The Eric Metaxas Show - Eric Volz

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

Eric Volz joins the program to discuss his incredible story of being wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of his ex-girlfriend  ...

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Noble gold investments is the official gold sponsor of the Eric Mataxis show, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals. Learn how you can protect your wealth with noble gold investments. That's noble gold investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. Back again, eh? Glutton for punishment, eh? When will you ever learn? Now, here's the host that you hate to love, the man who will.
Starting point is 00:00:38 It's the reason your friend sponsored your last intervention, Eric Matt, Texas. Hey there, folks. Sometimes in life you bump into an insane story, like the kind of story that should never happen. It's unbelievable. It's just insane. A number of years ago, I became friends with someone named Eric Volz, who, whose story is one of those stories. It's so crazy.
Starting point is 00:01:13 You just can't imagine that this could really happen. It could happen to somebody else. But it happened to my friend Eric Volz. And it's a while ago. There's some new developments in the story. I just wanted to get him on the program to tell us the story and then to tell us about the new developments. So Eric Volz, welcome to the program.
Starting point is 00:01:35 Thank you, Eric. Good to see it. Where do we start? I mean, give us the headline because most people listening, they have no clue what I'm what I'm hinting at your story. What is the story? Yeah. Well, I'll give you the summary. 18 years ago, I was wrongfully imprisoned for the murder of my ex-girlfriend in Nicaragua.
Starting point is 00:01:57 I like a lot of young Americans, was adventurous. My mother's Mexican. My father's American. So it came from sort of a mixed cultural household. I ended up studying Latin American Studies in international relations and found myself with an amazing opportunity, really, to try to bridge cultural gaps in Central America. You know, Nicaragua was really the only country in mainland Americas that actually successfully ceded a communist regime during the Cold War. And, of course, it remained communist along with Cuba throughout the 80s. But when the Cold War ended in 1990, you know, the sort of for a wide variety of reasons,
Starting point is 00:02:39 Nicaragua wasn't able to remain communist. But really, investors and tourists and surfers were scared to travel there, really all throughout the 90s. And in the early 2000s, that started to change. It was kind of like a wave of cash in development that started to crash on Nicaragua in the early 2000. So I ended up moving there with a friend and started a bilingual lifestyle magazine called EP, El Puente. And I was having the time on my life. You know, I was in my early 20s. I was surfing. We were making an impact in this country that had been so incredibly just sort of forgotten and overlooked for an entire decade. The magazine grew very quickly. It became one of the largest
Starting point is 00:03:18 publications in Central America within about two years. And I met a beautiful local Nicaragua and girl. Her name was Doris Jimenez. We dated for about a year. And she, she, She was a fantastic person. She opened up, I guess, sort of a side to Nicaragua that I maybe wouldn't have had access to being a foreigner. And I think in the same way, she was able to, you know, have the excitement of being around, you know, international community and my friend group that would visit. We broke up. It was, I guess, what I could say, sort of a normal breakup for, you know, young people in their 20s. I was not, didn't really have Christian faith at that time.
Starting point is 00:03:59 And so, you know, I didn't, I wasn't guided by the principles that I would, you know, as a Christian man at that time. But it was a normal breakup for kids in their 20s, it was amicable. And six months later, she was murdered in a clothing store that she owned in a small town called San Juan del Sur. This happened on a Tuesday. It was November 21st of 2006. And at the time of her murder, in fact, throughout that entire day, I was in a different city. I was in the capital of Nicaragua called Managua. And I received a phone call in the afternoon from one of Doris's closest friends.
Starting point is 00:04:38 I was actually in a conference with staff from our magazine. And initially, what I was told is that she had hung herself, that she had committed suicide. And it was very disorienting. I was in shock. I don't know if you've ever experienced, you know, a, a sudden death of a friend that someone claimed was a suicide, but it just didn't add up. She didn't have that kind of a personality.
Starting point is 00:05:01 And, you know, I canceled my schedule and I drove with one of my staff members who also knew Doris. It was 120 kilometers down a bumpy, you know, pothole-filled road in Central America. It was over, you know, about two hours. And we arrived at the town and got to the door of her store. and the police wouldn't let us in. And we said, why not? And they said, this is a crime scene. And so that was actually where we found out that she had been murdered.
