Small Town Murder - #347 - The Word Of Death - Chadwicks, New York

Episode Date: December 29, 2022

This week, in Chadwicks, New York, when a new church comes to a quiet residential street, the neighbors are happy, until that church starts becoming the talk of all the local gossip. Their Pastor claims that God speaks directly through him, and that he can see & hear through walls, and predict witchcraft. This develops very badly, as the church takes total control of its parishioners lives, and even their thoughts. Total submission is the only way to heaven, according to this Pastor. This all ends in a crazy, screaming confrontation, and beating of someone who just won't confess their "evil deeds"!Along the way, we find out that a quiet church isn't always the best neighbor, that if someone claims to speak to God, maybe you shouldn't believe them, and you might want to get proof of wrongdoing, before you kill someone!!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

You're listening early and ad-free on Wondery Plus. What if you married the love of your life and then stood by them as they developed 21 new identities? What would you do? This Is Actually Happening is a weekly podcast that features extraordinary true stories of life-changing events told by the people who lived them. Listen to the newest season of This Is Actually Happening on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. This week in Chadwick's New York, a strange church opens in a quiet neighborhood leading to gossip and curiosity, but the neighbors could never have guessed what was really happening there. Welcome to Small Town Murder.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay! Ha ha, yay indeed, Jimmy, yay indeed. My name is James Petrigallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Westman. Thank you, folks folks so much for joining us on this special crazy holiday edition of Small Town Murder. It's not on purpose, but why not? We'll call it the holiday edition

because of when it's coming out here. Right in the midst, in the taint of the holiday season here. It's lovely. Everything's going on. We have a crazy show for you. This is one of those that are going to be a mile post show. People go, remember that one?

Yeah, it's insane. Wild stuff. Before we get to that, very quickly here, I want to thank everybody for all that you do for us. Thank you so much for your reviews, number one, everything you've done all year. If you haven't yet, please, whatever app you're listening on, throw five stars on there. Say something nice. It's not for our egos. It really does help the show here.

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There's like 150 episodes to binge. You're going to get two new episodes every single week, one crime and sports and one small town murder. Also, crime and sports is continuing. Hey. Yeah, it's going to be fun stuff. We're paring it down a little bit and making it. It's going to be awesome. So check that out. If you a little bit and making it. It's going to be awesome. So check that out if you haven't checked out Crime and Sports in a while.

Do that. Patreon this week, though. Because it's Christmas, we're going to do one episode for it. It's the only time of year where we do that. But we're going to talk about our worst comedy gigs of all time that we have participated in. And a lot of them were together, so that'll be a good time. And some of them were separate. Oh, it reminisce oh it's gonna be fun and we're gonna tack on to that our favorite and least favorite christmas songs of all time as well

we'll talk about that and then for crime and sports it's just gonna be a little short one so it's not just one but it's just a little stocking stuffer we'll call it a little surprise for everybody there so get in on that patreon Patreon.com slash Grime and Sports. And Jameel messed your name up really bad at the end of the show while trying to thank you. So that's going to happen there. That said, time for the disclaimer. Let's do it. This is a comedy show.

We're comedians. The facts are all too real. They're seriously real and definitely true. And we're going to make jokes. That's what happens here. Make jokes about a lot of things. What we don't make jokes about, though, we go out of our way not to make jokes about, is we never make jokes about the

victims or the victims' families. Why, James? Because we're assholes, but we're not scumbags. See? That's how that works. So if that sounds good to you, holy hell do we have a wild episode for you seriously buckle up uh if you think true crime and comedy should never ever ever go together i don't know maybe it's not for you but maybe it is but no complaining that later

either way we don't want to hear it so you've been warned that a joke will be here and there so that said i think it's time to sit back no matter where you are. I don't care if you're at a gathering of your family. Stand up on the table, kick the turkey aside and shout. Shut up and give me murder. And then spike the potatoes down. Go. Yeah, bitches.

That's right. All right, Jimmy, you ready? ready it's in the gravy let's go on a trip shall we let's do it we are going all the way to chad wicks new york oh with an x or cks cks yes cks this is up in central new york up by utica there this is this is This is in the vastness of New York, yeah. Because people who aren't from New York, people in New York, it's very specifically broken down. There's the city, which is literally Manhattan. You know what I mean? Then there's the boroughs.

Because when people say the city, they think of the whole New York City. But people in Brooklyn say, I'm going to the city. They're going to Manhattan, even though they're in the city too. At the improv last week the the bartender said she's from New York and I was like oh we're at I was like in the city she goes no Brooklyn I was like yes babe that's 15 minutes away yeah it's just a bridge but yeah but that's that's how we put it and then we break it down to you know there's Westchester and then there's upstate but upstate means different things to different people like i live in poughkeepsie which if you're in the city

they say that's upstate right not way not new york state that's that's the middle of nowhere upstate utica and say you live in upstate if i go to utica and say yeah i'm from upstate i'm poughkeepsie they go that's not upstate that's the city because it's an hour away from the city like that's the city what are're like, that's the city. What are you talking about? That's all the city to them. So it's broken up into really this is the area of this is New York State. It's farmlands.

It's a lot of that. And they treat the word upstate like a point of pride. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm from upstate New York, they'll say. Don't lump me in with the city. It's a different thing going on up there. Now, Chadwick's is a census-designated little area that is technically a part of the town of New Hartford, but it's also its own thing. And it has its own personality, as we'll talk about here.

We needed a new Hartford, because Hartford right there was... Old Hartford wasn't working. It wasn't working. Well, we'll find out why. It's right there. This isford wasn't working. It wasn't working. We'll find out why. This is in central New York, like we said. It's about four hours and 15 minutes to the city, so to New York City. About an hour 35 over to Albany, if you want to go there. And about two and a half hours to, a little more than that, to New Paltz, New York, which is our last episode,

which is the guy who killed the diner waitress that he was obsessed with, with the Express episode. This is in Oneida County, area code 315. History of this place pretty quickly here. New Hartford was settled in 1788 when Jedediah Sanger came through. Oh, boy. Old Jedediah. Waker? Anytime a name starts with Jedediah came on the scene, you know it's happened a long time ago.

He was bankrupted in 1784 when a fire wiped out his farm that was in New Hampshire. So he moved to this area to start over again, relocated his family. And to get away from all the fires? Everything's on fire back there. And he erected a sawmill. That was his big deal there. He put a grist mill in and everything like that. A lot of manufacturing was the commerce that went on here.

They made carpets here for a long time. Oh, yeah. The first ingrained loom in the state was put here. Ingrained carpeting. Stitching it, huh? Stitching it. An Englishman put that up named Butterfield there. So they did that.

They made nails. The first cut nails made in the state were produced in this town here. He purchased wine and liquor casks and made cut nails from the iron hoops of the casks. Oh. That's how he did that. Is that right? That's how he had to do it. They had tanneries, paper, textile.

There was a lot of manufacturing here. And then they had a road come through that connected the state so you could drive from the city to Buffalo. And they thought they were real hot shit until the Erie Canal came in. And all the boats just went through that. That's a lot faster than going on the road. And the boats, that went through Utica, not here. So then Utica became the, quote, big town, the little city.

And then this place has very few people in it. Radiator springs. Yep, very few people in it. And that's what happened here. So reviews of this town. This is for Chadwick's New Hartford, kind of both. Here we go. Five stars. Oh stars oh boy it's just lovely uh there is no better town in new york to witness the four seasons of the year well i mean really any town you could watch them it's gonna happen yeah they're

happening trust me that area of the country straight past Ohio. You can count on it. You can count on it. This town is full with amazing and friendly people who make you feel so welcome. The best place to start a family and grow old. Oh, wow. They're really laying down the tracks for down the line here. Live your whole life. Stick around.

Four stars. The community is mostly aged individuals like wine moms and conservative uncles. So four stars, drunken old ladies and fucking, you know, an uncle that'll call your girlfriend the N-word. That's what Thanksgiving. That's what this town has. It's four stars. He says, can't really complain, though. Food is amazing, and the town is just the right size.

I don't care what's going on outside my door. Kind of a guy there. Three stars. Chadwick's is a relatively quiet town. Most families find it a good place to raise their children because it has a neighborhood watch feel. However, there's very little to do without traveling to nearby Utica or New Hartford. You know, people get down in Utica, as we know. I mean, Utica is a famous party town.

We're all does have a college, right? Utica. I'm sure there's a million. Yes, probably. Every little town in upstate New York has a SUNY school. Every Geneseo has like every little shit town you can think of has a Sunni school. What's that one? Teaches you racketeering?

I believe that teaches you how to make bad beer from Pennsylvania. Isn't that Geneseo? Isn't that nasty shit? So, one star is the last one here. One star. Utica is a place that has many gangs so violence and shootings happen almost every day daily they're not they really don't really in utica in new hartford i usually feel pretty safe day to day but when i'm in utica i don't feel safe exclamation point

well then fucking go review utica and say how bad it is. You barely mentioned the town, this town. That's what this is about. Here, it's okay. But Utica, oh, my God. It's fucking Thunderdome in Utica. Holy hell. Uticakistan. Oh, man.

Utisbekistan it is. Very scary place. Holy shit. Don't take this person to an actual bad neighborhood. Yeah. Christ, let's have a heart attack. Population here in this little area, 1,179. So it's a small, small area.

58.8% female. Think about that. It's almost 59% female. It's usually 50, 50, you know, 50, 50.2% female is usually what it is. At least 41% men? That's crazy. And that's because of the age. The age here is strange.

Median age here, 44.9, which is close to the normal age of about 38. But the breakdown is so strange that I have to talk about it for a second. is so strange that I have to talk about it for a second. It has twice the amount of 65 to 74-year-olds as normal and more than twice the amount of 75 to 84-year-olds as normal. So when you have all those old people, they're going to be more female because men die sooner. So that's how that works, I believe. But there's also a lot of like 21 to 24-year-olds.

I assume that's a college that's nearby. And not a lot of kids, though. All the kids are below average. So there's college kids and elderly people. Wine aunts and fucking uncles and their college kids and the kids that steal her wine. Yeah. And the uncle that shouts racial slurs off the porch at the college kids who go by. Family here. It's about 50-50 on the marriage.

Just about normal. 20.5% are single with children. So not too crazy. Race of this town, though, in Chadwick's, 97.1% white. Pretty white up there. 0.0% black. 0.0% Asian. We have 2.9 percent hispanic that's it that's it otherwise it is just white people um religion here it's about average it's 51 percent normally

it's 50 50 and the dominant religion of course would be the catholics in fact catholics are as we know the baptists of the North. And they're everywhere. There they are up here. So in this county, 41.2% of the people voted Democratic in the last election. 56.7% voted Republican. 2.1% Independent. And the median household income here, $41,406, which is below the national average. But the cost of living here, 100 being average, the housing is 52 out of 100.

So cheap. It's cheap. Median home cost, $152,600. So cheaper than your average. My aunt lives kind of nearby, I guess, and she has a 20-something acre property that is worth $200,000. Yeah. There's not – because there isn't a lot up there really unless you want to drive to Utica every morning. And then Utica really is not like the – it's not an open place with all this opportunity.

It's not like, oh, I can work on the stock market in lower Manhattan or I can do that in Utica as well. It doesn't really work like that. So if we've convinced you, damn it, to take it easy a little bit, maybe you're getting up there in age and you want to find a nice place to relax. Make your dollars stretch and work for you. Maybe you want to do that. We can do it for you. We can help with the Chadwick's New York Real Estate Report.

The average two-bedroom rental here goes for $776, so that's way cheaper than the national average. Here's a three-bedroom, two-bath, 1,344-square-foot house. So kind of your family home. Your typical block of ease on the street. It's kind of a weird little house. It's not very good. It looks a little bit dirty. There's dishes on a bed in one of the pictures.

Which I don't know. I don't know. When you're breakfast in bed around here when you're taking real no just like piles of dishes like oh all right like this is where we keep the dishes on this bed which is a strange thing for a real estate photo you think they'd move the dishes somewhere else and put them back i understand a pile of laundry it's yeah it's not is there laundry on the kitchen counter they just confused confused. The laundry and the dishwasher. Yeah, just very confused.

Either way, $69,000 for this house, though. Okay. It's pretty cheap, actually. Here's a five-bedroom, four-bath, 2,640-square-foot house. It's ugly. It's very ugly. This place is decorated horribly. The kitchen looks like it's from maybe 1999, and it's not good.

You're definitely going to want to redo that. They have awful shit all over this house. There's cheetah things and Egyptian stuff everywhere. There's no even theme to it. It's very weird. Very eclectic, yeah. There's some land to this. $499,900 for this house. it. It's very weird. Very eclectic, yeah. There's some land to this. $499,900 for this house.

Okay. That's not bad. Here's a four-bedroom, four-bath, 3,400-square-foot house. It's just a big, plain, boring house on a bunch of land. Very, very boring. If you're looking to move here and be bland this is the house for you 1.2 million dollars though for that how many acres i don't know how many acres but it's on a shitload of acres yeah it's like it's got to be 100 acres or something because otherwise i don't

know what you're paying for here in this place you better well this place yeah you gotta this is crazy so you gotta have half the town you need. Yeah, you deserve half the town for that. So things to do in this town. The St. George's Mediterranean Festival, which I don't think I would expect in the middle of upstate New York, but here it is. A lot of Greek food? I have the schedule for it. It doesn't look like too much fun. Let's see here.

It starts out with the opening prayer. Got to have that, of course. Then there's a church tour after the prayer. What do you think the prayer would be during the church tour? Two birds, right? Two birds. Yeah, knock it out. Let's go.

Anything should be efficient. Yeah, get your shit together. The St. George dancers are there. Don't know what they're doing. Then there's the Arabic drum lessons, which I know you've been dying to do more Arabic drumming. Jimmy said, when I have time, I'm finally going to be like the best Arabic drummer in the southwestern United States. It's going to happen. What's the difference between normal drumming and Arabic?

I believe you make a woman wear a fucking thing on her head while you do it i think it's a difference really close you say put that cloth on and then you then you learn how to drum that's all i can imagine and then i play 18 in life yeah that's it then you play cherry pie she's my cherry pie wrap up wrap your head up or else you're gonna die i don't know maybe that's it i don't know if it's saudi arabian drum lessons or what but who knows here uh then there's the vespers it's all capital letters vespers ancient christian prayer service that's happening ancient christian prayer i don't know what that entitles. Are they sacrificing a virgin?

I don't know how ancient we're going here. Are we going crusades? Yeah. For Christ's sake. Is there a volcano involved? Should I be worried? But then there's more Arabic drum lessons after that because you're going to want to drum after the service. Then at 6.30, learn to dabke. Dabke.

D-A-B-K-E. I don't know know what that is but you can learn to do it at 6 30 maybe you should go it's not down it's not far down the road from here it's a few hours let's hop in the car jimmy we're going here uh then there's another then there's another church tour after that to close out the night because you got to have that so uh in addition to that the tug hill yeti quest tug hill yeti quest uh it's a tug hill outfitters is apparently a clothing place they host a winter yeti themed adventure race holy shit saturday january 28th 2023 oh wow the country for this this is fucking crazy teams navigate the course using only a map and compass no gps allowed and compete to see who can find the most checkpoints in the least amount of time this scavenger hunt basically yet he's different from a sasquatch isn't it i think so

yeah it's got he's a frozen sasquatch yeti is asian yeti is a himalayan right thing and the sasquatch is you know from oregon the super song yeah he's a yeti that smokes weed that's all he is he's a yeti that smokes weed and has a favorite lesbian coffee shop that's it's not not that different though really um so they have uh here's my favorite thing ever. The Renewal of the Vows Festival. Okay. Renewal of the Vows. Grab the one you love and join in this special ceremony to celebrate the matrimony that you hold so close to your heart. Your romantic day will start with a procession through the wooded grounds led by festival musicians.

Oh, wow. Oh, God, Jesus. confession through the wooded grounds led by festival musicians oh wow oh god jesus fellow patrons watch as they see the love shine from each of the passing happily married couples these are people that are already married there's no shining probably they're remarrying themselves because they're like look it was either this or try to have another kid and i am fucking exhausted so we're gonna try this for now and then we're gonna get into like some weird sex shit shut up at least for one day one day uh once you reach the festival chapel you will take pleasure in a beautiful ceremony performed by a justice of the peace with the

queen presiding oh well that's terrific i don't know what. The queen of the Sterling Renaissance Festival. That's where it's inside of that. This is like a pop-up inside of that. Some lady has a day job. Oh, absolutely. She's not the queen all year. She doesn't sit on the throne waiting for the next festival next year. It's her only job.

This is so stupid. After you have shared your loving kiss once more, you will enjoy a delicious piece of cake to share. To share. One piece of cake for both of you, by the way. We got a ration. And a champagne toast. You only get one glass, so you have to go ting and just put it up in the air. Say ting.

To help renew, to celebrate the renewal of your union. Two festival mugs are provided to give you your toast the exceptional touch you'll cherish because you want to toast your wedding with a mug and carry home with you for years to come oh man you'll also leave remember the day that you renewed your vows in front of a stranger pretending to be a queen they have a renewal of vows package that's what it's called that you buy that is fucking amazing holy shit i hate it i hate it a lot um oh the slice of cake is a mile high cake that's why so how much cake do you need really cut it it's like a seven layer cut it in half three and a half layers each i don't know so crime rate in this town what we're interested in here

obviously the crime rate and i know we we ran through the town stuff a little quicker this week than normal that's because this fucking case is insane and it needs all the time and attention we can possibly give it uh crime rate here property crime is about one-third of the national average so two-thirds low and violent crime murder rape robbery and assault the mount rushmore of crime is about half of the national average so very much yeah it's obviously in utica as we know it's just there it's forget about it man it's like escape from new york like it's just bedlam you got to see it it. It's like, you know, 80s fucking South Bronx up there. A lot of snake pliscans walking the street.

