for Viagra, but they also killed 11 Nigerian children in a drugs trial in 1994. And nobody ever talks about it. It's called the Trovan trial. Look it up. They had no consent from these children's parents and they put them on un-FDA approved malaria medication and they died at my old old old old work when I worked at a charity Pfizer donated not very much money like a few hundred quid and I spoke to my boss about it

I was like I'm really not comfortable with that because it's blood money like do you know and obviously like oh big farmers bad so like fucking hot take Hannah but like because I knew particularly about that situation and I tried to explain to the kid I was teaching at the time as well. And he's like, I don't care. They pay me. But then my boss was like, we're taking money from Pfizer, whether you like it or not. And then I left. And I'm sure you can find a story about that with every Big Pharma company.

But Pfizer particularly can't be doing with it. No, I mean, it's absolutely horrific. And we've talked about that case. You've talked to me about that before. Maybe it's something we can cover in doing with it. No, I mean, it's absolutely horrific. And we've talked about that case. You've talked to me about that before. Maybe it's something we can cover in an entire episode. I don't know how much is out there. But yeah, it's heartbreaking. I don't know.

Like, yeah, the government, the sort of level of state abandonment, the government priorities, it all seems a bit, you know, not quite there with regards to the indigenous population. And again, I'm not quite there with regards to the indigenous population. And again, I'm not saying this is exclusive to Panama. I'm sure it exists in every country. It's just a different group of people who are disenfranchised and ignored. But in the days following the massacre, Panama's president, Laurentino Cortizo, described his, quote, total sadness, saying that things of this nature must not happen. And the government has since said that they will expand health and education and telecommunication services.

And again, we bring all of this up because I absolutely believe that a combination of the indigenous people's cultural decimation, poverty and social isolation made them incredibly vulnerable to a cult-like group forming. But where did this specific ideology come from? Like we said, it had only been operating in that village for three months. They all had Mamatata, which was the religion that they had been practicing previously. The thing is, with where this specific ideology came from, it is hard to pin down

with regards to the kind of specifically exact affiliations of the new light of God. Many well-established evangelical churches, such as Luz del Mundo, have released statements saying that it had nothing to do with them. And the accounts and allegations really do vary. I couldn't specifically nail it down because I don't think anyone has yet. They say Hollywood is where dreams are made, a seductive city where many flock to get rich, be adored, and capture America's heart. But when the spotlight turns off, fame, fortune, and lives can disappear in an instant. When TV producer Roy Radin was found dead in a canyon near L.A. in 1983, there were many questions surrounding his death. The last person seen with him was Lainey Jacobs,

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or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. The residents of Alto Terón say that one of their own had brought this ideology into the village after going abroad to the United States. But the leader of the Engobugle region, Ricardo Miranda, says that those who started this cult were foreigners. It's hard to know, but I'm probably going to say that the villagers themselves know better about what went down. Yeah, because I feel like they're saying one of their own like an indigenous person went abroad came back with it and he's saying no no no a foreigner came in and they were responsible I get he is trying to protect the population and he's trying to you know remove it from them but and that's a very like you know obviously Costa Rica and Panama are not the same.

But in Costa Rica, if there was ever a robbery or a crime or all the Costa Ricans, oh no, they were Nicaraguan. They weren't Costa Rican. That's true of everywhere. You don't want to believe it's one of your own. So the fact that the villagers are saying that it was, I'm more inclined to believe that. But we can't really dismiss Ricardo Miranda's claims altogether because regardless of who actually brought the ideology to Alto Terón, specifically what is indisputable, and sources have confirmed this, is that the scripts and teachings being used by the

church were a hardline extremist version of evangelical Christianity from the United States of America. And this in itself isn't anything new to the area. Evangelical Christianity has grown immeasurably in Latin America in the last few decades, often through hyper aggressive missionary work. Yeah, that's the thing. It's like we can't tell who exactly brought it into the village specifically. But if you dig back into the roots of what they were teaching, it comes from evangelical Christianity, a strain of which was born in the US, which is interesting. So people who claim Christianity never hurt anyone, pin back your ears. Like we said,

although we have to be clear that it doesn't appear that missionaries specifically turned up in Alto Teran in 2019 to create this sect, the impact of imported evangelical religions is still something we have to talk about because it plays a fundamental role in what transpired. These missionaries are also active in nearby regions, spreading that evangelical hype of the apocalypse, the rapture, the end times, the perfect ingredients for accidental cult creation. And according to anthropologists in Panama, during the 1970s, the indigenous region in the northwest of the country was

specifically targeted by wave after wave of evangelical missionaries from the United States. They turned up in remote villages and proselytized their dogmatic brand of Christianity, allowing no room for native people's ancestral beliefs and cultural traditions. The indigenous population, as we said, already are isolated geographically and socially and by language because, remember, the majority of them do not speak Spanish. And so they proved particularly vulnerable to this kind of foreign interference. And so the indigenous people began replacing their own religions with this fundamentalist, highly conservative religion that was being imported. And there's no two ways about it.