Starting point is 00:05:31 I mourned her death with her family and our friend group for two days. And then 15 minutes after the funeral, I was arrested by the Nicaraguan police, thrown in the back of a pickup truck. And they slowly drove me through the main streets of the town. There were many other ways that would have been more discreet and safer. But it was really, you know, from the very beginning, very clear that the Nicaragua when authorities, you know, wanted to kind of manipulate the emotions of this town. That was, of course, heartbroken.
Starting point is 00:05:59 And I was sent to prison. I mean, look, I met you shortly after you got out of prison. And what you went through there is really horrifying. And I want my audience to know that, you know, prison might be bad. But prisons outside the United States of America, can be really, really, really bad. And you went through that hell, obviously falsely accused. And as a result of this, once you got out, you launched this crisis management firm
Starting point is 00:06:39 because you know that there are people that are going through living hell around the world and they need advocates. But the reason I have you, I want to continue with the story. But what has changed right now? In other words, there's something going on right now that I want to get to. Mention that before we go back to the story. Sure, sure. Yeah, the story is well chronicled in books and movies and we'll talk all about it.
Starting point is 00:07:01 And by the way, you wrote a book. What's the title of your book? It's called Gringo Nightmare. Gringo Nightmare. I've had you on this program a while ago to promote the book Gringo Nightmare, but you tell the story in the book Gringo Nightmare. But anyway, go ahead. So what's going on right now?
Starting point is 00:07:18 Yeah, so right now there was a, There was a man who actually was tried and convicted alongside of me. His name is Julio Martin, a Nicaraguan man. He was from the town that Doris was from. There was a lot of documentary evidence tying him to her murder. He was tried alongside me. He was convicted, and my conviction was later overturned in an appellate court, and his conviction was confirmed.
Starting point is 00:07:47 He was sentenced to 30 years in prison. He was in prison for almost. almost 18 years. And a couple weeks ago, he was actually secretly released by the Nicaraguan government without a court order, without any sign that there was any sort of a consideration by the judicial system. And the rumor was that he was sick, that he was deathly ill, and they had released him on some sort of a humanitarian consideration. Nicaragua is a very, very repressive atmosphere right now. People are very scared to criticize the government. There are really no independent journalists in the country anymore.
Starting point is 00:08:24 There's no political opposition in Nicaragua. They've all been kicked out and exiled. So, believe it or not, I was the one that broke the news about Julio's secret release from prison. I posted a video on X. It very quickly went viral, you know, in the Nicaraguan community, both in Nicaragua and the exile community living outside of Nicaragua. And essentially, I just called on him to say, Tell the truth. Come clean about what happened for 18 years. My family, Doris' family, you know, her friends, many people in the international community, you know, have obviously wanted to know the details of why was she killed? The way that she was killed, she was brutally murdered, she was tied up.