It's wild. That said, let's talk about a murder. What do you say, Jimmy? Let's do it. Let's get into this. Oh, my God. Okay. Right off the bat, we have to talk about the Word of Life Christian Church is their full name.

WLCC is what they go by. Word of Life Christian Church is their full name. W-L-C-C is what they go by. Word of Life Christian Church. Now, number one, this particular Christian Church or Word of Life chapter here in Chadwick's, New York, if you look up Word of Life Church, there's a million of them. None of them have anything to do with this one. Are they affiliated at all? Not at all. Not at all.

I don't think you can copyright church names. I think it's not like a trademark. That makes sense. Anybody can be called anything. Yeah, because how many St. Patrick's are there? Probably a trillion throughout the- How many First Church of Christ are there? That's what I'm saying.

Fucking thousands. So Word of Life is a lot. I saw there's one in Philadelphia. That's like it's mainly like elderly Russian immigrants that started it. It's like a prayer group. It's not. This is a totally separate, totally independent thing. So don't don't put this on any other word of life.

Life churches, please, because they have nothing to do with these people whatsoever. So now in this Chadwick's, there's a big used to be the junior high it's a big three story building at in a residential area and they moved into this church and you know by the 2010s because our story is going to take place over some time but it's going to culminate in 2015 so oh yeah it's a lot so um over this time time here, there's a bunch of homes here and the main road. It's the main road on Oneida. Oneida? Oneida?

Oneida? I don't know. How do you spell it? Oneida, whatever, street. The main road through Chadwick's. O-N-E-I-D-A. Oh, just like the fucking. Silverware.

Is it silverware? Yeah. Yeah, silverware. This goes here and this road leads to Utica, by the way. But it became the Word of Life building in the 1990s. This is an old building built in 1916. It's a big two-acre building backed up to a creek. So it used to be the junior high. Now it's not anymore.

It's basically a big I if you looked at it from above. It's shaped like a big capital I here. Or an H if you turn it sideways. Yeah, it's just they're short on the end. So it's more like a capital I rather than H would be longer. So there's a big gymnasium in it and all that kind of shit. It's a junior high. It used to be.

So they settled into it here, the congregation. gymnasium in it and all that kind of shit like it's a it's a junior high it used to be so um they settled into it here the the congregation and at first when they first moved into the building there was other things occupied the building was multi-use it wasn't just one thing so there was a karate studio in the front and a gymnastic studio in the back so there's a church mixed with that shit going on there um and then the the church eventually started just taking over everything and uh you know doing all of that shit so they when they first moved in they were very welcoming they'd go knock on doors and uh you know invite people people over yeah yeah they'd invite people but more like a less like uh missionary and more like neighborhood-y

like hey you know we're in this church if you anybody everybody's welcome just so you know you know we have baked goods and shit you can come by and get a cupcake and say hi and more like it's like a social thing kind of a deal you know what i mean stop by we're not weird you know that sort of shit come on over yeah and people would come a lot of people would show up because it just seemed like a nice place. The people were nice. They'd show up. The church people would just give out baked goods in the neighborhood and stuff like, hey, Martha made a shitload of cookies.

Who wants some apple cinnamon cookies? And the neighbors are like, hey, sure, I'll have one. How you doing? Yeah, they just seem like neighborly people. Jerry Irwin is the pastor here and we'll talk about him for a while there, but we got a lot to say about Jerry Erwin boy oh man holy shit this guy is if you mixed if you mixed if you haven't listened

to Rulo Nebraska episode but if you mixed the the that guy from there uh mix him with Jim Jones and you get Jerry Irwin. Oh, it's disturbing. Yeah. It's very disturbing. So, uh, this, the neighbors are like, they're watching this happen. And then they put, you know, word of life building on the old school and they're like, okay, well at least somebody's in it. Um, yeah. At first they were like, this is cool because at least, at least, yeah, it's a church.

It's not like some businesses. So it won't be like nefarious things going on there it'll be quiet at night they were happy you know the neighbors were happy with it but eventually though it started to become the neighbors weren't really welcome anymore and they started shutting everybody out um and then they put up like big gates and they had like guards and shit. It was like Scientology. It looked like from the outside. Like, yeah, it was really strange. You missed your chance for punch and pie.

Now you can't have it. Yeah. No punch and pie. Now we that was that was yesterday. Today it's today. It's we lock you in and we're going to talk about some shit. So, yeah, there's a lot of rumors going around and, you know, chit chat and people. Well, I heard from this one and

this one was in that church once and he said this and she said that so it's pretty interesting one of the neighbors here has had like it was her her entertainment source she said it was like she'd do that instead of watching tv she'd just look out the window what was going on at the church there's always weird shit happening she'd look out the window she'd tell like everybody come on come here quick look check it out look what they're doing now look at this this is crazy check it out and they'd watch and they'd say a parade of cars would pull up to the church driveway someone would get out unlock the gate you know go inside everybody then they'd come close the gate and that was it it was just

like all these people would show up at the same time and parade in and then shut everybody out yeah it was very strange uh there's another woman who rents a house on the other next door to the church and she said she was uh i like there's a book i'll tell you the name of it and everything at the end a lot of this came from that has a lot of great detail she says in the book i love how they describe her quote admittedly nosy she was always watching from her window. I understand that anybody who's paid attention to the media would have to come to the conclusion that I killed my wife. Hi, my name is Zach Stewart-Pontier.

I'm one of the filmmakers behind The Jinx, and I'm excited to bring you the official Jinx podcast. We'll be revisiting all six episodes of Part 1 and watching along with Part 2 as it airs on Max, starting April 21st. Bye-bye. The Official Jinx Podcast. Listen on Max or wherever you get your podcasts.

Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery+, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. secrets run deeper. In this new thriller, available exclusively on Wondery Plus, religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community. Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity.

The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family. But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth. With an all-star cast led by Emmy nominee Sanaa Lathan and Star Wars Kelly Marie Tran, Chinook is available exclusively and ad-free on Wondery Plus.

Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. That's something I would do. Like, I like to mind my own business. I'm not going to get involved, but I want to see

what you're doing also. I want to see what's happening over there. What are you up to at the same time, you know? I'm nosy. He has 11 bags of dog food. He's going back for another.

They're all in his trunk. There's so many. Look at him. He only has one dog. Look at him back there. What are they doing? I love that shit. What's he doing with all that dog food?

Yeah, anything. Just what are they doing back there? What's that? Oh, they let their kids do. Oh, no. Look at that. I don't know. They're just letting the kid.

Look at that. He's just drawn in the house with chalk. That's not going to come off, right? It's going to look like shit after a while. Just judge people for anything if you look out the window. It's fun. It's just fun. So she said she would climb on her picnic table to look over the wooden picket fence

to see what was going on over there right i wouldn't do that if i can't if i don't have a good angle from an upstairs window it wasn't meant to be you know what i'm saying if i'm not comfortable in my voyeurism i'm not gonna fucking make it weird yeah if i have to climb on a thing and look over like what am i 12 i'm not gonna do that. It's not like I'm 12 and there's a lady with her boobs out over there or something. I'm going, she's topless sunbathing like it's some teen movie. I'm not erecting scaffolding for this. No, she should have, actually. She said that fireworks would happen all the time.

They had bonfires on the roof of their place. Oh, that's dangerous as fuck, right? Which doesn't seem safe at all, but she said one produced such an odor from it that neighbors got sick from it. Oh. Yeah, one of their big bonfires, because it was probably melting shingles.

So they said children, you could see them in the parking lot walking in a line. They'd all be in like a line together. Cars pull into the into the church at the same time each night which was late like well after dark she said there was bizarre chanting noises they're speaking in tongues now now i'm watching she's yeah she's like what's going on over there um there was just all this type of shit so all that's it became the local guy that's

all everybody talked about do you see what's going on down this jesus christ now they're doing this through the clopex now right yes this is when you set up a deer blind to watch yeah yeah this is the clopex from the burbs and they're gonna yeah bored people are gonna have meetings and talk about neighbors well i'll spy on them over here and you do that they were talked about they had big guys big they called them big beefy guys walking the grounds in black trench coats. Even in the middle of the summer, they had black trench coats on walking around the grounds like security people. Now it's getting weird. Very weird.

The original had a big – the path leading to the front of the school, now church, is a big concrete path like most schools have. And you walk up to the front doors, but nobody goes in there now. They go in a different way. There's a different way in, and outsiders really aren't allowed there. There's a big metal gate that they have to open to go in. It's very strange. So some of the neighbors, like I said, at first thought it was a good thing that the church moved in because they basically they cut the lawn. They fixed the building up.

They trim the trees. So it just made the neighborhood look better. So they were like, oh, good. That's great. But then it started to get super weird. Yeah. Yeah. They said that a middle aged guy used to mow the lawn.

And this one neighbor's husband used to go over and, you know, chit chat. They said, oh, he's a real nice guy. And they said, but nobody else we saw there ever spoke to the husband. So they realized that, quote, we realized after that they weren't a friendly bunch is what that neighbor said. So, yeah. So the lady who lives next door and peeks over the fence. That's fucking amazing. She's there with her four-year-old and she said you know she remembered

when they used to give away cakes and bread and donuts and shit and you know things like that but now she that didn't last after a while she said that she would notice teenage girls in the church parking lot but never saw them leave she goes they were always in there but never they were never gone i never saw teenage girls leaving it was, they were always in there, but they were never gone. I never saw teenage girls leaving. It was just teenage girls being in there. So I don't know if the air dropped them in there and now they're going to stay forever. She said she heard her four-year-old

talking in his bedroom and she thought it was like an imaginary friend or something. She was like, oh boy, what's this kid doing? But he was talking out the window to the teenage girls. He's four. What a boy. And yeah, he's chatting kid doing? But he was talking out the window to the teenage girls. Oh. He's four. What a boy. And yeah, he's chatting them up over here.

Looking good, love. He turned British. Yeah. So, but it was. Well, she's, but I still like to breastfeed, aye. Yeah, aye. You're looking milky, huh? All right.

So. Looking engorged, isn't it? Yeah, isn't it? Looking engorged. He said, she said, though, it was kind of weird that why are these teenage girls, they have nothing better to do but hang out and talk to a four-year-old through a window

is a little weird, you know. But, you know, nice, that's still fine. At some point, though, like we said, total shutoff of outside world. And also lots and lots of dogs barking all the time. All hours of the day and night they had dogs barking. So this woman, the fence peeker, she called animal control at one point. And I guess they discovered that the church was running like a big like a puppy mill operation they were pumping out puppies and

selling them and shit like that that's how they're financing their lives yeah they said that she said quote they would drive their van outside the gate and park it there and then people would come and i realized they're selling dogs so after, the church somehow found out it was her that apparently she thinks that told on them because she said someone from the church erected a giant Jesus saves sign. They said

it was a giant handmade billboard of made of wood painted with painted black with letters in bright white and it just faced her apartment. She's the only person who can see it. It's just in her backyard. You! Fence peeper!

We see you looking over the fence. Look at this. Pray about it. So they did that. They said the car parade that would go in and out, or just in mainly, started happening much later at night. They said it appeared that cars were entering the building itself at one point. They had a bat cave in there, some sort of underground garage they built. Vehicles would drive around back and just vanish, and then people would hurry up and

lock the gate. Very, very strange, too. And then when they would leave, it would be all single file at the same time. Wow. Real strange stuff. So let's talk about a couple of folks here. A couple of regular folks. Bruce and Deborah Leonard we'll talk about.

They're going to eventually be a couple, but let's find out how they found their way to each other here. Debbie, Deborah Debbie, she's born in 1956. She's one of four children. She's got a brother named Rick, who Rick will factor into the story later on as well. So she's got a younger sister that's 12 years younger than her. So pretty decent family range. They ended up in Utica near New Hartford in 1969. Her dad was an accountant for a company that made thermal underwear. Awesome. So he counted all the underwear to see how many we have and how many we're selling. All those waffles.

Those things are great. Yeah, yeah. She's not super religious. The family goes to a church on Easter. So, I mean, they're once a year Catholics. Yeah, that's how it is there. So her mother got sick and ended up bedridden. So Debbie ended up being basically the de facto mom to her youngest sister, the one who was 12 years younger than her.

So she had a big deal there of raising this kid, which was hard for her. And she said she was – it turns out she ended up, because she didn't get to go out a lot or kind of socialize a lot, she was very insecure. She also let people walk all over her a lot. It was a big deal for Debbie. She got into a bad relationship. She got married to this guy. They had two kids. Their third child died of SIDS, sudden infant death syndrome. So after a few years, Debbie left her husband, took her kids, and went and lived with her parents again, who lived in Clayville, New York, which is just down the road, not too far.

So her brother Rick lived next door. down the road, not too far. So her brother Rick lived next door, and her brother Rick had been heavily involved with a local church run by Jerry Irwin, which is the word of life church here. Rick persuaded Debbie, hey, try it out. Just come by the church. I'm telling you it's a good time.

This guy's got a lot of charisma. I think you're really going to like him. He's kind of magical, too. Wait till you see see did you know he was magic jimmy mr erwin he's magic do you know that oh he's dude magic wait till you hear wait till you hear what he can tell and do and see i can't like yeah he's part superman part psychic and part let's be honest here he's a god jimmy that's that's all there is to it he's got to be a prophet of some kind or we're not sure but pretty impressive man here so debbie didn't have a job

or really wasn't doing anything she just had her kids she's a stay-at-home mom so she started going to church around 1986 and uh that's what she's doing there. She has a daughter, by the way, named Sarah that we'll come into play a lot later on. So keep her in mind. Debbie's daughter, Sarah? Debbie's daughter, Sarah. She's got a few kids, but Sarah's one of them. Now, Bruce, her soon-to-be husband here, he's a few years older. He's born in 1950.

He grew up near Cooperstown, which is where the Hall of Fame is, which looks like it's a bigger place, but when you go to Cooperstown, it is the tiniest town ever. There's a street with a bunch of baseball-themed shit and pizza places and the Hall of Fame, and then that's it. There's nothing else. And then it's farmland for hours in every direction. So he worked at the Cooperstown Farmers Museum for a while.

Which I didn't know they had that. There's a museum of the Baseball Hall of Fame. And if you get bored there, you can go to the Farmers Museum. Which is probably kind of cool. They probably have old farming equipment there. If you get bored about baseball, let us

show you where you can take a nap. Let us show you a tractor from 1912 look at that huh pretty neat so bruce also was married to begin with uh he went to the uh suny oneonta oneonta i'm sorry uh with and that's where he met his first wife married married her in 1973. He's got a degree in education and he gets a position as a high school teacher as well. So he's doing that. He's very Bruce's mild mannered, very calm and takes a long time to get things out. Like if you asked him a question, he'd go, well, the thing is, yeah, these are his pauses. So it's yeah, he definitely changes the pace of every conversation. He's an imagine a teacher doing that.

Oh, God. So while the kids are cutting up and acting out of control, he's, you know, hey, kids. And they're, you know, hanging one out the window by his ankles and there's fucking books flying across the room and he can't he can't express himself that well to get it out he's not a dumb guy at all he just that's he's a very deliberate slow speaker so uh he ended up getting his master's degree in plant and soil science oh Oh, God. Yeah. They have a daughter named Crystal in 1979 because most of the children born in 1979 were named Crystal, as we've discussed before.

79 and 84, big name. Crystal, Jennifer, or Stephanie, which one? Yeah. So you're only allowed to name them one of the three. It's 79. That's all we have. Sorry. That's it.

Now, Bruce, not particularly religious either. Him and his first wife started attending some church over time. But, yeah, he's not really that religious or anything like that. 1987 comes around. They have a lot of problems, Bruce and his first wife. And his first wife leaves him after 14 years of marriage. Oh, no. Taking little Crystal with her okay okay so uh yeah she uh she's awarded custody of crystal and now bruce didn't know what to do he was at just at loose ends it's the end of the road yeah you gotta be devastated he's. He has nowhere to turn.

And then luckily for him, he meets a man named Jerry Irwin. Yeah. Jerry Irwin has some words. And this is Bruce's later reflection. He said, quote, I was at a very low point and had stopped attending the local Methodist Presbyterian church. It was too depressing to go without my wife and baby girl. And said, he said, a family friend thought he looked kind of lost and said, why don't you come to church with me?

It's a different church. Won't bring back the same memories. And I think this Jerry Irwin guy, I think you're going to like him. I just, there's some stuff about him you're going to dig. And Bruce said, quote, it was just a living room with some friends jerry said something to me i forgot the specifics regarding my situation which there was no way for him to know so it got my attention as to quote hey maybe god is showing him things or or he's a good huckster who knows how to read people because he's been hustling for a long time either or what's more likely do you think yeah or he's miss cleo and he just takes hints about things and uh and then that's what i mean and it just happens to be yeah fucking spot on con men

forever that's how they do it they can they can glean things that you don't realize you're giving up and then tell you things about yourself you didn't know you just told them already it's pretty fucking simple so that's what a good con man does so jerry dean erwin let's talk about jerry real quick here jerry is a mess he's always been a little kooky when he was 16 he was convinced that a police informant was setting him up for an arrest so he smashed out all the windows of this guy's house with a baseball bat and left town. The guy's not even an informant. No, no, not at all.

He's a little paranoid, old Jerry Irwin here. So he does all that. He hitchhiked to a small town in Ohio where he met a man who convinced him to come down to Florida and be a deckhand on boats. Wow, what a weird time when you could just be like, this guy said there's boat jobs and you just go to Florida. That's crazy.