The religion that was being brought here was a literal interpretation of the Bible. I mean, that is what evangelical Christianity is, isn't it? And these missionaries essentially turned up and whatever their aim was, what they ended up doing was radicalizing these people. These people who were already marginalized, who were already disenfranchised, who were already living in poverty. And if you want to spell it out with a simple equation, here's one that we threw together. Dogmatic belief systems plus isolation plus poverty equals radicalisation and violence. I don't think we got too much wrong there. And that concludes your A-level in maths.

Yeah, I just feel like it's the perfect storm. These people have been abandoned by the state. They're isolated in every way you can imagine. They're being targeted by these groups who want to sort of save souls slash add numbers to the tally. And that level of exploitation, they're so vulnerable to it. And we have to consider that imported ideologies are even more dangerous when they enter specifically into indigenous or native regions, because the population is already particularly vulnerable.

Because as we said, that lack of government government presence no one is monitoring what's happening there no one is keeping tabs of who's coming in and saying what and doing what and there is like such a lack of law enforcement or police presence either and what's really interesting about what happens in these kamarkas is because there is no local law enforcement or state oversight, indigenous religious figures eventually take over control as kind of de facto authorities. And they set themselves up to oversee everything from law and order and justice to distribution of land and property, everything. So ambitious leaders such as this within the indigenous population, in some cases end up ruling these communities like gods on earth. And as ever, it will be a power grab that leaves the vulnerable

to suffer at the hands of the now ruling oppressors. We kind of touched on this when we did the child sacrifice episode for Halloween last year in India. When you have these tribal rural communities that are sort of left to police themselves, you'll have people that do power grabs, ambitious people within that community that do power grabs, and it's always the vulnerable people that they will stamp all over. And another point to consider that I thought was particularly interesting, because these people had

a previous religion that had been born of missionary work, as we said, Mama Tata. But why is it that new religions offer these kind of indigenous or native ambitious megalomaniacs, like Murillo Gonzalez, a bigger power grab potential? I think it's probably because if you've had, say, an existing religion in the area for millennia, everyone in that community is already aware of it. It's harder to subvert. But now, enter a new religion, like this one, new texts, new secret knowledge, new everything. And if you claim that now you're one of the only few who can access it, understand it, and one of the few that can speak to this new god, well, you're now the king, aren't you? When you research this case,

you come across the notion of missionaries again and again. And while it's unclear to what extent directly missionaries had on this particular incident, there's no denying that imported ideologies, like the ones they deal in, played a huge role. And if you're interested, there's a really good podcast called The Missionary, which is an eight-part series focused on the case of Renee Back.

Many of you have probably heard about this one. It's the woman from the United States who goes to Uganda as a missionary, works in a clinic, and hundreds of Ugandan children are under her care, or under the care of her organization, rather, and they die. Renee says that she was convinced, as I suppose all missionaries are, that it was her mission from God to help these children. But there are all sorts of accusations against her, from just being well in over her head, to the idea that she was actually experimenting on these malnourished children. And in my opinion, whatever she was doing to these children, whether she was well intentioned or not, she 100% had a white saviour complex and she definitely did a lot of harm. Whether she was an evil person or not, I don't know. I think her intentions are really unclear. Is she evil? I don't know,

but she did a fucking shitload of harm, that's for sure. I watched a really interesting TED talk and the woman's name has escaped me, fuck, but I'll find it. And she's Nigerian, goes to university in the United States and her roommate is so fascinated by her being Nigerian. And she's just like, oh, why do you speak such good English? And this woman's like, well, the national language of Nigeria is English. Then the girl's like, oh, can I listen to your tribal music? And she's like, I fucking listen to Beyonce, man. Like, I don't know what you mean.