Starting point is 00:09:08 They pulled cardboard out of her mouth. You know, the crime scene investigator claimed that they were signs of anal and vaginal rape. Yet the forensic autopsy expert said that there were no signs of rape. rape. You know, he, when he was arrested, allegedly, incriminated me. There is a five-page document that was used in the case where he says that I offered him money to commit this crime, that it was all pre-planned. Of course, that's all a lie, but I want to know why did he do that? You know, he later gave an interview to Outside Magazine and said that he was coerced and tortured and forced by the police to use my name. So there are still a lot of questions. You know, I gave this to the
Starting point is 00:09:49 Lord, I've had peace about it, but of course it doesn't take away, you know, my desire to want to see justice for Doris, which was one of the saddest and most painful things is that what should have been called the Doris Jimenez case very quickly, you know, within days turned into the Eric Bowles case. And I feel like she's kind of always been lost in all this. So he's out. We've confirmed that he's out. Well, that's why I'm talking to you right now. Folks, when we get back the rest of the story, don't go away. Hey, this is Eric Metaxis. For years, I've told you about Nutrametics, a professional supplement brand trusted by doctors since 1993. Nutrametics offers a variety of health bundles. Whether you want to support your immune system, improve your sleep, promote joint comfort or detoxification support, Nutrametics has a health bundle right for you. The best part about Nutrimetics, every year they donate a minimum of 50% of their profits to Christian charities and missions. That's right, 50% of their profits. Neutrametics has a goal of surpassing 100 million in giving. by 2030. Many of you take supplements already. Switch to Nutrametics. It's the highest quality,
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Starting point is 00:12:03 Visit noblegoldinvestments.com. You may get up to 10 free, brand new, one-ounce silver trump coins or a 10-ounce silver American flag bar with every qualifying IRA. That's noblegoldinvestments.com. Hey, folks, welcome back. I'm talking to my friend Eric Volz, V-O-L-Z. Eric, you know, again, I've known you since you got out of that Nicaraguan prison. It is harrowing the story that you tell, and I want you to tell some of it. But all of this led you to help others who are going through crises, various crises,
Starting point is 00:12:52 PR crises, criminal crises, and your agency is the David House Foundation. So you've been doing this for a long time. But what do you think, you know, before we get back to the story, do we know what's going on with this murderer? And of course, you know, everybody jokes around about, you know, OJ saying we're looking for the real murderers. I mean, it's only a miracle that you got out of that prison. And this is a scary thing. It should scare everybody, folks. If you don't have a really genuine justice system in place, anything can happen.
Starting point is 00:13:36 It is a nightmare. And the title of your book, of course, is Gringo Nightmare. They see you as a gringo, you're guilty. And they put you in a prison that, again, it is a night. nightmare, what you went through. It's miraculous, frankly, that you survived what you went through. But just to get back to the most recent development, the reason you're on the air today, so this guy is, he's alive in Nicaragua. He's been released after 18 years. Did he ever confess to the murder? So he chose not to testify in the trial, which obviously that's not uncommon. However, in a case with that much disinformation and media pressure and public opinion,
Starting point is 00:14:19 I, for example, chose to testify and answer the questions. In Spanish, there's a phrase, el que no deves, no teme. It means if you don't owe anything, you don't have any fear. Now, there is a five-page statement, or, you know, I guess it's a statement, you would call it, in the case file where he claims that I offered him money. He claims that I was the one who went in the store and actually was the one that murdered my ex-girlfriend. That is, of course, false.
Starting point is 00:14:50 I was in a different city with 10 people. Now, I want you just to imagine, or even for your viewers, you know, you're in New York. What's a city that's two hours away from New York? Hartford. You know, Hartford. You get a call on your phone right now, and your friend is found dead. You say, you guys, I'm sorry, I have to go. You cancel your schedule.
Starting point is 00:15:11 You get in your car and you drive two hours to Hartford. Today is Thursday. So you're there with the friends and family all day today, all day tomorrow, Friday. and halfway through Saturday after the funeral, you are arrested and you are sent to prison and accused of murdering your friend. But you're in New York City, and that was my case. I was with 10 people in a conference room. They gave sworn affidavits.
Starting point is 00:15:32 There was cell phone triangulation records that showed the location of my cell phone. There was instant IP, you know, back then that was the kind of boat to be on AOL instant messenger, but still there's an IP stamp where I was communicating with one of our business partners in Atlanta. There was a signed credit card voucher. So when I was arrested, of course, I thought this is a mistake or maybe there's some corrupt police that are going to want to try to shake me down for some money. Never in a million years that I think that I would actually be formally accused, much less
Starting point is 00:16:03 tried, much less wrongfully convicted and sentenced to 30 years, which is what happened in my case. So, you know, Julio Martine, this man, he does have information. He is actually sick. We were able to confirm last week that. he is very sick. He was sent to the hospital to receive dialysis treatment. So there's something serious going on in his body. I have no way of communicating with him. Everyone in the town, you know, even friends that I have there are scared to communicate with him. So I've actually
Starting point is 00:16:36 resorted to sending videos over social media. I know that he's seen them. And so this is where we're at. Well, so do you have any sense at all of why he murdered her? I mean, you mentioned horrible rape. There are people who do those things. It seems to me that that's about it, that there's not much more to say. In other words, there's no other motive. There's, generally that would be true. I mean, usually the answer to most crimes is the most, the obvious one. You know, there, and it is possible that this was just a robbery. You know, Doris was very feisty. She was very, you know, strong character. If she had caught someone trying to steal from her, she would have confronted them and things could have turned violent. However, that doesn't explain
Starting point is 00:17:26 why the authorities would have chosen to, you know, go through hoops and a judicial circus to wrongfully convict an American. I was two hours away in a different city. So that is still a unclear. The prosecution actually formally charged four people, myself, two local men from the town that had prior criminal records, and a fourth man who was from a very wealthy and influential family. The wealthy man was never arrested, and charges were dropped against him in very mysterious circumstances. I had, you know, an airtight alibi. He had a page and a half alibi that had a lot of suspicious components to it. The second, criminal from the town was arrested, I saw him with my own eyes be tortured by the police.