Favorite's life for me. Yeah, he got a job on a 65-foot scallop boat. Oh, my God, that's awesome. Yeah, he's going scalloping. He worked diesel, I'm sure. Five days a week, and on the weekends, he was going scalloping. So he worked five days a week. And on the weekends, he lived the life of a sailor. He drank to excess and did a shitload of drugs and fucking banged any port skanks he could find.

That was his life, the life of a sailor. Where in Florida? Probably Tampa side? Port Canaveral is where he was. That side, right? I have no idea where that is. No clue whatsoever. Cape Canaveral is down there where the – I imagine Port is near the Cape Canaveral.

It's probably near there, right? I don't know. You know what, though? Florida's not so organized. Who knows down there? We have no idea. So he'd do that. He met a woman while he was doing that at the Pillow Talk Lounge in Cocoa Beach.

He meets a woman. And two weeks later, asks her to marry him, which is what you do when you meet somebody at a Cocoa Beach Pillow Talk Lounge sailor bar. Cocoa Beach is on the Jacksonville side, I think. I have no idea. I assume you probably end up all around if you're on a scallop boat. You're not going to the same port every time. Right. So he ends up he has some problems here.

Obviously, at one point, she ends up leaving him, as we'll talk about with kids. At one point in May 1979, he's going to kill himself, though. He's done. He's had enough of this, huh? Jerry told everyone out loud, he said he was walking, he was spiraling out of control, and he said, what is love? And who loves me?

And he didn't know. He said, and at that moment, he told people, at that moment, the road he was walking disappeared in front of him. Literal road. Disappeared. And he was walking disappeared in front of him literal road disappeared and he was weightless in a sky like floating in a sky not the sky you know as i said a sky because this wasn't the normal sky this wasn't a blue sky this was a rose colored sky that he was now floating in

as opposed to walking down a florida highway which are very different things As opposed to walking down a Florida highway, which are very different things. So he said at that moment, though, as he floated through this rose colored sky, he saw God sitting on his throne with Jesus at his side and felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. And at that point, that changed his life. Revelation done. What year was this 79 okay yeah i think you probably did too many drugs in the 70s maybe and your eyes were bleeding and that's why everything had a red hue yeah why is my eyes bleeding she's probably having a stroke and this is what he thought so now the church beginning it began as a bible study group in richfield springs new york in the early 80s a guy named pastor reggie was in charge oh yeah

pastor reggie cool as fuck pastor reggie sounds like he high-fives you when you come in hey good to see you good to see you man yeah all right hey you know what there's there's refreshments we got cookies up there for the kids come on everybody let's sit down let's have a let's have a good time and do some praising huh like he's that guy you know i do like a white guy named reggie that's a cool dude that's always a cool guy and in the early 80s he had like a like a you know like a good little white guy fro going on probably hey come on now all right you look like epstein from fucking yeah yeah i feel like that reggie's are the best how's it going where's a lot of turtlenecks i feel for some reason but he's so fun he's a fun guy yeah and so he's like hey we're working out a

summer camp for the kids you know what i mean want to get some good activities i'm gonna get a water slide yeah all right yeah all positivity white reggie all positive man he'd previously been the pastor of a nearby church the cherry valley assembly of god and uh two so yeah he ends up doing that and uh uh jerry irwin ends up taking over that church and night or jerry irwin takes over the Bible study group in 1984. From White Reggie? From White Reggie, yeah. White Reggie's just high five, hey, everything's cool.

He's real laid back. When he comes across an aggressive Jerry like this, he's just letting Jerry take over. Hey, man, you know what? You take a shot at it. Maybe you'll do a better job than me. I hope you do. That's Reggie. Florida man with bath salts in

his eyes yeah he's coming in i'm taking over the bible group your your basement bible study group i'm taking it over and then he's like sure buddy bloody eyes sure buddy high five and jerry just looks at him goes he just grunts and one one blood tear comes down his face so jerry moved the Bible study group into the basement of his own home. He's like, we're coming to my house now. I'm not leaving the house for this shit. Fuck this. I'm in charge. You come to me.

I don't come to you. Yeah. Yeah. He said the participation went down. Only a handful of participants now. He got all the people left, as he put it. He'd rather have it this way rather than the early days with, quote, 25 or 30 disgruntled people left as he put it he'd rather have it this way rather than the early days with quote 25 or 30 disgruntled people as he put it yeah yeah these people are shitheads look

i'd rather pay the play to the 12 in my audience rather than the 60 of somebody else's audience that's it man that's what i mean give me my crowd so he says that uh he tells the congregation that the reason why these people were here is because Pastor Reggie sucked a dick. He was a shit pastor. Called him an ineffectual pastor. And he said, quote, and by the way, he has a real like puts on like a hillbilly accent when he preaches, which is ridiculous for this guy. You can't pick that up in Florida.

Possibly. He said, we had a real compromiser for a pastor at the time who had some real hypocrites for the music leaders. And, you know, they lived disgustingly ever. They lived disgustingly ever after until he didn't see any more glory and then he tried to dump it on me.

Disgustingly ever after. Disgustingly ever after. Wow. So, Jerry and his first wife break up she takes the kids to colorado because he's nuts yeah and then he follows that's how this is how he ended up here originally because first he did all this he follows to colorado she he ends up like hanging around because she moved back with her parents in colorado so he hangs around and gets in good with her parents and her parents are like, Jerry is

such a nice guy. What are you doing? What's up with that? And his wife's like, no, he's fucking insane. So she ends up running away with another man, leaving the kids behind. Just what if the kids are my tether to him, I'll fucking sever that tether. I don't need anything that gets me, I have to get away from him. That's how crazy he is.

Causes a woman to just go, you're on your own, kids, and fucking jet. Because he's that nuts. De Niro in heat. Yeah, gone. She thought he was insane, the ex-wife. He would stare at her just to make her feel weird. He'd just stare at her. He'll do it.

Eyes bleeding, acting strange. He would talk to, just to make her feel weird. He'd just stare at her. He'll do it. Eyes bleeding, acting strange. He would talk to, this is from her, he would talk to demons and paint weird stuff on the walls. Yeah, it's time to go. When you're having chit chats with demons while painting shit on my living room wall, I'm out. I'm out. Sorry. You're painting images into the drywall. All right.

I'm out, bro. I'm out. Sorry. You're painting images into the drywall. All right. I'm out, bro. I'm done. The wife said she left to protect the children. She feared Jerry's parents as well, claiming Jerry's mother once tied their son to a tree while babysitting him. Oh, God. Like, you stay here for a while. Hold on here. Let me talk.

Wow. You've seen the leashes in the mall that the parents have, but this is the next level of that shit. This is tied to a tree. Fuck, man. So they said that once they moved to New York, Jerry got mean, and that's how it worked. Jerry got real mean, and it was just a very strange situation. So Robin runs away for her own good and jerry marries another woman here he ends up marrying this other woman and uh holy shit man old tracy she's

interesting um hoof so they have by the way jerry has a daughter named tiffany from this first marriage that is going to play a huge role in this. Tiffany's got some issues. Tiffany's a lot like her dad. Let's just put it that way. So Jerry referenced his new wife's parents later on in this way. In the realm of saying that women need to submit to their husbands and using them as an example as in-laws here quote some husbands are afraid if they don't go along they're going to get killed in their

sleep i truly believe that about my wife's parents he said there was a fear inside that i might not wake up tomorrow if i don't do what she says. So there's only two choices. Either your wife fully submits to every whim that you have or obviously she's plotting to kill you in the night. Plotting to kill you in the night, obviously. That was the example of his in-law's relationship that he saw. So that's his vision. That's what he's telling people. So if you don't submit fully,

yeah, demon thoughts will come into your mind and you'll want to kill your husband in his sleep. So guys take control is what he's getting at here. So very, very weird. Jerry would urge men to take control of their wives under the threat that if they didn't,

their very salvation was in jeopardy. Salvation. Salvation. Your salvation. Hell. Hellfire for not controlling your wife. So people would take it seriously. And Jerry said, you need to take it seriously because everything I tell you,

I'm just speaking for God. God is speaking through me. So it's all God is speaking through me so it's all god just that's telling you this it's just my mouth that's moving so you should really listen salvation is all yours you just have to get it through me totally so new year's day 1986 young tiffany is born jerry's jerry's daughter she is jerry believed one day his daughter would take over and he said that his daughter was his spiritual shadow and tiffany would see herself akin to god's right hand that's what he said uh at 13 in a diary of hers she had she kept just prodigious diaries um that are really crazy she would tell her she she told she basically made

up a biblical story about her own birth in a bible she claimed and this none of this is true she claimed she was stillborn okay and someone hung her upside down and hit the bottoms of her feet and supernaturally she spit out a substance not birth shit just some demon substance that was keeping her stillborn born and then she took her first breath and lived and lived so that's that's the feet of a toddler a fucking infant to get the demon out of her though yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was justified, obviously. It was real deep. Yeah, clearly. You had to get it at the root, right at the foot. Well, yeah.

It was down into the thighs. You have to, it's like a glass ketchup bottle. You really got to pop the bottom of it if you want the demon to fly out, you know? But when you do, it's a good, solid stream of ooze that comes out. Oh, you're going to get all the demon. That's the thing. Once it comes out, it's out. It's out. You got to yak it. So that's her story at 13 that comes out. Oh, you're going to get all the demon. That's the thing. Once it comes out, it's out. It's out. So that's her story at

13 that she decided. So at 13, she said, let me make up a miraculous tale of my own birth. That's disturbing at 13. What's more miraculous, James? A virgin untouched having a baby

or you beat the feet of an infant but i mean she just she decided to make up her own that's the point she was like i mean jesus has his story i'll have mine fuck it you know like that was her thought process that's a disturbing 13 year old who thinks of that at 13 shit who thinks of that at 13 i I know. Go play with something. Go do something. What are you doing? They beat my feet. Beat my feet? This is in 1999 she's doing this. Yeah.

There's AOL and shit. Like, she could have been instant messaging with people and said this is what she's talking about. So weird. So in 1989, Bruce says, I started going regularly to this living room basement church meeting and considered it as my God provided safety net. So God gave this to me there. He would bring Crystal along when she would be visiting him. She was 10 when he began attending regularly. And that's also the Irwins are having more children at this point in time. So Bruce is regularly attending. And that's where he first meets Debbie.

Remember Debbie? That's where he first meets Debbie. And she's just a new friend for a while, but they'll end up getting married later on with the explicit encouragement of Jerry. Put it that way. Oh, yeah. With Matchmaker? Yeah. Well, they become very god-fearing

and dedicated to jerry so they'll do anything jerry says and jerry likes to he'll break up marriages if he doesn't if he thinks he finds a better match for people he'll say you need to get divorced and marry that person and they'll be like well i don't know that person and he'll be like but i do i know what's right i swear and the people go okay and they go get divorce papers holy shit that's how crazy this gets so um they're dedicated to the whole thing um the pastor he would say some weird shit jerry now here's what bruce said bruce said i was very impressed with jerry erwin's preaching and teaching he stuck to the Bible pointed out what was plainly written and also noted things which

sometimes people assume but which are not written many of the messages were tough he started preaching years ago about having our thoughts under control specifically under God's control being renewed in the spirit of mind but only Jerry we're all but only jerry hears from

god oh yeah they don't hear from god this the way this thing is jerry's their god lightning rod so he's at the top of the church god zaps him with some thoughts and then he comes in and he's like hey god wants you to do this and that and they're like oh that's helpful because i'm i'm so busy doing what god wants me to do i don't have time to listen to i helpful because i'm i'm so busy doing what god wants me to do i don't have time to listen to i'm just i'm flat out of time this is very give me the cliff notes jare i'll take care of it later this is very rulo nebraska arm test yeah style like it's it's getting that silly so he jerry and jerry also told them look if you leave this group you lose your link to God.

I'm the link to God. So if you want to talk to God, I'm your guy. Otherwise, you go out there. There's no God out there for you. What are you going to do? In May of 1980, near Anaheim, California, Dorothy Jane Scott noticed her friend had an inflamed red wound on his arm and seemed unwell. She insisted on driving him to the local hospital to get treatment. While he waited for his prescription, Dorothy went to grab her car to pick him up at the exit,

but would never be seen alive again, leaving us to wonder, decades later, what really happened to Dorothy Jane Scott? From Wondery, Generation Y is a podcast that covers notable true crime cases like this one and many more. Every week, hosts Aaron and Justin sit down to discuss a new case, covering every angle and theory, walking through the forensic evidence, and interviewing those close to the case to try to discover what happened. And with over 450 episodes, there's a case for every true crime listener. Follow the Generation Y podcast on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to Generation Y ad-free right now by joining Wondery Plus.

It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast, Morbid. We're your hosts. I'm Alina Urquhart. And I'm Ash Kelly. And our show is part true crime, part spooky, and part comedy. The stories we cover are well-researched. He claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people. With a touch of humor. I'd just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm

and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother f***er lied. Like a liar. Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal. Or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes. You should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus and the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Jerry, by the way, is like a big, his presence is

a big thing. He's got like black, slick back hair. He's over six foot tall. He's a big, giant fat motherfucker who preaches, you know, and shouts and does, says crazy shit from the pulpit. So. Intimidating size, I guess? big size and he's

just a he's a showman for this shit you know he's and he's good at controlling these people too he he's good psychologically he's a con man he knows how to psychologically do shit he talked about in the 90s here talked about his desire for overarching control. I'm going to give you some of his speeches in a minute here, and they are, wow, next level bonkers. He says, quote, you can sit there, and when the service is over, there's this intimidation and manipulation from some of you where you just want to push your will. And it's like some of you sit through the service and don't hear a thing that's said you don't hear a thing you don't learn a thing and then you get over to me and you're

like oh yeah by the way i want to talk to you about something i wish i knew how that worked how to maintain that control after service is over i wish i could have the lesson from when i say it and let me be after that. Nope. How do I control you when you're not in front of me? That's what he was concerned with. He said, some of you I've watched over the years and you're so arrogant. You're totally off the wall.

You're half dead in your thinking because you're filled with the devil, the devil of strife and arrogance and pride. The devil of strife and arrogance and pride. And this is a mistake that I've made because, to be honest with you, in the past, some of you just weren't worth my time and my feelings. And that was wrong. But I just let you do your arrogant, self-righteous, evil things. And without a specific person, everybody thinks he's talking about that. And he's looking around. He knows exactly what he's doing here. Everybody thinks he's talking about that.

Exactly. And he's looking around. He knows exactly what he's doing here. He would say that he would talk openly about wanting to take over, basically take not only over the will of his parishioners, but their physical being, too. He said he wants to pull their hair out and throw them up against the wall because of the way they've acted. Oh, good. He said, some of you act so pious you're so full of it he'd say shit like that it's fucking insane it's so religious i'll assault you yeah and they said they never knew if it was going to be a speech that was like happy love or he was

going to come out and call you're all full of shit and you're full of the devil. You know? Demons coming at you. Nobody ever hit your heels and got them demons out. Yeah. So they were like, but I mean, hey, the congregants literally said he controls our getting into heaven. We can't get into heaven unless it's through this guy. So this is the way we do it. You know what I mean? So exhausting.

Yeah. But in 1990, all of a sudden he leaves takes off jare jare's gone jare bears out of there there's a way to put it he packs up his family they move to rochester to to pastor at a church that was part of what they call the deliverance movement do you know what that is no you're gonna're going to love this, Jimmy. It doesn't have good context. Yeah. They take people into the woods and bugger them. That's what it is.

No. It's a lot of wood sodomy. The forest sodomy is their main tenet. It's a group of traveling ministers who practiced deliverance ministry, which is a belief that every ill person. Wow. ministry, which is a belief that every ill person, wow, I'm sorry, every ill in a person's life is not from luck, circumstances, things of that nature, your own actions. It is actually, it's because you're possessed by a demonic spirit. Okay.

So you lose your job, you get dumped, you're having a problem. Your kid dies of SIDS. It's all because you're possessed by a demonic spirit, stupid. It's inside you. Yeah, because it's your fault. Right. So they would perform cleansing rituals to cast out the demons in people. Exorcisms, basically. I can't wait how they did this.

Hillbilly exorcisms. While they said it looked like a scene from a horror movie, they'd have somebody on a bed fighting and writhing and they'd be yelling and speaking in tongues and screaming at them and shit like that. It's fucking nuts. So who takes over the word of life? Who takes over? Is it Bruce? It is not. It's Rick Wright, Debbie's brother.

Oh, Rick. Yeah. Debbie's brother. A year younger than her brother. He took over services. Different. Totally different. Now it's

like a breath of fresh air, laughter now. They talk about nice things and they talk about joy and we love God. Isn't that great? Let's sing a song about it. And then they're happy and totally different deal. Children of the church joined in social events and socializing was good and everything like that. Pastor Rick liked everybody talking and getting to know their neighbors, whereas Jerry viewed socializing as, quote, empty chatter. If it's not about Jesus, you're wasting your time. It's true. Problem is Jerry comes back. Oh?

Yeah, they couldn't stand him. Even the deliverance lunatics kicked him out. They is Jerry comes back. Oh, yeah. They couldn't stand him with even the deliverance lunatics kicked him out. They didn't want to Rochester working out. Yep. And Jerry also, while he was gone, he got the idea that there had been a conspiracy to get him out of town. So another church could destroy his church. So he said this was a conspiracy. That's the problem.