But then she goes on to explain. She's like, after consuming media in the Western world for a while, I could completely understand why she thought of Nigeria and the entirety of Africa as being full of these, like, starving children and, like, constantly fighting your way out of poverty with flies in your eyes because that's all there is. Absolutely. Broadcast over here.

So she's like, I understand why she thought those things of me, but it's not the truth. And it's the whole idea behind that white saviour complex. These people can't save themselves. And it's not just because there's massive corruption and structural issues and leftover remnants from colonialism that the countries are in the state they're in. No, it's because we need to go and and help them and to to civilize them in some way yeah it's like boris being like oh the only problem is we're not there yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah of course so missionaries whether

their intentions are good or not doesn't matter if you're doing harm you're doing harm so go and listen to the podcast it asks a lot of very important questions with regards to missionary work, voluntarism, and in general, the white saviour industrial complex that exists that we all ignore. And I will be really interested to see what comes of the Renee Back case because she's currently being sued. But I think what's important to say is that there can be absolutely no room for religious organisations or charities to hide behind the Bible or whatever it may be to escape the legal ramifications of their actions. In the podcast, The Missionary, in episode three, my jaw was like clenched so tight when I was listening to her lawyer, so Renee Back's lawyer, go on Fox News and say things like,

and I know he's defending her, I get that. But this is what I think people also think. And he says that people like Renee are good Samaritans and she should have the right to help people without fear of being sued or having their names dragged through the mud. I mean, the priority of whose rights take precedent, your right to be a good Samaritan, I feel like is not more important than the rights of those kids not to be in the hands of somebody who doesn't know what they're

doing and die that's it though isn't it it's just like however way you look at it and yes he's defending her blah blah blah but whatever way you come at that there is no way of listening to what he said without thinking that her life is being presented as more important. Her rights are being presented as a white woman being more important than the hundreds of black children who died because she thought she was doing the right thing. Andrea Yates thought she was doing the right thing. Exactly. No, you're completely right. And I actually think his argument completely backs up this idea of missionary work being completely self-serving.

So her right to be a good Samaritan and to feel good about herself and answer this call from God is more important than not causing immense amounts of harm in another country. Keep God out of the courtroom. He doesn't belong in there. Exactly. So aside from the podcast, I also read a bunch of blogs written by missionaries because that's like the thing to do. That's like the thing to do these days. If you are a missionary, you write blogs. Like if you're a millennial, you have a podcast.

It is just the thing that all of these missionaries do. And honestly, it's so, it's just, I know it's not written for me. I get that it's not. I'm not the target audience. But fuck me, are they saccharine and just dripping with white saviour complex. I can't. I really struggled with it, but I read them. I also interestingly read blogs by ex-missionaries who now regret what they had done, like that

they had gone out there. I'll like find the links for them and leave them in the episode description so you guys can check them out. I think it's worth a read because it's the closest I'm ever going to get to understanding this in any real sense. But really, from the people who have regretted it, it just seems like there is a massive systemic issue with the whole missionary mission. And anyway, whether you want to say sort of their intentions are good or not, I'm sure the majority of people have good intentions. It doesn't matter. Regardless, I just think for me, that whole notion of sort of saving souls will always just feel really arrogant. I just don't think people need saving from an afterlife

hell of fire and brimstone. And I just think the idea of someone being there as a missionary with a superiority complex and a ticket to heaven. I just feel deeply uncomfortable about that. And I really don't think that it's hyperbolic to say that you can equate missionary work with modern day colonialism. No, it's absolutely not. I don't think that's too far a stretch to make. Whatever way you come at it, it's cultural imperialism. That's what it is. Yeah, absolutely.

And I think that the reason that I don't think it's hyperbolic to say is because we see the same ramifications. Let's take this case, for example. Say there had been missionaries who had influenced this kind of ideology coming in, which it does seem like even if they weren't directly in Alto Terón, that is what happened. Then they planted this idea that was then allowing this power vacuum that was grabbed by people like Murillo González, who had seemingly lived their entire life up until 60 without doing this kind of thing and gave him the tools to then do what he did and i also think if you consider other situations like this like policing i watched this really interesting

interview which i think i will again find the link if i can and i'll leave it in the episode description but it was the idea about why policing especially in countries that were colonialized is so much harsher than say in the uk i'm not saying it's great here but hear me out so in india this week something horrific happened in the state that my family are from and what happened is there's obviously a curfew you can't keep your shop open after 8 p.m or whatever this father and this son they kept their store open a little bit later the police turned up and they're like, shut this down. And so they start to. These two police officers have numerous reports against them for police brutality. They take this son and this father, they beat the shit out of them in front of their store. They arrest them, put them in lockup.