Starting point is 00:18:17 The next day he was released and became the star witness for the prosecution. And he gave a false testimony, one of the Ten Commandments that you don't do in the trial. And he said that he saw me at the scene of the crime. He gave a false testimony. So he was the only person. Tortured him to get him to say, you know, if you don't say this, we're going to, we're going to torture you more. We're going to kill you. We're going to another. we're talking about this level of corruption, that they manipulated things. So I guess the larger question, and I know you talk about some of this in your book, Gringo Nightmare, but why did they want to do this?
Starting point is 00:18:54 In other words, it's one thing to see corruption, but why did they want you to be in prison for 30 years for a murder you didn't commit? What do you suppose is the murder that was the motive of this corrupt system? Well, when the Cold War ended and Nicaragua no longer was communist, the former communist leader, Daniel Ortega, he tirelessly campaigned for 16 years to become president again. And two weeks before my ex-girlfriend's murder, he was re-elected. This was in 2006. And, of course, I was arrested two days later. So when he came into office, he had an American in his custody. And, you know, we have reason to believe, and I talk about this extensively in the book, that my case was used as a political bargaining chip. We, of course, see Americans being institutionally kidnapped on a regular basis.
Starting point is 00:19:49 It happens in Russia. It happens in Venezuela. It happens in Cuba. It happens in North Korea. It happens in Iran. In fact, it's become a new reality of asymmetric warfare that the State Department and the White House are, you know, challenged with. My case was one of the first cases where sort of power and influence outside the law system started to affect the obtainability of justice. And of course, we're seeing that happen in our own country now, which is you accurately, you know, stated at the top of that interview.
Starting point is 00:20:16 So, you know, one of the hardest challenges that someone who's wrongfully arrested faces, believe it or not, it's not the courts, it's not the judge, it's the media. And the media narrative and the way that, you know, these people who accuse are just automatically by default considered to be above the accused is very dangerous. And that certainly happened in my case as well. The state-controlled media, I think, and even some of the independent media that maybe wasn't honest, were motivated to sell a narrative of, you know, this wealthy green ghost surfer that came here and murdered one of our beauties. It's sold like a novella and they sold a lot of newspapers.
Starting point is 00:20:55 Wow. And, you know, let's be clear, too. I was just talking to our friend Kevin Sorbo, who's in the Reagan movie. I mean, I remember when Reagan was president, there's this thing going on in Nicaragua, and you've got the communists. And it's just so amazing to me how the left wing, even then, they're basically pro-communists. They're defenders of Daniel Ortega. tremendously, fathomlessly corrupt, wicked people like Daniel Ortega.
Starting point is 00:21:31 And now, you know, we hear your story that in 2006, he gets back in power after many years trying. And he says, okay, we're going to stick it to the Americans. We're going to demonize the Americans. We've got a classic case right here. Let's make this guy suffer. And so you were in this prison. How long were you in the prison ultimately? And again, it's a nightmare story.