It was like a day. He doesn't know if the people were aware of it or if it was just demons working through them so he doesn't know whether to be mad at them or not they were helpful were they cognizant i don't know but they did it could have been a demon i mean i don't know who to blame at this point so it prompted jerry as he said to return probably he wasn't making any money and that's a crazy thing. That's probably really what it was. By then they've had a couple more kids as well. They're pumping out kids. Rick Wright continued as pastor

but Jerry, once he moved in, he's still the overseer of the church because he's the founder of the church. At Jerry's behest, the members started a school here in the church so their kids didn't have to go to like public school and have their minds warped

by non-demon like it used to be a school though right it used to be a junior high yeah so it's set up for it that's good except the only thing they don't have in there is teachers that's the problem they have a bunch of people who think this guy speaks for God and they're

going to teach kids shit so that's the problem. They have a bunch of people who think this guy speaks for God and they're going to teach kids shit. So that's the fucking problem here. It cost about $3,000 to start up the school, and Bruce Leonard offered up the financing. He said, I'll do it. And so they had a kindergarten through 12th grade school, except the teachers weren't teachers. They're just church people who work for free. That's not good. They weren't required to have any kind of degree or special level of education or anything

like that, just if they want to do it, if they feel like volunteering. Debbie was the school's kindergarten teacher and first grade teacher. She had no education to do that at all. She doesn't have a college degree for this? Doesn't have, no, not at all. education to do that at all. Does he have a college degree for this? No, not at all.

So they followed the accelerated Christian education, the ACE, homeschool curriculum, which is a Bible-based education. Accelerated. Accelerated, yeah. It's Christian education. Really gets you up to heaven quicker. So Jerry is involved in all sorts of shit here.

He ended up buying the building. Jerry did. He organized $175,000 in contributions from the congregation to buy the building. So now it's a big deal. It's got 70 or 80 members. Well, it had 70 or 80 members when Pastor Rick was in charge. It went down to very little. Jerry left.

Rick came in. It started swelling again because very little. Jerry left. Rick came in. It started swelling again because it was fun. And now Jerry comes in and it's getting different now. Now it's turning into a business. The sale of the bill, they bought the building after they they got the official name, Word of Life Christian Church, to the point where you make out your tithing checks to WLCC. Yeah. church to the point where you make out your tithing checks to wlcc yeah i mean now it's a an llc and well it's got to be whatever the fuck it is a cp3 too we gotta have yeah we gotta have

an r2d2 and a c3po there's a and on top of that too you gotta have the uh you need the it to be tax exempt yeah that's the other thing so and a school gets you there too right it's got to i don't know how that that but i know a church does so uh they're not affiliated with any other church any denominational religion anything like that jerry preached that quote to keep you in a back in a backslidden place to keep you in an ineffective and ignorant place is what one of the one of the congregants said later on jerry preached at other churches, had doctrines from Satan. You can't go to any church. It's not all the same.

These are Satan doctrines that are planted in the church to drive you to hell. That's the thing. You don't realize it. I'm the only one who talks to God. Remember? Duh. So he said that, you know, he said, quote, you can prove just about anything you want by using these scriptures. You can take these out and make them say just about whatever

you want. Well, yeah, that's the point of why some people disagree with religion for that purpose. He nailed it, sir. He said, though, he's the only one that provided the true word of God. He said, you want to walk in the spirit, then you need the accuracy of the word of God controlling you. If you want to walk in the spirit, then you need the accuracy of the word of God leading you and illuminating your path. You might say, quote, well, I hear what you're saying there, but I can turn in this place in the Bible

and it seems to be saying something different, or it says this, and so I decide that I'm going to hold on to what I see here and reject that part over there. That's just as big a mistake as any other thing you can do in Christianity. Okay. So there you go. He'd give talks and sermons and hunt and pack. Oh God. You can't cherry pick your favorite things. It's all or nothing. Well, he would, uh, during some some of them he would quote people he would quote bible passages in a derisive manner sometimes like that's what they think you're saying but really he would make up quotes sometimes just make shit up that's not in the bible and say yeah now in this one you can read here and that's not in there yeah he said hey um he would use his hillbilly voice here um jesus christ he would you know do

his hey praise the lord hallelujah he would call people nasty no good rotten individuals for people who weren't living in god or anybody that complained about anything at one point he said what's the matter with jerry he said like what's the matter with jerry what's the matter with Jerry he said like what's the matter with Jerry what's the matter with Jerry is Jerry knows you're lying through your teeth ah you sumbitch he said that's what's the matter with Jerry that's what's the matter with Jerry he said uh and it bothers Jerry when he sees you now he's talking like he's Ricky Henderson out of nowhere he just turned into a professional athlete and it bothers Jerry when he knows you're lying through your teeth to me and you have such a low, disgusting opinion of him that you would treat him with such contempt, especially when I'm trying to treat you right.

Now he's an abusive boyfriend. I'm trying to be nice to you. You're making me hit you. I'm trying to help. Yeah, I gave you flowers last year, and now you make me hit you? What the fuck? Like an asshole. So he said, and I want you to know for a long time after I came back, well, I was hurting inside.

I cried sometimes because of the rotten way you people have treated me. But I don't know. Just something started happening, and I started getting the determined feeling to win, and I'm going to win. I'm so sorry, Chair. Can you win, Church? Is that something you can win? Is that a – can you win church is that something you can win is that can you win has that ever been said before yeah i'm gonna win god damn it i've never heard that before

that pastor's on a hell of a winning streak god damn it well if you're gonna win fuck it all in you know what i mean god damn it is fine at that point jesus christ i'm gonna win god damn it my son was playing for the soccer league and the kids were so bad one of the kids scored on their own goal and he screamed god damn it i suck yes that's an awesome kid i would have yelled the same thing if i was that kid fuck my ass this sucks i'm so bad at this fuck that's what i was like that's our mvp you guys oh that kid's great that kid's great i love him i wonder what he's doing now he's probably a cool kid it's gotten cooler screaming god damn it in church probably fuck man uh so uh in 92 bruce and debbie went from knowing each other to being married they got married here um at that point uh crystal also

moves in with her father full time she's an adult now i think and she's just moving in there and she's going to be all in on the church yeah Yeah. Now, Jerry doesn't have a good place to live. So in October 93, he had Pastor Rick apply for zoning and building permits to build a 1,400-square-foot place for the Irwin family on the third floor of the church at a cost of $45,000. That, of course— Yeah, we're going to zone the building for also living. Yeah. You're going to live upstairs. I got a church, I got a school, I got a house.

Oh, yeah. You bet your ass. So Jerry was at the wedding of Debbie and Bruce, and he looked pissed off because everybody was having a good time. Everybody said he was very weird. And he was getting uncomfortable, though, because he said that he'd been visiting. This is before he came back full time and he had been visiting and he didn't like what he saw in the church. And he said, quote, every time I came to this church, you'd all play stupid. You know, a lot of you, you got so loose with one another, got so familiar with one another, just really stupid.

But I walk on the room and you all shut up. Now, either you despise me or you know what you're doing is wrong you know what is it so what are we doing we're just playing games here with one another this guy hate me or you love me hate me or you love me so the leonards bruce and debbie live in this house they bought for 28 000 in 1993000. It was built in, it's like a 100-year-old house. It's pretty shitty, though. It's kind of a shitty house. There's mold and mildew everywhere.

They don't keep house well at all. It's kind of a mess inside. Yeah, it's not great at all. There's bottles and shit scattered all over the porch and stuff like that. It looks trashy kind of um okay the whole place inside there's it's never like you know there's piles of clothes everywhere it's not clean at all are the dishes on the bed i think possibly dishes on the bed we should really probably check that out but everybody said the children were always clean and presentable

outside of the house. Very clean. That's what matters. Yeah. There's a neighbor here who I'm going to call Aunt Smokey because she's like an 85-year-old lady who smokes a shitload. And she's hilarious. She makes friends with Debbie here. She, like, forces her way into a friendship with Debbie because Debbie isn't really that friendly. But she was friends with her. So Debbie would give her like a ride to the store sometimes because she didn't drive anymore. They said that the children, all the Leonard children were

spending an inordinate amount of time at church. Sarah was pulled out of public school and to complete her schooling at the church. And then the other kid was pulled out and again put in there. So a lot was going on here. Bruce, very patient. They said he was, like we said, low and measured and slow, that sort of thing. Debbie, everybody's called her a gentle person and a nurturing and caring mom. They said, though, not a good housekeeper, but neither was Bruce. They were both neither one.

They said dinner would be later than they wanted it to. There would be dirty dishes everywhere. They couldn't find clean dishes. Bruce was neither of them would discipline the kids, really. Bruce would leave a chore list, but nobody would do anything. So it was kind of one of those. Okay. But they have more kids.

They have more kids. November 8th, 1995, Lucas Benjamin Leonard is born. You have to. These ones are lazy. Yeah. Fuck. Maybe these will be better at keeping house. So he comes and they have another son named Christopher.

It goes by Chris in 1998. So they're doing well and they haven't even another son in 2000 also. So the aunt Smokey said the kids were adorable. That's what she said. She's great. I love her. Her accent is tremendous. So now Crystal has now moved in with the Irwins into the church.

She's moved into the church. And at that point, Sarah had moved out after school also. And she ended up having a couple of kids and going out on her own and leaving the whole area for a while here. But the family for a long time, it was Bruce, Debbie,

and then Luke, Chris, and then a little sister and a little brother after that. Okay. Now, that's the family. The family is a little bit fucking weird. They stuck to themselves. Bruce, a neighbor said he was just kind of an odd guy, unfriendly, that sort of thing.

And I thought about that, and I'm like, my neighbors probably think I'm insane. You know? Like, he can be weird, but he's not walking around he doesn't have a murder manner on the outside of his fucking office with walking around the property with machetes and shit and like i look like a maniac and out here what what must my neighbors think of us over here both of us who knows sarah with her chainsaws all the time like and you're just screaming hey just use that part of the property. I don't care.

Yeah, I don't give a fuck. You're good. Knock yourself out. I'm friendly enough. Yeah. You can have half that yard. I don't give a fuck. I don't care.

No, go crazy. So this is how the house is going. So they said why they didn't understand. They just didn't understand all of it. Debbie wasn't allowed to like do things. I guess she they would say like if you talk to if you talk to Debbie, they're outside talking. They said if you count it to 10, Bruce would be there. He'd show up.

Oh, and he would tell her very calmly. He'd say, OK, you've talked enough time to come in. And Debbie would leave. Debbie would leave. Debbie would leave. Aunt Smokey would say, Deb, could you take me to the store over here? I want to go to the store. And they would go down to the gas station. And but she would say, yeah, I can do that.

Debbie would say then she'd go. Let me ask father first. Oh, her husband. She calls father. Let me ask father first if I'm allowed to drive the neighbor to the store down the street. You know, I always wondered, is there anything creepier than calling your husband daddy? And we found it. Father.

Father and mother is the creepiest. I'm sorry. That's the creepiest, because that sounds even... Father, mother, and then daddy. And then daddy. That's creepiest. So the old lady here, Aunt Smokey, she would say that she would say she'd just go to the door and go, I'm ready. Let's go.

But she would never go in the house because she thought it was weird. Aunt Smokey thought that Bruce was very domineering. She said she described him as controlling, strange and weird. She said the kids were all very well mannered. All the Leonard kids, very quiet. They said they were all socially behind, sheltered, kind of loners. So they didn't really do much here.

One of the neighbors said Luke was happy-go-lucky, smiling. All he had was a bicycle. Didn't go anywhere, never drove a car, never had a girlfriend, playing in the yard, throwing stones all the time what these kids are just bored all the time yeah throwing rocks riding his bike back and forth they also weren't allowed to celebrate holidays either okay when somebody mentioned christmas

uh the littlest son said oh christmas is bad bad, real bad. He was like, that's like the worst. Like, Christmas is fucking evil. Yeah, that's a real bad day. We don't celebrate that one. Well, Bruce later explained, quote, we were encouraged to be scriptural, shied away from the pagan trappings of Christmas and Easter,

live holy, obey those who have the rule over you, et cetera. Jesus. So Luke, the one kid Luke, he is good at art as well. One year, the town of Paris, New York, not the city of Paris, France, shows him to represent them in a countywide sidewalk chalk competition, and he won first place. With sidewalk chalk?

Sidewalk chalk. So he's a good artist. He's got a mind for that sort of thing. He's got a different kind of mind than this family, Luke, honestly. He thinks outside the box a little bit here. They also gave the kids swimming lessons. All the kids were very good at swimming and that sort of thing. barely any snow on the sidewalk luke would climb out the second story window of his house onto the porch's roof and do a full flip in the air and land on his feet in the street below off the roof off the roof he was doing like some crazy yeah i don't know if he's training to be a wrestler someday or what he's but that's wild so that's you know he's daring he's different a kid like that that has a daring mind like that doesn't want to be, you know, if you don't talk to him, you're the devil and you won't go to heaven.

He's like, I'm jumping off roofs and drawing shit. Fuck you. And if you bottle that kid up, you're robbing him of being able to express talents and such. Yeah. And that's not good either. No, no. And he went to school at the Word of Life Christian Church until he was 14. And then you'd think, oh, maybe they put him in a school and he needed to spread his wings a little bit.

No, no. Then Debbie just started homeschooling him and do about that. So a year and a half later, they joined a homeschool co-op that met on Wednesdays and all that sort of thing. But that kind of fell apart after a while as well. The kids started acting out. The youngest daughter started swearing a lot um they had to scold her for using the f word in school oh boy how old is she she's throwing down i don't know younger than 10 yeah so but all the kids swore when their parents weren't around their kids yeah and toddlers swear and that's the cutest that's hilarious when that happens and if the if you're that into it the kid doesn't see tv and stuff and the kid's swearing

that's because you i heard you swearing yeah you where else do they learn they're not inherently they don't know those words from birth and then you have to teach them not to use them they only know them when you tell them to them or someone does and they're gonna keep saying it when i laugh yeah every single time so luke and chris kept asking the the neighborhood girl what's public school like they were like god i wish we could go to public school is it weird is it great well they wanted luke wanted to have a car and really wanted a girlfriend and stuff like they were like oh man we want girlfriends that'd be super fucking cool if we had girlfriends, wouldn't it? What if I could kiss someone and touch their faces? Oh, man, I want to touch her boobs so bad. Also, they wanted to get a job.

Luke wanted to get a job, so Luke got his parents finally to agree to let him work as a lifeguard in the town pool at the town of Paris when he was 15. But Luke had a good work ethic. He was a little bit shy, but they said that his work ethic was so good the other lifeguards liked him. So they wanted him back, basically. He was really good.

They said that he was always a nice kid. He'd shovel out neighbors' cars if they got stuck in their driveways in the winter and shit like that. You know, he's kind of – his place in the family is as what they called inventor and repairman. Repairman. Okay. He's smart. He knew how to do things. He acquired a broken mini bike, like a little dirt bike for people who don't know what that is, when he was 17. And he sat in the backyard and took it apart and fixed it all up. And eventually he ended up putting it back together.

And, well, no. He finished it. He pushed it up the street, over the curb, went between two parked cars, opened up the choke, flipped open the choke, jumped on the Kickstarter, gave it some gas, and shot the bike out right on into an oncoming SUV. He was like Jay in The Inbetweeners when he was on that motorcycle and he just drove it 10 feet into that door and smashed his face. Yeah.

That's what he did. Bang. Bashed right into the passenger side of an SUV. Damn it. Really fucked up his knee. Oh, he stayed on it. Yeah. Totaled his bike, broke his knee.

He would be limping for the next couple years. It was a real mess. So he hurt his knee. He would be limping for the next couple years. It was a real mess. So he hurt his knee pretty bad here. On October 11, 2015, the young girl from the neighborhood had a bonfire at her house and invited Luke

and Chris to come along and a bunch of friends from school. And those were the friends from the neighborhood. But the school friends made fun of the leonard boys and told them to fuck off and get lost yeah because they're like we're trying to finger this chick get the fuck out of here you're not doing it you fucking weirdo yeah so after that they stopped hanging out really and um that was kind of the end of it and this girl ended up moving away and just didn't know what ended up becoming of them basically later

on so the leonard house is getting crowded sarah who's 31 years old lives here with all four of her kids now oh god sarah get out yeah bruce said you're allowed to move back in on one condition that you also attend the word of life church you have to go to church so it was meant to be temporary but it wasn't. After a while, Sarah took over Chris's room in the attic, so Chris and Luke had to share a room, which was a big pain in the ass, obviously. And they kept her. Also, Sarah helped Bruce keep tabs on Debbie's communication with outsiders. Oh, my God. So she began making sure Debbie wasn't out talking to the neighbors too much.

Watching Mom? Yeah. Now, the church laws start to become serious at this moment here. In the house? Yeah. No, no, in church. The Word of Life church members, a document was prepared called The Constitution and Bylaws of the Word of Life Church.

Oh, God. Oh, yeah. Tracy Irwin, who's Jerry's wife, she's the treasurer. And the Constitution listed requirements of its members, such as attending both the Wednesday and Sunday services, subscribing to the beliefs of the church, contributing financially through tithes and offerings, and submitting themselves to the church and its leadership. In return, members would receive certain benefits. One, the best possible spiritual care.

Oh, I'll get all of it? We'll buff that spirit up. We'll put the rust proofing on it. It's going to be serious care. Three days a week personal training of religious care. They would have pastoral counseling at no charge. That's nice. That's kind of what church is, really.

Otherwise, what are you doing there for? Yeah. They said the primary benefit, though, is that while it's one thing to know, this is from the document, while it's one thing to know this is from the document while it's one thing to know a shepherd it's quite another thing to have one each member receives the privilege of knowing that they're that pastor rick is their pastor that was at the time but they'll switch that because this is all a big scheme by jerry he'll take it over so the uh document gives the pastor authority over everything. But this was just Jerry putting this in place now while everybody was comfortable. Then he takes over and now they're all under him now.