The next morning, they're both dead. No one has any idea what happened. And this level of police brutality is quite common in India, especially when they deal with things like protesters. And you really have to think why. And it's because when Britain colonized India, then you had the police set up as an institution to oppress the people so that the ruling classes could get on with what they wanted. When the British left, let's not even, you know,

start on partition and the shit show they made of that. But when they left, they left this power vacuum that then allowed for the police to continue as an institution to oppress the people through incredible violence to maintain the status quo for the new ruling classes who just did a power grab after the British left. And if you look at why it is in the US, the police started as fucking slave patrols. If you sort of look back at the reasons for why violence exists in these kind of senses, colonialism is to blame.

So I just think it's not a stretch when we look at this case to say that missionary work led to the same kind of violence happening. But that's just my two cents on it. Just a millennial bringing the politics to the petrifying. Don't worry about it. Oh my God, that was my favorite ever quote guys you know what mine and hannah's biggest like pet peeve not biggest it's up there top 10 pet peeves is when like magazines or people or like whatever write about us and then they just copy and paste our own copy describing the podcast

into their thing and i'm like but you're journalist. Like I wish you if you have listened to us and put us in a top 10 list, just like, write what you think, because that would be really nice. No one ever does it. But this one person, don't know who it is, shout outs, and in Real People magazine, wrote the best line ever. They said that we're a couple of millennials bringing the political to the petrifying and I want it on a t-shirt somebody find them so we can give them a present and also the rights to use that line yes please so moving on on the topic of missionaries we also read a paper called protestants catholics and gentiles the articulation of missionary and indigenous Culture on the San Blas Coast of Panama by a guy called James Howe. It was written in 1992. But Howe makes some really interesting points worth discussing.

He talks about having studied the work of many missionaries, that the strategy used is usually to build a core faction of zealous converts within the village or population, then continue to wage spiritual warfare against other pagan resistors. And Howe finds that the point of this whole thing did not seem to be to elevate the converted, but rather, quote, to humble them, to reduce them to Christianity, because even as Christians, they were still to remain the other. And what really stood out is what Howe said about cultural imperialism. According to him, the idea that missionaries import social and political attitudes along with the word of God, that's a given. What's more interesting to consider is the

impact of and the extent to which and detail with which ideologies and social programs worked out in the West are implemented in Panama or New Guinea or Asia or Africa. There's a really, really old ethnography called Oh, What a Blow the Phantom Gave Me, which is about, I believe it's Papua New Guinea. And these anthropologists are out there and there are missionaries and these people in a very, very small village in Guinea. And the villagers never had mirrors, ever. Apart from like their reflection in water, which was, you know, not like high death. They had nicknames for each other, like, oh, like big nose or like fat head or whatever. And it never hurt them until they looked in the mirror and saw that it was true.

And that completely changed their entire relationships with themselves and other people around them so like i also watch under sorry i'm on a ted talk fucking rant i watched a ted talk about language and how through linguistics we have assumed that humans can't tell to the same accuracy that animals can north south east west we have to use a star or like a landmark or whatever, because, you know, we don't have a magnet in our beak like a bird does or whatever. But that's actually not true. If your language involves north, south, east, west, you can do it instinctively. So there's one particular group of people who don't use left or right. They use the directions on the compass. They'll be like, oh, like my southwest leg is a bit itchy. And they can immediately tell you without having to look at a landmark

or the way the wind's blowing, where they are and where they are on the compass. So it's completely linguistically ingrained in us. Wow, that's fascinating. So cool. I have to look at my hands to remember which is left and right. Oh yeah, for my driving test,

I had to write left and right on my hands. I have to do the little L and I'm like, oh, that's my left hand. I'm 30 years old. I also just thought if somebody is like, they're going on a rant about colonialism. I just thought of the perfect in real time experience. What is going on in Hong Kong right now? Exactly at this moment.