Starting point is 00:21:55 Yeah. I spent 13 months wrongfully imprisoned, and I'm very connected to the Innocence Network and sort of, you know, and know hundreds and hundreds of men and women who have been exonerated from wrongful convictions in the United States. Some of them 10, 20, 30 years. And they all say, man, we know what, you know, we hear about these infamous Latin American prisons. And so, you know, they always say, I don't know what should be better, 10 years in American prison or one year in a Nicaraguan prison. But it's funny that you, you know, what you mentioned, because even when I can. out of college, I was very liberal. I used to own a Che Guev Archer. I didn't really know what that meant, but it wasn't actually until I was imprisoned. And the way that lawmakers in Washington, D.C.
Starting point is 00:22:36 responded started to really help peel back the onion for me. Believe it or not, there were very high level Democratic senators who had proof of my innocence, but they would send very low-level staffers to briefings because they didn't want to be seen as having flipped on the Nicaragua issue 15, 20 years later. Okay, listen, this is so sick and so evil, but it's important. Folks, I'm talking to Eric Volz. His book is Gringo Nightmare. We'll be right back. To take over America, the new documentary.
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Starting point is 00:25:04 Use promo code Eric. Or call 800, 9783057, 800978 3057, 800978 3057, or Mypillar.com promo code, Eric. Well, welcome back. I'm talking to my friend Eric Volz, VOLZ. He is the founder of the LA-based David House Agency and International Crisis Resource Agency, specializing and helping individuals facing wrongful detainment and other legal and political situations abroad. The New York Times recognized him as a highly sought crisis manager for Westerners and travelers entangled in criminal prosecutions overseas. And it all began, Eric Boltz, when it happened to you.
Starting point is 00:25:59 So again, you're talking about being in a Nicaraguan prison falsely accused. You knew you didn't do this. You're a young man. Now, look, you're a resilient, fit human being. but you found this very, very challenging. Just talk a little bit about that because people don't have any idea of what goes on around the world.
Starting point is 00:26:22 If you go to prison in America, you know, you're going to get fed. What happened to you? Because, again, it's astonishing what people go through. Yeah. Well, I, you know, initially, I mean, when I went to prison, I was wearing a suit.
Starting point is 00:26:40 And, you know, the juxtaposition of kind of everything in my entire life had add up to the exact opposite of what I was experiencing in prison. And the overwhelming experience initially was anger. I think if you commit a crime and you go to prison, it's not the same as when you are wrongfully imprisoned. Wrongful imprisonment feels like you're being kidnapped. There's a violation of something sacred that happens, and that makes you angry. And initially, I was angry. And that anger over months actually started to eat me up inside.
Starting point is 00:27:16 And finally, I actually started to visit a prison cell that was owned by a drug pilot of the drug trafficker Pablo Escobar. And me and a group of ragamuffin guys, one of them was a kidnapper, someone had got in there for a shooting. They would just read scripture. And I really started to come into an understanding of the power of forgiveness. And I knew that if I was going to survive, I had to forgive and let that guy. go. But the chapter in my book is called The Waiting Room to Hell. It was the only phrase of words that I could find that would even get close to describing what I went through. I was starved. I was tortured. At one point, I was put in a concrete box of a cell that was too small for me to even
Starting point is 00:28:00 stand up in. I mean, the Nicaragans were very cruel in the way that they treated me. And a lot of times I felt that that was them sort of kind of maybe lifting a middle finger at the U.S. government more than it was like having some sort of a direct, you know, reason to want to try to hurt me. But one of the first things that I think I experienced even just most remarkably was I got to see real life supernatural activity, but not good. I saw demons. I saw murder.
Starting point is 00:28:33 I saw witch doctors being paid money to cast spells on people. Within three days, that person was dead. I started to experience things that rationally could only be experienced as evil. And it was there where God really started to, you know, make me think. I'm a thinker. I'm an intellect. You know, there must be a counterpart to this. And the face of Jesus literally hacked spacetime history and surrounded me.
Starting point is 00:28:57 I would be walking down the hallway and look into a cell and there would be a television and someone was watching a TV and Jesus is hanging on the cross looking at my face. I would go to the office and be in the waiting room to meet. the warden, and there's a Time magazine in Spanish with Jesus' face, Ken So yo, who am I? And so the Lord just supernaturally, you know, put me and checkmate. And I learned, and I recommitted my life to him, and I became free even though I was behind bars.