They're all his. They were more comfortable under Rick to do that. So he was pairing up church members, like I said, for marriage from words of God that came to him. Like I said, for marriage from words of God that came to him. He brought a teenage girl named Helen into his office and told her she's going to facilitate another member's divorce. She said no. And he said, oh, yeah, you're going to do that. She said, I can't do that. He grabbed a phone book, stood up, leaned into her face and told her, quote, you're going to look in the phone book for a lawyer to help this guy with his divorce.

OK, so he handed her the phone and told her to call this guy and find out how his divorce was progressing. So this young woman, Helen, she learned through Jerry, of course, that God had told Jerry that it was not gospel because she was going to join the military. And he said, no, no. God said you're not joining the military. God told me not to. Jerry said God would remove his protection of her if she joined the military. So she withdrew her

enlistment in the Air Force. She was already enlisting in the Air Force. She had to withdraw her enlistment. Then he said, you don't want to go there anyway because, quote, God has a man for you in the church. Oh. So then Helen was handed a 200-page do-it-yourself divorce packet to fill out and say, fill this out for our buddy, and then you're going to be his new wife. Oh, my God. Yeah.

You're not going there. You're going to be his wife. new wife oh that's how it works yeah you're not going there you're going to be his wife so uh she just turned 20 and she marries a guy and he already has three kids this poor woman that's yeah it was and she thought hey this is great i'm being faithful to god she barely knew this guy it's just some guy from church she didn't even know and now she's throwing her 20s away to take care of somebody else's kids somebody else's kids here it's fucking nuts um and he also jerry said that crystal bruce's daughter there uh was not allowed to be friends with this young lady anymore even though they had been friends which is strange

um but now he said that crystal has to be this girl's maid of honor, which is super strange. So Jerry's doing a lot of he's got a lot of stuff coming in from God. There's a lot of input. God's got a lot to say. Generally, Jimmy confusing. Sometimes you'll probably get it wrong. You'll mix two orders up. That's the thing.

So it's wild. Jerry told his followers that he knew they were thinking that Rick would possibly be the pastor again, but he said that didn't work. So he said it's not going to happen. He said, no, sorry. Pastor Rick went back to just being Rick. He's not Pastor Rick anymore. And that's it. But they continued attending, him and his four kids and his wife.

And there you go. And Jerry would publicly trash them while they sat there, by the way, calling them heretics and infidels and shit. So now what happens if you leave? What if you just leave? Why can't you just leave? Right. Yeah. I mean, he could smite you. You wouldn't know.

You never know well members were told that defectors left because they were in sin and going to spend a lifetime suffering on earth followed by eternal damnation so they were you know that's a lot that's a lot he would accuse specific individuals of sexual sin from the pulpit he would accuse them of having thoughts of sleeping with his wife you want to fuck my wife don't you you thought about it didn't didn't you? From the pulpit. He would accuse them of wanting to sleep and also with sleeping with wives of other members. And he would accuse people out of nowhere

of desiring to rape his daughters. Is he just drunk? What's happening? He'd say, you want to rape my nine-year-old daughter, don't you? And they're like, no. What the fuck are you talking about? He's like a drunk guy at a bar on Friday night. are you gonna rape my daughter aren't you let's go outside motherfucker

because nobody rapes my daughter and the guy's like i know speak english i don't know what you're talking about slightly my wife's tits i know what you want i know what you want think of drool coming down yeah she's mine eye blood so So we do all that sort of thing. At one point, Jerry stopped allowing people to take communion because he thought they were in too much sin. He's like, it's just overwhelming. You can't be doing this. Sorry.

You're taking an awfully big chug of the wine, my friend. Yeah. So after a while, these people started thinking they were bad. God's telling us we're bad constantly. So we're bad. How do you not have bad that's yeah yeah they couldn't leave they need they need him more than ever now they're such sinners they need they need god and they need to god through him so jerry would he'd be preaching

he preached all wrath he wasn't a god's a loving god kind of a guy he's a more of a fire and brimstone kind of a cat so um one couple that came and left and they had their kids in the school and everything, they were shunned by the church members. Their children, none of the kids were allowed to talk to them anymore. They burned all of the kids' school records as well. So the kids had no school records and they burned the wife's teaching certificate, which they had possession of. So there's a book out there called uh it's the word of faith

it's a different uh different group word of faith and it's a north carolina cult and it's very similar they do the same thing they had a school and if you left they would fucking ruin you they try to steal your kids and like what the fuck it's a wild book man you got to read this shit so and like it's a wild book, man. You got to read this shit. So anyway, they talked about all of this. They said that even years after they left, they would get like threats from people and shit like that.

It's wild. They also, this guy who was kicked out, talked about how this guy, talked about what they said. They said, blows that wound, cleanse away evil, strokes that make clean the innermost parts. Some men must be beaten black and blue or have very severe correction. Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline will drive it far. So they're starting to talk about you got to beat the demons out of some people.

Sometimes it takes a rot yeah and like the one in the one in north carolina they had this thing where they get people and the whole church gathers around them and yells and screams at them yells and screams it gets right in their face and i mean people have had heart attacks from this happening because it's just like it's so overwhelming and they it's no matter what they say you did with no evidence, no proof, no even thought of it, you have to admit that you did it or else it'll never stop, basically. They'll just keep at you forever until you just say you did it. It's fucking disturbing. So, holy shit. They said that he would say, you is god a liar are you a liar

which one because his god told me this so who's a liar well and we know his his track record on honesty so and we're not you're gonna stand up here and say god's a liar but you're telling the truth come on man obviously we know his yeah obviously you want to fuck my wife. Just admit it. That's how it goes. Maybe run some bitch. Yep. Then he got church doors that he would lock with a big chain and got security, big gates, security cameras. Like from the beginning, he put up a fence on one side, 15-foot hedges on the other so nobody could see in, security cameras. You could see in security cameras.

Members were required to seek Jerry's permission to speak to or socialize with family members outside the church. Yeah. Even Jonestown was looser than that. You know what I mean? They were told to let go of their friends. Even the Christian ones weren't good enough. They weren't Christian enough for this. He was he thought people were coming for this. He thought people were coming for him. A former member said, quote, it was Jerry's goal

to have every member of the church actually living there to protect them. That's what he said. And they were just waiting for it. Bruce said, those of us who stayed believed God called us specifically there. He said that they thought it was a good, special church. It had a pastor with a prophetic anointing. God speaks through him. And Bruce, the guy here, he said he was learning valuable lessons. He said forgiveness, being thankful, don't be judgmental, casting prayer, casting prayer, casting praying cares over God. I don't know what that means, but that's what he said. So, um,

once he reappointed himself though, and did all this shit, Jerry has, you know, his, uh, as the, he's going to be the,

the leader again. He said that he then had the guys. This is amazing that he wanted new living quarters. So quoting Ezra 1 colon 4, he told the group that this Bible verse means that you need to build us something. Ezra 1 4 means you all build for me. It means an apartment with a living room with mahogany furniture, French doors, a bathroom with a spa tub, an office, a room with a trampoline, and an indoor basketball court. You need to have all those things. Not only for you to build me something, I need it to be amazing.

Well, here's the verse that causes that. This is the that means. You should get me a hot tub, buy it, and install it. Skip the silver and gold. I'm doing you a favor, really. Really, this is... Just get me a hot tub. It's going to be great, honestly.

You're welcome to the basketball court whenever we'll have pickup games so the they're expected to work long hours well into the night cleaning and maintaining the erwin residence in the church all these people they're tasked with removing when they fix the church up they just have the guys remove fucking portions of asbestos there's no equipment. They don't know what they're doing. They're just ripping asbestos out of the walls. This is an old building. Yeah. They said that sometimes directions from God's word would dictate that broken tiles be stacked in the storage room and left undisturbed.

All those broken tiles, God said put them in there. Okay. They're trash, but we're going to hang on to those. They're full of asbestos, these tiles. They need to go, but they would just stack them up. So these people would just be walking by all this asbestos pile every fucking day with these tiles. They were required to work at least three hours after each service. Everybody was.

So they also were expected to cover the cost of materials, too. I mean, come on, Jesus Christ. It's God's house. You got to do this. So Bruce was in charge of maintaining the grounds and maintenance, even though he has a master's degree in soil shit. He's doing that. He knows how to do this, too. So why not?

They have him do that. He said that they noticed that in one sermon jerry kind of moved into violence he would quote scripture and then turn into something dark and create his own interpretations one day he said this quote you know i could be like jim jones and make a whole lot of money and deceive a whole lot of people we could start our own commune. I could have 20 wives like I'd want 20 wives. He laughs. Then he says, maybe 20 slaves. How's that? I don't like that at all.

This is the pastor of the church. Don't bring up Jim Jones unless to say he's a bad guy. Don't go, I could be him if you know. They also would talk about, they'd take the men downstairs and talk in the boiler room about how they need to stockpile weapons

now he's mixing some David Koresh into this whole deal he would tell them Jerry would tell them we would be able to defend the compound really well if we stockpiled weapons in the basement down by the boilers so that room is always padlocked though so no one

really knew if that ever happened or not. Jesus fucking Christ. So the one family that left, or anybody that didn't show up regularly, Jerry would, when they did show up, Jerry would tell them, be gone. You're like the plague. Yeah. And he said that their time at home wasn't even theirs. He said, how many of you know? Wow. I call you up and I say I want to talk to you, and it's not very nice what I have to say. It's because I began to realize that what you do under my oversight directly affects me, and I'm responsible before God for what you do.

I got to answer to God. So you think it's bad me yelling at you? Try having God yelling at you. That's worse. I got to run with the chain of command, and my boss is an angry boss. Oh, fuck yeah. Oh, they get even weirder here.

People start to notice, people outside the church notice that Debbie's personality and her children's personality are getting weirder and different. Starting to change, yeah. Bruce is still quiet, so he's the same. But there's a thrift store.

He's weird enough. He never got weirder. How do you get weirder with Bruce? If he changed, he'd be more normal. That'd be the only way to do it. Giant guy that now speaks fast. That's it, yeah. That's all he can do.

And he's got like a big beard and must, like a big gray hair and big gray beard and all that shit too. It's all a lighthearted nightmare on our podcast morbid we're your hosts i'm alina urquhart and i'm ash kelly and our show is part true crime part spooky and part comedy the stories we cover are well researched he claimed and confessed to officially killing up to 28 people with a touch of humor i just like to go ahead and say that if there's no band called Malevolent Deity, that is pretty great. A dash of sarcasm and just garnished a bit with a little bit of cursing. This mother f***er lied. Like a liar.

Like a liar. And if you're a weirdo like us and love to cozy up to a creepy tale of the paranormal. Or you love to hop in the Wayback Machine and dissect the details of some of history's most notorious crimes, you should tune in to our podcast, Morbid. Follow Morbid on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. So he's an interesting guy.

The thrift store clerk that they go to all the time, the guy who worked there said that they'd be really weird, store clerk that they go to all the time, the guy who worked there, said that they'd be really weird. Their heads would be bowed all the time as under they like they were under hypnosis. So it was really weird. The library director said that Luke had used to go to the library happy and all that kind of thing. And then after a while, he stopped. They said this in like 2015, quote, he wasn't friendly. He wouldn't say hi or talk to

me anymore the librarian said so yeah uh meanwhile sarah the one daughter at the house she's got all her kids there like their youngest daughter the leonard's youngest daughter just like disappears for a long time yeah and anybody would ask, hey, where's your daughter? They would say, she's with the babies. She's taking care of Sarah's babies. She's just home. So everyone... She didn't come here.

Yeah, everybody thought maybe she was pregnant and they were hiding her or something like that. But one day she just came out and was holding one of the kids and just going, yeah, no, I've just been

hanging out with the kids and that's it. So it's very fucking weird, man. She just was in the house for a year and didn't come out. Factual statement. Yeah. Strange shit. Luke starts talking about wanting to join the army here and shit like that at some point.

Basically, all these kids want something that will get me away from here. Yeah. Like, I don't care. The government can own me. It's better than you owning me because at least there's other people and I'm allowed to be normal if I do that. Right. But my weekends are mine, you know, type of shit. So, yeah, he's working for the weekend.

Jerry can see things, though, so you got to be careful. Yeah. Jerry warned them, quote, if God shows me something, I know you're doing something evil and wrong. And I come and ask you a question and you lie to me, I just make a mental note. I know that you're a liar and you can't be trusted. You have no credibility, and I will not warm up to you, so to speak, until I know that you've repented and you're practicing truth. That is, yeah, that's a hard-line stance on it. That is, yeah, that's a hard-line stance on it. And the only way to recover and to get his respect back and to get everything back is to admit the accusation no matter what the accusation. And that's it.

Even if it's not true. Yep. One guy here said that he would go to the church as a child with his family. He said, he would accuse me and call me a liar, and I had to back up what he said so he wouldn't get mad. Because if you say that's not true, then you're calling Jerry and me a liar and I had to back up what he said so he wouldn't get mad because if you say he's that's not true then you're calling Jerry and God a liar you can't do that so um uh one time Jerry had accused his brother and father of molesting his cousin which didn't happen and the girl insisted never happened as well he just said I'm God told me you molested that little girl

and you have to admit to it. So they had to. Or be beaten. So then he said they need to get physical. You people aren't admitting things the way you need to admit it. So we might have to start getting physical here, obviously. I gotta beat it out of you? Or India? Well, he said it's what he said. He goes, quote,

y'all call them names. You'll tell them they're no good. Are you hearing me? Instead of taking that stick and just spanking them when they need it and obeying the scriptures that drive the iniquity far from them. So you should beat them harder, not just spank them. Wow. He said that the kids would be sometimes these kids would be like released after midnight because they're getting yelled at for hours. From the church?

From the church, yeah. No food, no dinner. They'd just be there all night getting yelled at. And they said typically they would have to stand for most of that time period because they were accused of being rebellious or that they had a devil in their head. So therefore, they'd have to stand and pray aloud or read the bible aloud to fight off the devil that was how it worked that's what does it huh that's so it's all you the only way to do it bro i mean jesus said you were doing that lately you could be full of the devil man you full of the devil jimmy i don't know

so bruce bruce said it's not uncommon for someone to be on discipline, he said, though not completely shunned. The interaction was limited to necessary communication. Since about half of us were family, it's kind of nixed out social family stuff like birthdays, getting together. Also, the length of discipline was open under the single direct control of the discretion of the pastor who is hearing from God. We'll be treated on a case-by-case basis. Not even a sentence here. Yeah.

They said that they were told that if they're chatting with one another for no explicit Christian purpose, such as Bible study or something, if you're chatting about the Bible, that's different. We're talking about the barbecue coming up. Nope, nope. That's wasting time and being led by the devil. That's what that is. Members of each household were to keep to themselves.

Absolutely. If Crystal, who is their daughter, Bruce and Debbie, if she went to her father's house and Debbie was there, she wasn't allowed to talk to Debbie because Debbie wasn't her biological mother. It's her stepmother. So you're not allowed to talk to her. Only house and Debbie was there, she wasn't allowed to talk to Debbie because Debbie wasn't her biological mother. It's her stepmother. So you're not allowed to talk to her.

Only people who are related. So, wow. Crystal ended up getting married, moves into a house of her own. Debbie was not allowed to visit. Only Bruce and the kids were allowed to visit. But she's not blood related, so nope. Also, Pastor Jerry was militant

when it came to members socializing everywhere else, too. You were fucked if you were like hanging out with people. It's also sinful to watch television because most of the programs were just evil influences parading as entertainment. their father's permission to watch you know particular programs or movies or something like that when students at the school weren't studying jerry would entertain them with this is what he would show them government conspiracy movies he'd show them crazy youtube shit of conspiracy theory lunatics that's what he's showing the kids and he's telling that's real is uh four hours on the zapruder film yeah which is what is what the Rulo Nebraska did too. Conspiracies. Remember Red Dawn he'd play all the time and that was his,

he didn't have the access to conspiracy films apparently. So they said that dating didn't happen with children unless they were instructed to go out with an assigned person connected to the church. A lot of times they would have the girls or the guys date people outside the church just to bring them into the church you go get that guy and bring them in there um yeah they said that uh that all came from god

of course they said chastity was a big deal here it was an obsession so is refraining for masturbation not only was masturbation seemed as sinful but it meant the devil took complete control of you if you whacked it. Complete fucking satanic control because you whacked it. It's fucking, it's interesting. So, okay. Now, Jerry said Satan wasn't the only one taking over these people. Jerry accused parishioners of controlling other members through witchcraft.

Obviously. Yeah. Tiffany, his daughter, was convinced of the witchcraft and it became her total obsession. She believed a demon emanated from Rick, Debbie's brother, Rick's wife, Margaret, and that this demon attacked Tiffany when she played the keyboard and it caused her panic.

It got me while I was playing the keyboard. She said, it got in my brain. I had a demon in my brain that said, what if the witchcraft caused her to mess up the chords? What if it wasn't God's will for her to play that part of the song? Oh, God. So basically she turned into a batter who had like a baseball hitter who's having a slump and is in his own head too much.

That's what it is. So and she blamed it on this person. She said, what if she brought Satan into the room by playing a part of the song or shouting when it wasn't God's will? What if she gave this lady's witchcraft? What if she gave into it right there in front of everybody? She wrote these full out in her diary, all these panic attacks when she was 17. What if this happens? So here's some of Jerry's sermons, by the way.