I mean, the British just went in and were like, we're going to do this. And then they were like, we're out now. Peace out. And then they were like, sorry, what? Doesn't Professor Karen live in Hongong kong oh she does uh professor karen send us a rundown of what the fuck's going on mate please it's fucking if you're not too busy right being professor karen mate it's fucking heartbreaking so basically exactly like Hannah said, this idea of cultural imperialism is a given. We need to look at the kind of way in which these ideologies are thought out in the West,

how they play out here, and then when they're transplanted to another area, how it works out there. Because here in the West, the kind of hyper conservative Christianity that we see exists within very specific institutional contexts and particular social currents. Basically, there is a type of person, and it's generally pretty predictable. And these religions, be they sort of new ones like evangelical Christianity, they've grown somewhat organically within our cultural ecosystem. But when these ideologies are then transferred to far-flung corners of the world, none of these cultural or institutional contexts apply there. But the ideology still plays out. However, it now interacts with a radically different social environment. Let's take the

mindset of some missionaries that James Howe discusses in this paper. And this is an example that I took from the paper that he got from the diary of a missionary that he examined. It is quite an extreme example, but it is something that was written down. So in this diary, it says, quote, like wild animals, they do not understand about order or submission. This is obviously a missionary writing about the native population to whom he is trying to save the souls of. Yeah. Save the savages. Exactly. Hashtag save the savages. Exactly. So basically what you're looking at here is this idea that people turn up, they teach you, in his words, order and submission.

They then dominate. They then leave to go save souls elsewhere. But their teachings on how to dominate and their rigid hardline ideology to keep people in line stays. And now there's a power vacuum just waiting to be filled from within. And this is exactly what colonialism did. Talking again about India, but only because it's the one that I'm so much more aware of. The car system, that existed there due to Hinduism, don't get me wrong, but it was compounded by the British in a way to control the population. If you have a triangle or a pyramid, you have a few people at the top, you can sort of keep them on board to help you

oppress the rest of them. That car system was compounded, compounded, compounded by the British. And then when they left, went on to create such social oppression within that country that wouldn't have existed had colonialism not happened. So it's really important to consider these things. And so now, although those 10 men from Alto Terón are unlikely to return, for indigenous populations, they now have a new fear to add to their lists. Many across the country now worry that a new sect like the New Light of God could arise again. And they aren't the only ones. The police too are looking for other such cults

because it wasn't just a one-off. In December 2019, so just a month before this case happened, 17 foreigners belonging to another sect were arrested in the coastal town of San Carlos. And although at the moment soldiers have been stationed in Alto Teron, it has done little to ease the fears of the local residents. The people of the village now completely avoid even walking the footpath that runs past the old church. They worry daily that there may be more murderous sect members lurking in their midst.

So that is the story of the Panama, what do we call it? The Panama Massacre. I don't know. Yeah, sure. Sure. Why not? We'll think of the title for this later. But yeah, it's horrific. I can't believe it only happened this year. I mean, what a way to start 2020. So there you go, guys. That is our, that's our halfway 2020 check-in. You know, we'll see where we go from here. Have you seen that tweet that's like a time traveler drops into your bedroom and asks what year it is? And you say 2020, they go, oh, and disappear.

Oh, God. Well, you know, there you go. That's what it is. So, yeah, everybody find little things to make yourselves happy before we go into lockdown round two, which is probably definitely going to happen. And during that time, you might want to kill some time by following us on social media, where we post all manner of weird and wonderful things. You can do that at Red Handed The Pod.

We're on Twitter, we're on Instagram, and we have a fucking wild Facebook group. Can I say a massive thank you to a lady called Hannah Maria, who is in the Facebook group. I believe she's also a Patreon, but I didn't know what to do, so I'd rather massive thank you to a lady called Hannah Maria, who is in the Facebook group. I believe she's also a Patreon, but I didn't know what to hear. So I'd rather say thank you here. She posted that she would make people their own art if they wanted, as long as they shared with her a screenshot of them having voted for us in the podcast awards.

That's a fucking 10 out of 10 spooky bitch. You rock, Hannah. We love you. No one's doing that for fucking Peter Crouch, are they? Maybe maybe have to join peter crouch's facebook group to check that out um but allegedly no one is doing that but we love it it's super it's amazing you guys are the fucking best regardless of what happens we know you guys turned out for us because you always do so thank you thank you thank you and in return we will continue to put out the best fucking content we can so with that being said if you would like to help support the best fucking content we can so with that being

said if you would like to help support the show in another way you can do that at patreon.com slash red handed and here are some beautiful people who have done that oh my god there are so many of you right sarah thank you sarah slash sarah nagel becca johnson jenna underwood Becca Johnson, Jenna Underwood, Ampama Rajpukar. That is an Indian name and I cannot do it. Even I know that one. Oh, it's because I sort of squinted and it looked like an M. Ampana Rajpukar. Oh my, I'm embarrassed.