Starting point is 00:29:22 But prison is a petri dish for evil and for sophisticated crime. I mean, I was in there with spies and, you know, hit men, professional assessment. I'll never forget walking by the public pay phone. and there was a Nicaraguan man speaking in perfect, fluent Russian. So it was a very, you know, I kind of call it a PhD in the way the world really works. And it was a, you know, a horrible, horrible, horrible experience. You, I just know this because we're friends, but you were raised in a Christian home. Before you fell away, your parents were well-known Christian musicians.
Starting point is 00:30:02 I forget the name of their group. That's right. Yeah, my dad was a family. member of a band called the 77s. They were kind of one of the first Christian rock and roll bands to go play in clubs. And, you know, they would open for, you know, secular bands like the alarm. And so I really grew up with faith and an understanding of, I guess, really the intersection of sort of entertainment and what matters, which is probably why I was led to publishing myself. And obviously you fell away. And but then it takes you being in this hellhole, just about
Starting point is 00:30:36 literally, to find God. I think that that's a path for a lot of people. When you really see evil, you want to turn to God. But until you see evil, you think, well, what's my motivation? Everything's fine. But you saw real evil. You saw horrors. And I think that's part of what's going on in our country today in the United States.
Starting point is 00:30:55 People are seeing things so horrible. They're saying, I've never seen this. I didn't know this could happen. It seems evil. It seems like if there's a God, he's the only answer to this. So what were some of the things that you saw? You mentioned a couple of things, but because most people never get to see this stuff. Yeah, I mean, I was put in what I would say, sort of a spiritual checkmate.
Starting point is 00:31:21 You know, there was one afternoon where I was in a hallway being brought back from a medical visit. The guard opened the, you know, the big iron door. I slipped in the door. He shut the door. And literally within five minutes, there were multiple people dead in the room. the same hallway where I had just been walking because a fight broke out and it was, you know, sort of a pre-planned gang thing. So I was around death and I started to ask questions. What happens if I die? Where does my body go? And when you're in that checkmate, you're really
Starting point is 00:31:51 forced to ask yourself big questions. I want to, uh, we've got to go to a break. When we come back, I want to talk more about this with my friend Eric Volz, V-O-L-Z. He's the author of Gringo nightmare. Welcome back. I'm talking to my friend Eric Volz, V-O-L-L-Z. Welcome back. I'm talking to my friend Eric Volz, V-O-L-Z, and he's the author of Gringo Nightmare, talking about what we've been talking about on this program, the hell that he experienced, falsely imprisoned for murder in Nicaragua, unbelievable situation. You said that in the prison you saw demons? What do you mean by that? I actually physically saw what I could only rationally explain as demonic bees. there was one man not to be too graphic, but I think it's important for us to talk about this stuff.
Starting point is 00:33:05 I mean, the Bible's full of these details. But there was a young man who was actually in a cell right in front of me. So, you know, the doors were facing each other. And at night, I would see glowing beings in his cell. And I would hear him scream and he was tormented and he would talk to me about it the next day. You know, within three weeks, he actually ended up tragically hanging himself. I just kind of watched and witnessed these demonic beings slowly drive him mad and convince him that the best way to relief was to take his own life.
Starting point is 00:33:39 You know, the words that were spoken, the craftiness of the evil and the way that people would falsely accuse. I mean, that was one of the main things that I experienced, and I think we're experiencing more and more today, is just the power of being falsely accused. On the same list of Ten Commandments of Thou shalt not murder. and thou shalt not commit adultery is thou shalt not bear false witness, which is when we don't seem to really like to talk about a lot in the church nowadays. Well, listen, what we're talking about, I mean, you just talk about seeing demons and seeing what they can do.
Starting point is 00:34:12 Ever since I had my born-again experience back in 1988, I've known all this stuff. I've hung out with people who understand this, that we're dealing with demonic evil. Jesus didn't come, you know, die in the cross to make your life a little better, you know, to make your marriage a little happier. No, he died to defeat evil and sin and death. And there are a lot of Christians today, and, you know, I have to really question their faith, who don't seem to understand the depth of evil. And if you do not understand the depth of evil, how can you possibly be grateful to Jesus for saving you from that?