Some of you think that your mind is your own to think whatever you want to think, wherever you want to think it. And you don't have a right. That's just the seed of sin that will lead eventually to death. Okay, that's one day. Here's the same day. The first couple of years I was serving God, going to this Bible study in someone's house. I went to a lot of Bible studies in people's houses and I just quit doing it because it was just as futile and a waste of time. I began just to, I began to learn just what to do, uh, what God was telling me to do. And sure, God would send me some places and want me to attend services and get involved in home groups, and I've done it.

But you can't just go floating around to every invitation you're given. It's just a waste of time. And I remember at the end of this Bible study, last time I ever went to this house that I can remember, the teacher, I'm pretty sure, was given readings about wives submitting to their husbands. The teacher, I'm pretty sure, was given readings about wives submitting to their husbands. Reading out of, whoa, officians, some Bible shit, and other places in the scripture. And we walked out the door. This spiritual woman.

And we walked to the door. This spiritual woman, I'm being very cynical, she was just a downright butch of a woman. She could have changed her name. She walked in the door. Or she should have changed her name she walked in the door or she should have changed her name she walked to the door and she said in about this tone of voice in a big deep voice he said i let my husband wear the pants in the house so he just wears the one i tell him to and as we're walking out the door stupid fools she said that's evil yeah He also said, maybe people are self-deceived. They have this thinking, brother. They think that I don't see it and I don't know it.

And they think that they can act any way in my presence. They can act one way in my presence, but I don't know how they really act when my back is turned, when they're someplace else. I know it. It's just an uncanny ability. It's just being a person. He said, it haunts me sometimes i know what people think say what would god tell you what i'm thinking or why would god tell you what i'm thinking and tell you uh tell you i've said what i've said to my wife or husband when you're not around it's because i'm the pastor of the church and i need to know total fucking domination is what it is here's one here's

one um quote i'm sure nobody in here does but when you were in the world you did you let your children turn on these television shows where you've got these demons we let our kids watch these ninja mutants or whatever they're turtles ninja mutants or whatever. They're turtles, sir. Ninja mutants or whatever. How many of you know what the ninja were? They were paid assassins, you know. They would ruthlessly and cold-heartedly murder people. Not the turtles, though. No.

But now there are... Save in April. Yeah, but now there are heroes. A ninja was nothing more than a paid assassin, a paid killer. And there's so many other things. I'm sure there's a multitude of new programs on that teach you demonology and witchcraft and all those evils. And then kids come to church and they have this stupid look on their face.

This is boring. This is boring. Well, I'll tell you what. You just keep it up for a few more years and you get into hell and you won't be so bored for one second. Now, will you? They'll keep you on your toes. The very ones that taught you all those things through the cartoons will be there to teach you some more. You're going to be dancing in hell with them cartoon devils.

That's right. You and Donatello down there roasting. Oh, man. Now, here's another one here. I feel for these people that I'm about to tell you about, but you got to listen to me. It's like the person who comes out of a cult, the bitterness, the anger, and the resentment they feel toward those who lied to them, especially when they find out it was a lie and they got out of it.

But if you look at it from the truth's point of view, you've got an individual came over, knelt down in front of someone and said, beat me. Please beat me. I want to be beat. Now, in the light of that, you know, what right do they have to be bitter and resentful of the people they told to beat them after they beat them? So if you get your ass kicked in church like that and you are asking for it, then what the fuck are you complaining about? That's why you're here. Why are you so upset? What are you pissed about?

So 2009,bie fucks up fucks up bad uh breaks breaks rules talking to people making friends talking old ladies not cool jerry believed her to be one of the host of evil spirits and bruce is her accomplice and that's why she was always so sociable because it's a devil. It's like devil. It's like a devil's flower trying to draw the parishioner bees in. You know what I mean? For that devil pollen that they're going to go come take back to the hive. It's the best way I can put it.

So she said that she drew others into her sin and they're going to reap judgment on her god sent jerry the word that church discipline needed to be needed to stop being treated like a joke take this shit seriously she said debbie allowed her children to go out and have fun knowing it would get her in trouble what does she want yeah the irwins you knew it was coming they could the irwins considered children engaging in normal outdoor play to be quote roaming the streets yeah so debbie got yelled at for that all the time she was also uh she sometimes allowed kids to join her kids to join community activities like soccer and shit like that hoping to stay under the radar but she would get caught all the time and then they would shame her in front of the whole service and she would be placed on church discipline so yeah jerry once chastising debbie said the spirit of sickness attacks this

church because either the devil uses the filth of your house to make your kids sick or else he moves on them to go to someone else's house in the neighborhood who is sick then he'll move on then he'll move on to crystal's house or some other lady's house and it spreads around. A vicious cycle of sickness. I don't know why you have hatred in your heart, but your hatred, your rebellion against me,

and your burning desire for revenge is not going to help anyone. It's only going to hurt them. This is going to culminate terribly. Oh, this is coming up real bad. It's right about now. So Tiffany, in 2009, Jerry's daughter, takes over the role of assistant pastor. Okay.

You have to understand all of this to understand what happens. That's why we're doing all this whole thing. So she puts together a special series, including one about merging gospel stories with signs of the Zodiac. Okay. It was a novel approach the congregation found refreshing. She's also good at performing. She's very out there. She became a self-ordained minister at age 25.

She, you know, she, by the way, at that point, doubled the length of worship service from two hours to four. Oh. Four hours. She was immersed in bible study all the time she had notes everywhere uh you're gonna need it four fucking hours jesus four hours well the notes were to yell at herself to to work on her for having pride she shouldn't have pride um she she also wrote in her thing that she knew more than anybody else does about the bible so uh her brother joe turned into a fucking lunatic as well he would sit in on classes look at the kids he's a big burly guy too um he he and dan were the church muscle the giant guys

who would stand at the doors with their arms crossed and all that sort of thing joe would come to service with a big bowie knife strapped to his leg that's normal now tiffany she saw everybody as an enemy trying to persecute her she was like her father but extra uh she saw demons inside of people glaring at her through their eyes she could see physically these demons. People were either trying to hide things from her or attack her. She said that when someone was thinking critically about things other than God, she believed that that meant that person had a demon inside them and the demon would keep Tiffany from receiving God and achieving what God had planned for her. God and achieving what God had planned for her. She said basically anybody who didn't like her was probably – they had to put up with it because she was the pastor's daughter.

So she said it was all that she could do was to try to find these people because they were looking at her with demon eyes because they didn't like her. So she believed – she had a thing, an inferior – she had a thing like, oh, I just am doing this because I'm the pastor's daughter. And that's what they're going to think about. Junior's complex, which is normal. And she instead just blamed it on everybody else that they must hate her and have demons looking through her eyes rather than, you know, I got to try to fill my father's footsteps, shoes, whatever. Walking his fucking footsteps.

Yeah, there you go. So. Holy shit. She's fucking footsteps. There you go. So, holy shit. She's fucking nuts. She believed that, wow, that the parishioners had become crafty in hiding their hatred for her. Their secret hatred. She said even her own mother didn't like her and her

father feels contempt for her as well. When her siblings showed her love, she wouldn't receive it. She was just constantly in anguish and and fucked up in the head because of this whole thing she would um she prayed for a husband for years she also prayed that god would remove her fear of men she believed men existed to take advantage of her and that every single man she came in contact with was entertaining bad thoughts that were coming from satan obviously yeah yeah

she heard voices she hears voices jimmy loud raspy whispers that she assumed were men having immoral thoughts about her so she has like a what women want thing but backwards and only rape thoughts only oh my god no only yeah it's just oh my god that'd be a much bit worse movie yeah everywhere she goes like i'm gonna grab her and bash her over the head i'm gonna stick it in her you're gonna join me yeah let's eiffel tower this broad that's all she hears for two hours um she lived in constant fear of being raped and kidnapped um she said that when she was 20, she wrote of a vision in which God came to her and addressed these fears, telling her, quote, no one will in any way hurt you. Still, she had nightmares of being raped by men in church.

She hated men for watching porn and believed them to be sexual predators and child molesters. Well, you're wrong, and I'm sorry about it, but I'm not sorry about it. Wow. One diary entry talked of being as young as seven years old and having men covet her like a piece of property. She went on to name several adult males in the church and accused them of sexual thoughts for having offered their laps to her as a young child. Another entry, when she's 19,

she said her fear of being sexually assaulted developed when she was a young girl after a church member played a film about slavery that included a scene of a little girl being molested. So she was convinced that would happen to her. Oh my. Spring of 2012, Tiffany starts experiencing delusions

that Luke Leonard is a demon-possessed kid. He's fucked. The little guy. And him personally, through demons, or demons working through Luke are trying to infiltrate her dreams with sexual deviance in a playground of witchery.

That's what she told people. What a labyrinth of words. She's 26. I once woke up and my pussy was wet. And it's because my little mother's. Because I thought about a 16-year-old from church. Wow.

So she couldn't handle that and said, no, it's demons working through him into her, even though it's her dream. And that's Bruce's kid, yes? That's Bruce's kid, Luke, yeah. And that's Bruce's fault. Yes. That's Bruce's kid, Luke. Yeah. So after she said she one night, she said she believed she brought a dead puppy back to life.

Well, you didn't. She personally brought a dead puppy back to life. Then Tiffany, she said she went to sleep. She had visions of Luke with a whip and a desire to hurt someone in her diary. she recalled pleasant, lustful thoughts of the boy, permeating her half-awake state and causing cramping pain and discharge. Her pussy's wet. She had a wet dream, essentially. I don't know if girls can have wet dreams.

Girls can do that, right? I guess so, yeah. Why not? They wake up and they're turned on. Yeah, they just wake up and it's different. It's a different thing i don't know maybe hey good for you if you are i don't know ladies ladies so the wet dreams are not ladies so she said the temptation the temptation would creep in over and over again and she would fight it she's mad at other people because she's horny she's mad at other people because she's horny for a child yeah she's horny. She's mad at other people because she's horny for a child. Yeah, she's horny for a child.

So she apologized to Jesus in case she'd given in, which she wasn't sure she had. But she didn't know if this was part of her fault. And promised that she would never sleep again rather than sin. That's not the answer. She blamed it all on not her mind or not this or that. Luke's sorcery, she said. God damn it that luke so 2012 jerry's a fat diabetic and has a stroke and die and he's gonna die soon so that'll be fun terrible yeah good for jerry i'm so happy that's why i didn't put that in a sensitive way

because fuck him i wonder i wonder what wonder what his diet is you think it's just shitty food all day every day it's fucking gotta be it's gotta be uh she had her preaching through loudspeakers all day and night she'd be done with a sermon tiffany and then they would just loop it like jonestown to play over and over until her next sermon which would then loop over and over till the next sermon that's crazy yeah that's not okay just through the loudspeakers and they had missed the promised one here it is again same second verse same as the first here we go let's do it one more time one more time just so you can memorize it and uh they had they had more than a hundred dogs too on premises oh God. They said they had them everywhere.

The third floor, they put in a sliding glass door and built in an upper deck where they let some of the dogs out there. They installed platforms and waist-high fencings to keep the dogs from fucking jumping off the- There's shit everywhere, right? Shit everywhere. So, December 8th, 2012, Jerry dies. Uh-huh. Sort of. Oh, hey.

Okay. Tiffany's taking over the church now as soon as Jerry's dead. But approximately 35 people are attending the church. This includes the Irwins. So families started to come in and they came in and all this shit. praying this day, the congregation was told that Tracy, Jerry's wife, was currently driving Jerry's dead body across state lines from northern Indiana

to a Christian ministry in Missouri so that TV minister Mel Bond, who claims to heal and perform miracles, could lay hands on Jerry's dead body and bring him back to life. Like two days after he's dead.

Don't worry, guys. Wow. His blood stinks, but we're going to get him back. The church was excited. They were like, all right, Jerry's coming back. They were jacked for it. Yeah, they were jacked for it. A few of the men paced along the sides of the sanctuary waiting for word. Like, when's word coming in?

When's he going to be back? Let's hear Jerry. And they stood. They prayed. 12 hours they prayed for. Finally, about 9.30 p.m., Tracy gives the report to the parishioners that it appears that Jerry has come back to life. Stop it. He's back. He's back,

baby. What if you were dead for 48 hours james and like the process don't bring me back to life don't bring me back to life i don't want to at that point the process has started it'll be all fucked up for l yeah they said that he his heart was beating weakly and he was taking shallow breaths but he's back he's back um everyone went oh thank god jesus christ jerry's alive but they were like well how did this happen this is wild this is crazy um so with the word of all of this the women and children are told they can go home and um you know they've all been at church for 12 hours with no food arrest or anything. So the men were invited to stay to continue to pray though.

But then at three 43, um, Oh no, this is, yeah. At three 43 AM in reality, a police officer was dispatched to the room of a resort where a male was not breathing since 9 AM the previous day.

They had to call the cops and have Jerry actually taken by a fucking coroner and all that stuff there. So he's definitely been dead. Never came back to life. The officer questioned the family for hours. They detailed that the Irwins were in town for Jerry's foot surgery and said Tracy stated that Jerry was awake and well the last time she saw him. That was midnight on December 7th. And she said she awoke at nine and found Jerry and he was

very stiff. She stated that she knew it was too late for medics to bring him back, but she believed in her religion that with prayer, the dead could be raised. So there you go. So they told the followers the next morning, Tracy had said though, jerry spoke to her in a vision while he was taking shallow breaths his heart was beaten and he said to her listen after this whole after this resurrection my quality of life is going to be for shit like for real oh so bad yeah it's going to be super bad everything's breaking down inside it's not going to be fun at all it's going to be unsatisfying so tracy decided to let him go because it would have been he didn't want it it was bad he'd rather just go to heaven 48 hours things fell off already

absolutely now luke um luke was kind of doing his own thing at this point he would uh he would uh walk through the house he started to get really into church for a minute he'd walk through through the house looking for, like, movies that were just entertainment that weren't Christian. And he would get them all in a box, then get his baseball bat and toss them into the air and destroy them with a baseball bat. Beat entertainment. Yeah, yeah. Also, the Leonards decided, this is fun. Try this with your kids at home. Just to memorize the Book of Proverbs as a family.

Just do that. Just memorize it completely. So Luke went beyond and memorizing even more. On his own, he started a Bible search, writing down references and verses that contain the words faith or Holy Spirit, and he committed to two hours a day of prayer. Luke, tell nobody. Tell nobody. They're all going to think you're crazy.

Holy shit. When he wasn't praying, he was speaking in tongues under his breath and that included when he went to the store and um and when he caught himself not speaking in tongues he would start over with what he started with so okay now the sisters sarah with all the kids upstairs and her younger sister living up there too are getting super weird. They pushed furniture and boxes in front of the door. They padlocked the other door in the attic on both the outside and the inside and added a key lock on the outside, which they jammed with aluminum and super glue. So you couldn't get in. They rarely went alone to the lower part of the house. They never went alone to the outside lower part of the house they never went

alone to the bathroom they took their meals to the attic where there was a crock pot a microwave and a mini fridge this is fucking crazy they basically stayed up there because they were so scared of anything that could happen to them um they raped right you don't want to be raped yeah um she would just sarah would get up there saying, over and over, would just say, I choose Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. That's all it was. Kids all over the floor on mattresses everywhere. It's a fucking disaster up there. Sarah went downstairs one morning and Luke offered her a cigarette.

Oh? She thought she heard God say, use caution. Okay? Oh, she thought she heard God say, use caution. Okay. Luke read Sarah, uh, his school report, which was a, which was a pro weed legalization paper. Yeah. Um, she, uh, as she read it, she told him your eyes are red and he said, I've been smoking weed and then laughed like he was joking.

Cause he said, cause he gave her a thing on weed and he said, what do been smoking weed. And then laughed like he was joking because he gave her a thing on weed. And he said, what do you mean they're red? And she stared at him and she looked in his eyes and she said, you're not the same Luke. You're a new creation. And ran away from Luke. Now he's got the devil in him. Luke turns 19. He's 19 here.

And he's not a new creation. He's just tired of this shit. He's sick and tired of it. Yeah, he's had enough. He's 19 here. And he's not a new creation. He's just tired of this shit. He's sick and tired of it. Yeah, he's had enough. He wants out. He wants a girlfriend. He wants a job. He wants to join the army.

He wants to get the fuck out of here to whatever that is. If this was the 30s, he would have grabbed a bindle and hopped on the rails. He does not care. He has a job letting neighbors' dogs out and feeding them, this one particular neighbor's who are always out of town. October 11, 2015, the Leonards take two cars to church, because there's a lot of them. So they take two cars to church. They have to wait to get into the church because it's all locked up and everything like that. So here they go. And this is on camera. They record all the sermons and everything.

Tiffany's up on the pulpit, and she says, one of you is practicing witchcraft. Yeah. Yeah, one of you. So they're like, okay, this is weird. Chris, by the way, was taking notes on the sermon. He's so into it, younger Chris. Until the witchcraft thing came up, and he's like, that's weird. so into it younger chris uh until the witchcraft thing came up and he's like that's weird um he said that um because he figured that they were going to attack them now because they had been

attacking deb debbie for letting them do things so he was like oh boy here we go so um he wrote that down and she said if people uh had obeyed and honored him meaning capital h m he wouldn't have the people wipe them out. God will take the biggest crap storm and turn it into the biggest blessing. Crap storm. That's the pastor I want. Yep. And then she said that she needs to stop.

You need to stop helping these kids be rebellious. She said it's time for the devil to stop being protected. That's right her brother dan was going in and out of the service but tiffany was in there the whole time and um yeah then luke and bruce said we have to leave to let these dogs out and tiffany said she thought they were full of crap that they didn't have to do that that they were just trying to get out of church she said nobody pays someone to watch their dog two weeks out of the month. People who are out of town do.