I'm so sorry. Reena Pusenian, Amy Lee, Eileen Glancy, Gem Houghton, Cat Bumble, Agnes Snari, Stephanie Short, Caitlin Becklin, Elise Bateman, Susan, Tessa Kai Holmshaw, Lisa Martin, Rebecca Richmond, Jess Fuentes, Jill Bralick, Michelle Farrell, Stacey Mellinger, Diane Rodriguez, Stephanie Sabin. I just say somebody posted on Instagram under one of our episode descriptions. They deleted it afterwards but I thought it just it really made me laugh. They were like I really love the show but I just wish that Saruti would practice saying the names before she records I saw that I was like I just spent a week fucking google translating panamanian newspapers so that we could do this case I'm not practicing saying your names guys I'm so sorry I'm trying my best

so and other people have been uh getting quite about ads recently. If you don't want the ads, it's only $2 a month on Patreon. Ad free. Literally all it is. It's unfortunate that sometimes the ads come in at the wrong moment. There's not much we can do about that. We line it up so it doesn't, but sometimes it does completely out of our hands. Unfortunately, there's really not much. I know it's annoying, but we're just trying to keep the lights on over here.

Yeah. Should I tag in? Oh, yes. That would be lovely. I think I got to Diana. Diane Rodriguez. Stephanie Sabin. Gabriel.

Gabriel. Gabriel. Gabrielle. Gabriel. Stephanie Milberger. Esme Valentine Slack. Susie Lolo. Catherine Henderson.

Laura. Lorraine Bartley.ah hannah lynch rosie woo catnip arlene ogston caitlin hawkins maria cunningham merle rodriguez lisa crawford sarah smith liz kevin greta wilsterman brenda sweeney white ms p soup Pea Soup, Tina Velasquez, Fuzzy Grey Lines, Carrie Haviland, Beth Weisbach, Rushaina, Claire Todd, Cara Erickson, Hmore1827, Danielle, sorry. Danielle Callaghan. Betty and Louise. Abigail Leonard. Claire Keenan. Eloise. I'll tag him. Sean Herskovitz. Rebecca Handy. Shannon Barton.

Amy McDonald. Aaliyah. Kusamaningrat. Yep. Carolyn O'Reilly. Abby Hayes. Beth MJ. Ashley Marie Martinez. Madeline Molly Dake. Yep. Yep. Pauline Backer, Lily Wilkes, Maud Grin, Marissa Donnelly, Brian Paget, Tracy Abbey Alvarado, Amanda Miller, Jordan Lee, Jordan Leah, Jordan Lee something, Nicholas Baldwin, Charlie Draper, Gina Caride, Caride. Caride. Fucking hell. I'm so hungry. White people carry a car ride.

Frances King. Lindsay Rogers. Michelle Wolfe. Catherine Martin. Kristen Smith. Ross McKinley. McKinley. Yeah.

Maria and Darcy Yonkman. Thank you guys so much. We love it. We love you. Thanks. You're all excellent Yonkmans. You are indeed. And we'll see you. We'll see you in Under the Duvet if you are special. And if

you're not, we'll see you next week. Exactly. Goodbye. Bye. Harvard is the oldest and richest university in America. But when a social media-fueled fight over Harvard and its new president broke out last fall, that was no protection. Claudine Gay is now gone. We've exposed the DEI regime and there's much more to come. This is The Harvard Plan, a special series from the Boston Globe and WNYC's On The Media. To listen, subscribe to On The Media wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jake Warren, and in our first season of Finding, I set out on a very personal quest to find the woman who saved my mum's life. You can listen to Finding Natasha right now, exclusively on Wondery+. In season two, I found myself caught up in a new journey

to help someone I've never even met. But a couple of years ago, I came across a social media post by a person named Loti. It read in part, Three years ago today that I attempted to jump off this bridge, but this wasn't my time to go. A gentleman named Andy saved my life. I still haven't found him. This is a story that I came across purely by chance,

but it instantly moved me. And it's taken me to a place where I've had to consider some deeper issues around mental health. This is season two of Finding. And this time, if all goes to plan, we'll be finding Andy. You can listen to Finding Andy and Finding Natasha exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.