Starting point is 00:34:52 Because you don't really even acknowledge it. It's like, well, we moved on. We have this really nice megachurch with a good. great thing for the kids and we've got a coffee bar and the sermons are really upbeat. Listen, folks, Jesus came to defeat death and evil and Satan and hell. That's the reality of it. And there are so many Christians that they act, they really act like it doesn't exist. Even to hear you say what you saw, they kind of think, I don't know, that seems a little weird
Starting point is 00:35:21 or they don't want to go there. And ladies and gentlemen, we need to walk in this stuff. We need to walk in deliverance, the power of God. And if you're going to some church, it's just all theological and fussy, you're missing it. And I hope you don't have to go through what Eric Volz went through to see that it's real, but it is real. And I think that, you know, it's part of the reason, Eric, I'm talking everywhere I go about my book, Letter to the American Church and religionless Christianity, because it's come clear to me that there's so many churches and churchgoers in America, I don't. I don't know where their faith is. In other words, I begin to wonder, do they have real faith?
Starting point is 00:36:03 Or is it this kind of fake faith that, you know, when Jesus says to some of the most religious people in his day, you know, that you are of your son, you're of your father, the devil. You don't know the truth. Or that he'll simply say, depart from me, I never knew you to people. because we've lowered the bar for what it is to believe and to understand. And you've seen the depth of it, which is one of the reasons I want to have you on today. And because of this the murderer of your girlfriend, you know, this has come back to you and you're talking about it. Now, you actually, we just have a few minutes, but you've actually seen this stuff in the church. I know that in terms of your crisis management, you were involved with what was going on at IHOP recently.
Starting point is 00:36:53 with Mike Bickle. I don't know if you want to comment on that. We just got a couple of minutes. No, I mean, I think it's a great example. You know, I had never seen a case like that before. Honestly, I don't think anyone who's being honest has seen a case like that before. You know, I thought it was very, very unfortunate that no one was really allowed to talk about the fact that this all seemed to happen right around the time that, you know, Hamas invaded Israel. again, I'm not taking away from any credibility of some of the allegations. It's just the spiritual activity that was flying around in the IHOP case was undeniable. Now, again, this sort of cancel culture that's coming to the church, we're not allowed to talk about that because it's offensive to people. You know, it was almost like if we even asked questions or did anything except blindly believe the allegations it was considered gaslighting and not trauma-informed.
Starting point is 00:37:46 Yeah, yeah. But it was a really, really hard case. And I will say, I'm the only person that actually was able to interview Mike, and I spent six hours with him with the course of several meetings initially. Obviously, there's been some new women who have come forward in the press. But personally, when I was there, I never actually saw evidence of spiritual or sexual abuse at IHOPC. Again, you know, I was there for three months. My understanding is there are new allegations that have come forward and I'm not involved or privy to the. those documents if there are. But I think that's a really tragic, you know, situation that could
Starting point is 00:38:25 have been avoided. Well, and again, we don't know the details, but you can see how demonic stuff gets in there. And before you know it, you're dealing with things, things just aren't clear and aren't straight. And things get twisted. Anyway, I didn't want you here to talk about that. But just because you were involved in that, it's upsetting what happens. happened. Well, so we've got less than a minute left. So your hope at this point, obviously, is that this murderer and rapist will confess and we'll talk about what actually happened before he goes to meet his maker, because it seems like that's where he is at this point. Yeah. Yeah. When I got out of prison, the Lord actually spoke to me and my mother separately and
Starting point is 00:39:13 said, this story is not over. There's a final chapter that will be written. And I feel like this is that. It feels like there's these big tectonic plates in the spiritual realm that God sovereignly is moving. And, you know, so my hope and desire is that there will be justice for Doris in the form of a full confession that all the details and mysteries around her case, why I was fingered, why she was, why they fingered me, you know, why she was murdered in the way she was, that all of that would come to light. And there could be true restorative justice. That's my prayer. Well, it's just good to know you and good to introduce you in your story to my audience. Folks, the book is Gringo Nightmare. Eric Volz, thank you. Thank you, Eric.