Yeah, they do. So they went and they let the dogs out, and they came back to the church about 7 o'clock. Oh, very terrible. Who let the dogs? That would have been fun if I said the dogs were let out. But I said they let the dogs. These two let them out. I just answered your question, which was never answered in that song it wasn't was it no that's

the point i just said bruce and fucking luke did it that would have been the end of the song oh okay never mind one verse and we could have been done let's go home let's go home they would have went who who bruce and lu All right. I don't know. Wrap it up, guys. I don't have any other ideas for songs. Somebody throw me a red stripe. Let's get out of here. I just saw some dogs.

So about 8.30, Tiffany sent a group text to her people here. She said, crap storm coming in the Leonard family. Luke can't wait to say something. Says he's not coming back I think. They're trying to see if he's going to come back from his dog sitting job. She should have them stay at the church

and address it and her mother said yes you should keep them there to address this whole thing. She texted Tracy Tiffany's mother texted make him air it there. Air it? Saying that, yep, air whatever he's got.

Yeah, air it all out there. And also his sister should be in on it too. And also, you know, your brothers, Joe and Dan, everybody should be involved in this. Yeah. Bring that Dan and Joe and Dan in case it gets physical too, you know. How is she going to prove this? Well, Tiffany announced that God wanted her to address something. And she said, who has been practicing witchcraft?

Please raise your hands. Now, all three Leonard boys raise their hands because they know this is directed toward them. She's staring at them. This is what they're talking about all the time. So they know they just have to admit it it and then hopefully it'll get over with. So they do that. They raise their hands and she says, raise your hands. Who among you would like to confess and forsake that sin now?

They raise their hands again. Tiffany talks to Chris and go, you know, list your sins and ask them if he's been involved with another family member in witchcraft. He's silent. And she says, why won't you say? Is the reason because you're not willing to let that one go? And he says, yes. She says, you have to let it all go, because if you don't, that sin will have a hold in

your life and you can't be forgiven as something that you're not willing to let go of. Jesus Christ. So she asked Debbie, did you raise your hand, Debbie? I just and I just couldn't see it. And she said, Debbie did you raise your hand Debbie and I just couldn't see it and she said I didn't raise my hand I know I used to but I don't anymore she said we talked about my dad you told me I didn't kill him by the way I thought

and felt about him Jesus I felt that way about him but he told me that he loved me and I forgave him just before he died so now Debbie's crying and Tiffany said I'm glad for you, Debbie. And then she moves on to Luke. How do you believe you've practiced witchcraft, Luke? He said, I thought doing this would have a negative influence on you in the church.

Pulled that out of his ass, right? Nice work, Luke. So then. How did you come in your sleep? Yeah. And they know what they're guilty of because they're constantly telling you what everybody's doing this is what you want even if you don't want it he said i read things in books and experimented with them said he was using a

ouija board to perform rituals and doing black magic trying to make church elders sick not true probably uh tiffany tiffany tiffany and said, did you make a voodoo doll? And he said he did. And he said he poked the leg with pins to break her leg. And she said, well, that backfired. You're actually the one who ended up being injured. That's what happens. Blah, blah, blah.

It bounced off of me and went back to you. That's why you had that knee injury back in April. The only one hurt by this is you because demons don't touch the righteous, dick. Then Luke said, when you're preaching, I use my mind to try to make you stop. Now he's just fucking, he's had it. Now he's making a stand of fuck you. I'll say every fucking thing you think and I'll make it 10 times worse just to say fuck you. I rubbed the doll's pussy.

What happened? He said, I use my mind to try to make you stop. I try to get you to break for lunch quicker. Okay. And he says, oh, she said, oh, you do. And he said, when you're playing songs, I try to get them to end faster. She said, what songs? And he said, this morning during worship, I wanted a song to end and I thought about

it being over. And a couple minutes later, it ended. And she said, yeah, that's a song to end and I thought about it being over and a couple minutes later it ended. And she said, yeah, that's a song. Every song I've ever wanted to be over has ended eventually. A couple minutes after I wanted it to be over for the most part. Unless it was American Pie or something. Or the song that never ends. Six minutes after it was over.

Yeah. Jesus Christ. That was a genius thing to say though. That was fucking wild so she says can you think of any other examples where your thoughts seem to have an effect on actual events and he said sometimes i hate the movie and i think about this i want this to end and then an hour and a half later it ends it's pretty cool sometimes i'm on a plane and i'm like i really hate flying and then eventually we land usually within a couple hours. It's pretty cool.

I wanted to say all of this. Sometimes I hate this food and then it's gone. And then I'm eating breakfast the next day. So a couple weeks ago, the service ended right after I wished it would end. So Tiffany said, this kind of belief and practice is absurd. Well, yeah, it is obvious. And so is yours. This kind of belief and practice is absurd.

Well, yeah, it is obvious. And so is yours. So she said God wrote for each person how their days would look before they were born. So obviously the Holy Spirit had already planned when the service would end. So nothing is influenced by him. She said it's not influenced by the whimsy of someone's thoughts. She asked Luke to stand so she could talk to him and not the demon possessing him. Obviously. Stand up.

She said, God told me something. God said you have plans to leave and go to Crystal's church and you have a reason behind it. What is that reason? And he said, I want to do what I want to do and not get caught. Don't want to do this shit. She said, what do you plan to do? He said, I want to abuse people and get away with it so I can feel in power and control. What?

In other words, that's what's Tiffany doing right now. Yeah. What's Tiffany doing? Yeah. Yep. She said, and how would you abuse people? And now he goes, I want to molest little girls. Please don't isolate that sound, by the way.

I beg no one to do that. Please. I want that isolated. I want it. I beg no one to do that. Please. I want that isolated. I want it on my ringtone. No, no, no. You have to say it now, too. You have to say it now. They're isolating me.

They're isolating you, too, pal. I want them a less little girl. There we go. Thank you. You sounded more serious about it, too. That sounded grumbly. That could be admitted into court, sir. I know.

That sounded like I begrudgingly told admitted into court, sir. I know. That sounded like I begrudgingly told the cop because he beat me for an hour. Yeah, exactly. They told you, tell us what you want, scumbag. What makes you dick hard, huh? A lot of molested little girls. So, oh, my God. So they all sat there expressionless. Yeah. He said this because that's what she wants him to say. Yeah. So fuck it. That's what you all sat there expressionless. Yeah.

He said this because that's what she wants him to say. Yeah. So fuck it. That's what you want to hear? You got it. Take it. Yeah. By the way, I will tell you this right now.

Everything that's going to happen here, even with a full investigation afterwards, there is zero evidence. No one has said Luke or Chris never molested a child ever. This is all bullshit. Things they're saying to try to get to stop from being beaten. And it has nothing to fucking do with anything else. Okay. So they said that she said, are you hearing this parents?

He just said that of his own will. And then she goes to Bruce. So Bruce, please don't let him go to Crystal's church. I know you love your son and this must be very upsetting, but you need to face this. And Bruce said, do you have something to say? Or I'm sorry, Bruce tried to speak and Tiffany said, do you have something to say? And Bruce said, I have three questions. What, how, and now what?

And now what? So Tiffany did a Q&A with Luke asking him why he wanted to do this and not repent. He told her he liked feeling in control. She said, what good is a feeling when in reality it's just a deception of the devil trying to destroy you? Duh. Tiffany said that you're going to be found out and go to jail. And they don't treat people there who are guilty of those crimes very well because they're viewed as the worst. Is this what you want?

Or would this make you feel in control? And he said no. They said would you at least try to be sorry for your sins? You probably liked that place. Because it was a more positive feel good environment. You hear what you want to hear. And not what you need to hear. Do you understand that even if you were to leave this church.

And get away from me. The Holy Spirit would still be after you? Jesus. Yeah. What the fuck. The Holy Spirit would always be after you? Jesus. Yeah. What the fuck? The Holy Spirit would always be there convicting you and drawing you and making you uncomfortable and sin. Okay. Then she said she had a vision right then. She said, I'm not sure if it's a finished building that's gone into disrepair after being abandoned or an unfinished building project

that was abandoned. But Luke, you're sitting right here in the middle of it, having lost everyone and everything as a result of your life's direction. So that's what she's telling him. She said, this isn't a discussion, but a lecture. She said, this building has holes where windows would have been, bare concrete framing and I-beams. But I'm not sure if it's literal or allegorical,

but that the Holy Spirit is showing you that his love is yearning for you still in a way that's so deep. I feel like I don't have the words to express it. Wow. Yeah. Words if you don't have them. That's a lot, man. So about 10 p.m., Tiffany announced that God says the sinning has to stop. Everyone's free to go except for the Leonard family.

They have to stay. So Sarah, who was on her way from the nursery to the dining room, Tiffany catches up to her, Sarah's Luke's older sister. She said, I've asked your parents to stay. There are some things I want to talk to you about. Would you and your daughter mind staying too? Or I'm sorry, you and your sister, your little sister. So Sarah's kids went with another woman and one of the teachers,

and Sarah and the other sister went to the small sanctuary area where they saw everybody's in there. Joe, Dave, all these people, right? They interrogate Luke. Oh, boy. Okay. She, they talked about pornography, and the parents were supposed to help him confront the sin, and they're yelling at him about that. She's like, where do you get pornography? And he said, the store. And she goes, where else? And he said, the library. And she says, the evil needed to go. You need to repent. He said, I like my sins. Evil needed to go. You need to repent.

He said, I like my sins. I like jerking off. It's wonderful. That's why I don't wake up like you angry at myself for having wet underwear. I sleep real nice. I sleep great. So Luke said he then he said, yeah, he'd taken knives and stood over his parents bed because she said, you want to kill your parents, don't you? And he went, oh, yeah, yeah. I've taken knives and stood over their beds at night.

That's right. He said, I stood there with a knife right over my mother's heart and i just didn't do it because something interrupted me um so uh she said she asked him to explain why he'd gone to crystal's church and he said opportunity and he said he was able to molest chris crystal's daughter as he rode in the back seat on the way to the service. That's why he did it. So then she made Chris go stand next to his brother. And he shuffled over there. He's standing there.

They start slapping him around, slapping Chris and doing all this shit. Tiffany's kind of lead. She hasn't hit anybody, but she's leading the whole thing. They said it's fucking horrible. So they're yelling. Debbie's yelling at them. Debbie's yelling at them. Everybody's yelling at them. Uh, at this point, uh, one of the women who are Chris's older sister walks, or his younger sister, I'm sorry, the youngest daughter of the Leonard family walks up behind Chris and,

uh, she says, tell the truth. How did you molest my niece? Now saying that they molested Sarah's kids. Now they're saying that. And so one of the people end up punching Chris in the back. So then Joe gets in 275 pounds and starts beating up a skinny 16 year old. Starts beating this kid. And he said, you have three seconds to answer.

And then he turned to Bruce and said, if you tell me to stop, I'll stop. And Bruce said, don't stop. So if he doesn't answer, hit him. Yeah. So he said, one, two, three. And he doubled the kid over with a big punch to the stomach and all this type of shit. And Bruce said, if he doesn't answer, hit him again. Bruce.

So Joe continues pummeling them. Pummeling Chris. Pummeling Chris. Beating the shit out of him all over the place. Debbie even comes in, who's had a recent heart attack and is very weak. She comes in and starts hitting him as well. So Joe delivers repeated kicks to Chris's upper thigh, knocking him down to the ground. And they're, you know, they just keep kicking his ass.

That's all they keep doing. So Luke is standing there waiting for his at that point. So, yeah, they said they were asking him to repent again, and Chris was trying to. He was trying to speak, but he couldn't speak, so they were beating him more. Now they could turn to Luke and say, it's your turn. Okay, so they start beating luke joe punched luke in the stomach and then kicked him in the gut knocking him over uh another guy dave grabbed a hold of luke and hit him some more they were holding him up and punching him holding him up and like

working him over and shit like that yeah uh joe ended up breaking his wrist from punching these kids uh yeah he was. So then he had to be left-handed after that. Yeah, they're beating Luke's ass, beating and beating and beating him. He's blood coming out of his mouth. And then he starts, so they're like, admit it. Admit you molested all these kids. Admit it.

So he's like, yeah, yeah, I molested my nieces, my nephews. I molested every kid in the neighborhood. So he starts saying, I molested every kid I've ever seen. I molested my nieces, my nephews. I molested every kid in the neighborhood. So he starts saying, I molested every kid I've ever seen. I molested, he says. If that makes you stop punching me, that's what I did. Yeah. So then they start calling him a liar. And then Sarah says, shouldn't we call the police?

And they said, no, no, we shouldn't call the police because this is an internal thing with God. God doesn't work through the government. So no. Yeah, that too. We're beating a child. So then they say, how dare you? Those are your nieces and your grandchildren. Debbie is beating up her own sons. Yeah, Jesus Christ.

Debbie's shouting, confess it, confess it, confess it. So they're shouting, just do it. Just confess it and tell us exactly what you did. Meanwhile, Joe is texting Tracy the whole time, his mom there, Jerry's old wife, saying, oh, this is what's going on. This kid won't give it up, so we've got to beat him up. All these texts going back and forth, just electronic

communication. Yeah, this is 2015. Yep. Then they go into a storage room and come out with a computer power cord. Oh, sweet Jesus. It's a four foot long, and you know those are thick cords. They're fat as fuck. And they have the plastic end

that goes into the computer there. And then the other end is a three pronged plug, obviously, with a ground on it and everything. So they start beating Luke with the plug end. They make it a whip. They double it over and make it a whip, and they're whipping this kid actually. Oh god, with both ends? They're just whipping

him with the end first. Like that. And Bruce said, they've been lying to me the whole time pretending to my face and he's beating, Bruce is beating, they're taking turns beating these kids with all this shit. And it's hard too. I mean, whips, Chris

is getting beat, Luke's getting whips. Chris is getting beat. Luke's getting beat. They're both getting beat. Then they start trying to tell details again because they keep getting beat. So they're saying, yeah, they raped the one baby. Last night we raped her in her crib. Yeah, both of us did. They said, how'd you do that with your sisters in the room?

And they go, they were in the room, but they didn't hear it. We covered up the baby's mouth. We covered her mouth up, and she bled in the crib and stuff. They said, obviously that didn't happen. They're asleep four feet away, and two boys came in and raped a baby and then put her away. And with no, nobody cried. Nothing happened. Nobody woke up for that. So that's the type of shit.

And they're going, yeah, say more. Tell us more what you did. Tell us more. They're just saying, yeah, we did it. We did it. Debbie had the cord. He hit them to hit them. These are uncountable amounts of times they're hitting with this fucking cord.

Then Sarah comes in. Do you know anything about a peephole in the bathroom? And Chris said, yes. And he said, it's to watch people take showers. And she said, you watching my kids take showers? And she starts, yes. And he said, it's to watch people take showers. And she said, you watching my kids take showers? And she starts beating them. Sarah yanks the cord away from her father and goes crazy. Sarah starts pummeling both of the kids, chest, arms, legs, and mainly groin, concentrating on the groin.

She turns it around and uses the three-pronged plug end and is beating them with that. Oh, my God. Just with that, whipping them with the pronged plug end and is beating them with that. Oh, my God. Just with that, whipping them with the prong. It's cutting them every time, obviously. Concentrates on their dicks. Yeah, yeah. Beating them through the clothing, but beating, beating, beating. Luke's yelling, please stop.

And she's saying, how could you? And they're screaming and everybody's fucking screaming and they're fucking they're screaming other people are screaming in the kids faces as she's beating him with the plug he's trying to cover up his dick while she's fucking pummeling him so he's got his hands are all fucked up they tried to turn away from the core joe the big one said turn back or i'll make you take your your whipping so. So, I mean, they were just, she, she beat,

she beat Luke's groin so bad. She broke the fucking plot, the, the cord open to where the wires were exposed. That's how much she did it. Um, she was just attacking. Blood is pouring down the front of his pants. Yeah.

It is. His whole pants are covered in blood. His whole pelvis is cut open. They're yelling in his face. Some old lady's like, he's not so tough now, is he? Look at this. They're screaming in his face. Old ladies are doing this shit.

Just about everybody gets their shots in except for Tiffany. She never touches either one of them. Really? No, no. You have them do it. She's the boss. Yes, exactly. She's fucking Gotti over here.

So this is a fucking horrible, horrible mess. They're falling onto the floor. They pick them up and beat them more. Oh, my God. It's torture. Then they separate them in two separate rooms with headphones and earplugs so they can't hear each other. And they're interrogating them and all this shit. Luke says, I'm bleeding.

I'm bleeding. By 3 a.m., Bruce says we have to stop yeah we can't beat them anymore um no more hitting in the back or the chest she's tiffany said you can't if you're going to beat them beat them on other places so they developed a plan to get the truth was to separate them and all of that by the time fucking 8 a.m. comes around, these kids are still – at this point, Luke's body has slid involuntarily off his chair and he's collapsed on the floor. He has left a trail of blood behind him on the carpet. And yeah, so he then texts with his brother and says he wanted to know if Luke was still in the hot seat. And he said, no, it's a bucket.

And he said, why didn't he get the chair? And he said, so he didn't soil the chair. And he said, what about the rug? And he said, yeah, the drama queen soiled the rug. He bled all over the rug. So this is crazy. This is fucking crazy. So then they decide, okay, let's do it this way they get a tarp out like the gambino

family and uh they can't get a tarp out and they put luke on the tarp since he's bleeding all over the carpet there obviously so somebody um uh debbie heard someone say he's getting blood on me this is ridiculous so they're they don't want blood on them but they want to do that um they had to babysit the kids at one point they noticed that uh luke is not breathing on the tarp yeah because he's bled out uh so chris chris looks up and they're they're notices that they're trying to help uh there. They're doing chest compressions, and they're doing CPR. They're doing the whole deal, doing a whole big CPR thing. They said, we've got to take him to the hospital.

Bruce says, we've got to take him to the hospital. They hop in all these separate cars. They go to the hospital 10 minutes away. They run in and say, our son might be dead. So nurses run out. They're doing CPR on Luke in the van. They're doing that. They're like, we need to find the source

of the blood to stop the bleeding. Where is all this blood coming from? They say, was it drug related? What's going on here? Bruce just kept saying that he got jumped. I don't know. He got jumped. That's what Bruce would tell them. Yeah, he took drugs and exploded internally. His dick exploded. Yeah, it's

perfect. He kept saying, how did he get beaten up? And nobody would answer how he got beaten up and everything like that. He just jumped him. They just jumped him, he said. Holy shit. So they said, shirt's open, pants still on. They take off Luke's pants and find extensive clotting and swelling in Luke's upper right thigh and groin. And a hole that looked like a gunshot wound to the side of his penis near the tip.

Wow. He bled out of his penis. Unbelievable. This is fucking insanity, man. Like a gunshot wound. How many times do you have to hit somebody through their pants with an electrical cord to break that hole? That's got to be. And keep it going.

Oh, my God. Untold amounts of times. Untold. It was. It was untold. So at 1228pm they declare Luke dead. Now Chris is going to be in the hospital for a while as well. They said a shot in the groin. They couldn't find

the bullet. They thought he got shot in the dick. So they looked. They did a chest x-ray to see if maybe a bullet penetrated his chest cavity afterwards. Is it stuck in there or something? But they couldn't find a bullet. They were like, I don't know what the fuck this is. They said someone dropped off a patient.

We think it's a shooting. They just insisted it was a shooting. So then they go out and talk to the rest of the assholes. No one will say shit, obviously, in this whole entire fucking group. All Tiffany um they just kept saying well we gave him cpr we tried to give him cpr we found him i don't know then tracy at one point just blurts out he raped a baby that's not what did this and they said was it your baby and she said no uh they were like okay um so that's they kept saying that well he molested kids and they said

wow they said you said he raped a two year old and she said I didn't say it was a two year old I said it was a baby and they said what would ever cause someone to want to hurt or touch a child they go on with this whole thing they're trying to act like he's a molester someone must have caught

up with him but they're not saying exactly who did it. Then a social worker comes in and talks to Bruce. And they said, what happened to Lucas? Bruce says, they whooped him. Who whooped him? No response. Why did they hurt Lucas?

He's a child molester, Bruce says. You knew that or you found out today? I knew before. He told me today. Where did you pick up Lucas today? On Oneida Street in New Hart today. Where'd you pick up Lucas today? On Oneida Street in New Hartford. Where is that street? The big church that looks like a school?

Yes, in the lawn there. They carried him out. Who carried him out? No response. So he just won't say how it happened. These are not good answers, Bruce. You're doing a terrible job. They ended up patting Bruce down and they find a.223 round in his pants pockets.

They find a spent shell case, a spent casing and a full bullet as well as several jack knives. They handcuffed him and took him to the station for questioning. Debbie got the same shit. Police investigation here into this whole thing. Jesus Christ. Found that he was beaten during the spiritual thing. A couple people cracked. One neighbor said that Lucas had been talking about moving on and mentioned

joining the army. Chris ended up being hospitalized in serious condition for a couple of weeks. Bruce and Debbie are initially charged with first degree manslaughter. Four other church members, including the sister, Sarah were charged with first-degree manslaughter. Four other church members, including the sister Sarah, were charged with second-degree assault. They let a couple out on bail. Some had no bail.

They all pled not guilty at first here. That's balls. The reaction, Aunt Smokey I love, talking about Debbie, she was my friend, but may they burn in hell. That a girl. I fucking love it. Other people said that we weren't initially isolated from the community. We put up, then we got more isolated. You know, the members were trying to talk about it.

So Debbie ended up telling, wait. Debbie ends up flipping on everybody. Debbie's the one. Debbie flips on her husband. She flips on everybody. She said she had no idea how far it would be taken and was too weak to stop it, even though she did a lot of the whipping herself. She participated in it. The lawyer said it looks like she went along with it and it spun out of control. This woman is so weak and timid that she didn't have the temerity to stand up

to them and say, you're not punishing my kid. You're not doing this. Um, but she said that, they struck him with a cord for things he had said. Police told, uh,

said that Leonard had told a hospital personnel workers that his kid got beaten because he's a child molester. It's all coming together here. Um, and they did a full investigation. Then they said there was absolutely no indication of any sexual abuse to any of the children mentioned. The deceased and his brothers are the victims of a horrible crime. Unbelievable.

So, yeah, they end up doing this. They plea initially. Everybody is getting all these different plea deals here because at first they say they're not going to plea. Then they plea. Chris testifying said it hurt everywhere. He talked about in detail what they did to him. Yeah, they said they wanted to talk to about what we had done. Lucas and I.

And he said his brother answered some questions but didn't want to answer others and because they didn't know what to say. So I talked about being beaten. Debbie is going to admit to her part in the beating and uh obviously be found guilty gonna gonna plea here um she said i hit them with my open hand and punched them in court she said um yeah so her husband bruce was charged with manslaughter again here uh now they upped that they upped it from manslaughter yeah uh they also charged sarah with murder and kidnapping and assault and gang assault charges as well gang assault is a thing that's hey that's what it was it doesn't matter if you're doing it for fucking control of that corner or jesus either way it's still a fucking gang assault. Doesn't matter.

So here is how it worked out. Bruce Leonard here, he ends up pleading guilty to felony assault and sentenced to, you, sir, may fuck off, 10 years in prison. Debbie pleads guilty to felony assault and is sentenced to five years in prison. Sarah, the older sister, is sentenced to 25 years in prison after being convicted of manslaughter and assault. The pastor here is charged with manslaughter, Tiffany, and she is sent to prison for 12 years for that. Joseph Irwin gets eight years in prison for gang assault. David

Morey, who was one of the church people there and he held Luke up a lot of the times, he is sentenced to five years in prison for assault. A lot of these people are out now, by the way. Linda Morey, who pulled the power cord out of the closet, was sentenced to five years for assault as well.

Tracy Irwin, Jerry's wife, and Daniel Irwin, the other brother, both pleaded guilty to unlawful imprisonment and was sentenced to one year for each count. What? Yeah. Tracy Irwin was set free after serving one year and five months in jail. Daniel Irwin received two years in jail. Daniel Irwin was set free in December and March of 2017 after serving a year and five months in jail as well.

The book is Without a Prayer, The Death of Lucas Leonard and How One Church Became a Cult by Susan Ashline. I didn't want to tell you that in the beginning because it would kind of give away the whole story. So there you go. Oh, I have reviews. Quickly. I have reviews of this church. Okay. Would be a great one star.

Would be a great church if it weren't for the murdering hillbillies. But I guess without that, it's just a high school. You can't really call it a church because they aren't recognized nonprofits. So it's really just a family of murdering hillbillies who bully people into giving them money and doing free labor for them while they cheat the government out of their due taxes by pretending to be a church. One star. Christian extremism claims more lives in america than islamic extremism we must speak about this we must consider this not consider this acceptable beating a member to death because they wanted to leave the congregation is fanaticism to the worst degree this is not a christian church they do not follow the word of christ they abandoned god long ago well um yeah uh where where is the one oh murderers one star murderers and i dare you to come for me bastards exclamation point don't get some guess what that's

our statement too is murderers and i dare you to come for me bastards fuck off and i live in your fucking state eat my dick and if any if you're trying to start this shit back up again, you try to get some campaign against us. Our fucking listeners will eat you motherfuckers alive. I hope your church will be buried. I really do. You're in pieces of shit assholes. So that is the word of life church.

Chad wicks, New York. Merry Christmas, everybody. That's it. I love this show. Cause we can tell that story. And then it's, that's our, this Merry Christmas, everybody. That's it. I love this show because we can tell that story. And then it's, that's our, this is our holiday episode, everyone. Think about that.

This is what we do. Their church should be called Deserved Life. Fuck these people. Fuck these people should be this church. All of them should have been in prison forever. What the fuck, man? Un-fucking-real. Unreal, dude.

Yeah, it's crazy. This poor kid got beat to death with a power cord in the dick. Wow. So if you like that story or you just want to say, fuck, that was a crazy story, good job, guys. You can do that everywhere on any app that you're listening on. You can rate and review pretty much. Give us five stars. Tell us you like the show.

It helps drive us up the charts. Head over to social media here. We are at Murder Small on Twitter, at Small Town Murder on Instagram, at Small Town Pod on Facebook. Follow us there. Get all the updates, everything like that. In addition to the you'll find out when the second half of

the year's tour dates are on sale. Head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com where you can get all the tickets for 2023 that are on sale right now. It's just the shows through May on sale right now. Rest of them go on sale early 2023. Get your tickets February 10th Cleveland February 11th St. Louis.

Those tickets are going fast. If you're going to wait at all you're not going to get them. So get in there right now and do that. Like we said Cleveland you sell it out. We won't make funny anymore for a while. One month one year hiatus. So do that. funny anymore for a while. One month, one year moratorium.

So do that. Come on, get in there, everybody. And then also head over to patreon.com slash crime and sports. Anybody $5 or above, you get access to all the bonus stuff. It's 150 episodes and more than that to binge on of bonus stuff and new ones

every other week two new episodes one crime and sports one small town murder you get it all this week because it's christmas and we have family stuff we're only going to do well we'll do one and a little tiny one here this is the only week we'll only week we'll slack uh but the episode will be great no slack in there we're going to talk about the worst comedy gigs we've ever had been a part of the two of us and there's a lot any comic out there has a million stories of hell gigs and we have some good ones uh really good ones and uh so check that out and we're going to talk about our best and worst in our opinion christmas songs in history as well and on top of all of that for crime and sports just a little

stocking stuffer of a bonus here uh you guys like it when we watch videos and react to them so we have something we need to watch and uh it's related to a crime and sports episode so check that out patreon.com slash crime and sports and god damn it you will get a shout out when are you getting a shout out jimmy right now jimmy hit me with the list of people who would never ever ever ever make my dick look like a gunshot wound with a computer power cord. Hit me with them now. This week's executive producer, Jordan Bennett. Merry Christmas to you, Susanna Platt.

Donnie Munsell, Cameron Kuchwara, Talena Jensen, Tara Bates in Tucson, Justine McNeil in Australia. She sent us a bunch of Australian shit. Yes. Oh, my God. I've been eating the fuck out of that. I meant to thank you so much you're amazing we'll do on a on an episode we'll talk about some of our favorites next time we do an australian guy yeah we'll talk about some of the favorite shit from in there because i've been

eating so much of that shit i love your chocolate down there continue sorry continuing with executive producers nick blair and brian wyckoff thank you guys so much for supporting this uh shit that we do and we we really really appreciate you you're amazing other producers this week yeah truth other producers this week are mark wissmer happy birthday mark uh happy birthday liz vasquez merry christmas to you merry christmas corporal carl kirschner doug jones lisa andrews happy hour checking in in roswell new me Mexico with his probeless asshole. Good for you. Cody Leversey in Michigan.

Kimberly Morrow, Matt Villanueva, Thomas Smith, Hannah Quinn in her pup gnocchi. Jennifer Inglis, Eileen Dover. Okay, got it. You get proud of yourself. Terry Haas and Dory Funk Jr. Yes. The Funk Brothers, baby. Ed Truck. Oh, that's from, baby. Michael's old boss, Ed Truck.

Oh, that's from The Office. I know that one. Don't know that one. Sue... Oh, that's a tough name. Sewell? Sewell? Torres?

I don't want to say Sue Heil. That cannot be right. Sue Heil! Diane Norman, Carbs and Crustle, Rebecca Hargreaves, Janice Hill, Sarah Surridge, Jason the Cocaine Cowboy. No, that's Cocaine Bear. Why did I say Cowboy? I don't know.

Who the fuck knows? Oh, boy. Megan McDermott, Shannon Olson, Happy Birthday, Matt Perry, Jonathan Phipps, Francis Mulcahy, I believe, Jordan Harvey, Sean Ray, Jennifer Kepler, Samuel Presley, Christine Hopp, I think, Christy Hopp, that's what it is, Sarah Thomas, Kylie Wells, Diane Barragan, I think, Maddie Smith, Lady Sam Tonks, Maisel Mullins, Aikachua, Aikachua? Amadi? What? Got that? They're probably trying to get me to say something.

There's no... I'm not saying. It's going to come out something embarrassing. Philippe with no last name. Alyssa Rivera, Boyd Cornell, Mitch Lyons, Calvin Rowles, Zach Foster, Derek Thompson, Claire Burrito. That can't be right. Yes.

I think Apple corrected that to something else. I'm sorry, Claire, whatever your last name is. I'm sorry. I'm mad I found Sarah before I met a woman named Claire Burrito because that's irresistible. Jason Harbaugh, Melissa Lehman, Winky Muffin, Troy Copeland, Alex Stokes, Kathleen Meisichalk, David Dalton, Lauren Callowart, Kate Phillips, Donald Simmons, Brett Dodson, Jean or John, John, Masco, Matthew Orchard, David Hunter, Miranda Osterforf, Miranda Osterforf, Vanita Ann, Tristan Shirley M. with no last name, Laura Olivia, Benjamin Hatchee, Mary Candy Clark, Elijah Cook, Hannah Archer, Stephanie Betts, Melissa Bannon, Brandy Faye Langworthy, Jordan Murphy, Ginger Caldwell, Regina Elliott, Brianna Scott, Jody, nope, yeah, Jody, Vanderholm, Andrew Samarko, Samarko, Samarko, Mike Naino, Judy, Jude LaFleur, Katie C., Nate M., Ashley Holloway, Christor O'Brien.

There's so many weird letters. I'm sorry. There's so many weird letters. I'm sorry. Reid Hylme, Steve Pesty, Viv Wright, Lee Blair, Tom Leach, Friah Halton, Jonesy with no last name, John Drawer. Drawer, Drawer, Drawer. John Drawer. Hey, Johnny boy.

Anna Lopez Rivera, Jordan Erickson, Lindsay Wright, Mike Michaela Pierce, Elizabeth Smith, Becky Aubrey, Jennifer Diliakowski, Beatrice Alice Soskis, Madison Trevino, Todd Lloyd, Taylor Stewart, Dennis Rivera, Gabby Gabino, Gabino Moya Jr., Kyle McDonough, Allison Ward, Jenny B., Matthew Branham, Carl Allen Kramer, Kayla Williams, Dan Rogers, Tina Chianchi, Megan Nonch, R. Long, Miranda McElroy, Brian Logan, Shelly Norton, Yvonne Abrahantes, Patrick Alonso, Catherine Bevan, Danny Pfeiffer,feiffer um page hollow holly you're mad at him danny pfeiffer come out now you son of a bitch get out of here danny michael goodrich jr jay smith raya raya pierce price uh tracy norville kim corburn nicole hubbard jordan with no last name ally cook swassa couch kids wits uh Don Polsoni, Schramm. Louise Guzman. Kathy Schrainer. Scarano.

Riley Ellis. Scott Gehring. Brandon Sumter. Malcolm Jackson. Jersey Red. Derek Geiger. Lysha Milliken-Warfield. Hannah Eppenbaugh.

Gabriel St. James. Steven Jaskulski, Pete Shadow, Katie Littlejohn, Cole Blankenship, The Stone Baker, Summer Lortzi, Trevor Currier, Aaron Berg, Andy, nope, that's David Petri. You got this, Jimmy. Kyrie Hightower, GhostfaceR5, Jenny Ham, English Mosley, Patty Pereira, Kayla Medarios, Michael Galford, Kathy Gindel, Ashley Ovdel, Ben Beck, Claire Perecki, Jacob Peterson, Mazzy, Mays with no last name, Heather Sanchez, Miranda Wally, Ty Gardner, Trish Morrow, Samantha Garcia, Alex Turner, Samantha McLaughlin, Allison Moritz, Fletcher with no last name, Jenny Mansfield, Amanda Press, Desiree with no last name, Katie Chaston, Eds Breds, Lucianne Altman-Newell, John Landeros, Zach Schneider, Loser Lion, Cara Donna, Amanda Kittleson, Charlie Ramos, Nayberry with no last name, Samantha Imanis, Nicholas LeBlanc, Barbara Butler, Jared Smith, Julia Sheets, Angela Forbes, Matthew Kirkland, Christine Hahn, Elizabeth Sittle, Rob Coulter, Kendon Mockett, Stephanie Squaglia, squag, squagglia, Joe and Stacey Halfley, Abigail Rose, Rebecca Thomas, Mr. Mr. Aislinn, Wells, Shannon Chauncey, Cameron Lemieux, I think Lucas Fox. So, yeah, probably. I want it to be Fox. So, so bad.

And all of our patrons. You guys are amazing. Thank you so much. And all of our patrons. You guys are amazing. Thank you so much, everybody. We appreciate everything you do for us and everything you've done for us this entire year. Thank you so much. Next week, I believe we're going to announce the new show, by the way, too. So that'll be fun stuff. It's coming very soon.

Very soon. You want to follow us on social media, super easy to do. Head over to ShutUpAndGiveMeMurder.com. Links are right there. Links are there for everything and everywhere. Thank you so much. And until next week, everybody, it'smemurder.com. Links are right there. Links are there for everything and everywhere. Thank you so much. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure. Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today.

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