Starting point is 00:39:57 Hey, folks, before we go for the day, we've got a lot of things, exciting things that we try to mention when we can. We have friends. And I got to ask you, Chris, did you homeschool your kids, any of them? Yeah. In fact, we kicked it off this week. It was like a back-to-school week. So we're homeschooling, but we're also part of a group that meets once a week of other homeschooling kids. Why not just farm it out to the government who can indoctrinate them with Marxist godless doctrine? I mean, it's free. They've run out of pronouns. The government's run out of pronouns.
Starting point is 00:40:54 The government has finally run out of pronouns. We told you what happened. I told you. Well, if you're interested in homeschooling or if you're interested in quality K-12 Christ-centered education, we want you to know about our friends at the Herzog Foundation. They are there to help you educate your kids and grandkids in a way that will prevent them from becoming Marxist maniacs. Honestly, this is very important. Everywhere I go around the country, I meet kids that have had this kind of education,
Starting point is 00:41:27 and they are just head and shoulders above anybody else. So I recommend it highly. Go to Herzog Foundation.com, and they have a website, Reed Lion. R-A-D, reed-lion.com. Readlion.com. HertzogFoundation.com. Folks, it's time. HertzogFoundation.com.
Starting point is 00:41:49 Actually, we should also mention our friends at the Heritage Foundation. They're the ones. In case he didn't know, you keep hearing about Project 2025, which is awesome. Project 2025, you can find it at 25truth.com. The Kamala Marxist left
Starting point is 00:42:06 has been demonizing the project Yeah, I think they got scared because they were identifying like... Because you're going to jail. Well, identifying qualified people that could help jump in with the Trump administration when they need to hire.
Starting point is 00:42:20 You know, you hear you about the administration they're still looking to staff up for programs they're doing. And this is a way to kind of help them together. And they're not interested in hiring Mike Pence. Right. So who are they going to hire? Well, there's other people.
Starting point is 00:42:30 So these guys are helping to find those people in advance, which really saves a lot of time. So 25truth.com is the website. that's the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025. There is great stuff on there. It was on a thread on Twitter some weeks ago that was hilarious stuff. But, you know, how to take our country back to, you know, the founder's vision. So 25truth.com is the website.
Starting point is 00:42:54 That's the Heritage Foundation. And Donald Trump does not endorse this message. It's actually very exciting, very exciting. We should also mention before we go, if you want to buy my books, or read what I write or whatever, you can go to Ericmetaxis.com. There's so much stuff there. I know that some of you are signed up for the email.
Starting point is 00:43:19 It's free, ericmataxis.com. But we have a lot of stuff we want to share, and a lot of new stuff. So that's why I want people to go, because we've introduced this thing called the Bonhofer Circle, which is something you can join. I do quarterly phone calls. there's a lot to it.
Starting point is 00:43:39 But it's the Bonhofer Circle. And if you're not signed up at EricMex.com, you're just not going to hear about this stuff. It's a new thing. It's really fun. You're not going to hear about the exclusive VIP Bonhoffer tour that I'm doing, October 1st through 4th here in New York. Actually, you can find that at Socrates and the city.com events. That's nuts. I hope we're going to film that so we can share that.
Starting point is 00:44:03 That's going to be filmed. With other people. the Greek crews every day I'm getting more excited about this we haven't I think officially launched it but it is June 6th through June 16th of next year and I I just can't get over that we're finally doing this
Starting point is 00:44:23 this is going to be nuts Chris you going to be there yeah I'm going to be there I think we need to do a thing where everyone gets a captain's hat or something some kind of swag it'll be fun oh it's it's going to be nuts it's going to be absolutely this but anyway all this stuff you can find if you're signed up for the newsletter, ericmetaxis.com. I hope lots of people can come and we can connect.
Starting point is 00:44:45 I've never done anything like this before, so I'm excited about it. Anyway, check it out, ericmetaxis.com. You get my books there. Whatever. See you later.

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