Uncover - S36 E4: Clowns | The Cult Queen of Canada

Episode Date: March 16, 2026

Clowns burn a flag, the Mayor plugs a sewer, and Richmound turns on itself. The conflict moves to the ballot box when a local gives cult members voting rights via a property deed, setting the stage for a dramatic mayoral election that could see the town taken over.

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This is a CBC podcast. One afternoon in March of 2024, an alert pops up on my phone. A source from Richmond who wants to remain anonymous has sent me a video. I hit play. It's pitch black on a winter's night in what looks like a farmer's field. We're zoomed in on a giant purple flag with white text and a white maple leaf with a gold sword through the middle. At first glance, it looks like a big redstone. like it's Romana's Kingdom of Canada flag. But as the camera zooms out, the full text becomes clear.

It reads, God regrets you. And Kingdom of Canada, except Kingdom is spelled King dash D-U-M-B. Holding the flag on either side are two people dressed up in clown suits. There's no talking. They're staring straight into the camera. Their heads and faces are hidden underneath. clown masks with stringy red and orange hair. One mask has a smile, the other a frown. Both are giving off penny-wise vibes, and if you're scared of clowns like I am, these are the worst types of clowns.

They stand perfectly still on the snowy ground as the camera continues zooming out. Then, the clown on the left pulls a blowtorch into frame and lights the flag on fire. The pair of clowns, lit up by the amber glow, remain eerily silent as the flag slowly turns to ash. It's clear they're parodying the time Romana burned the Canadian flag on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, but it's still super creepy.

Then, the scene turns black and the video ends. I replayed this video countless times now. Sometimes, I think it's hilarious, other times terrifying. Who are the people in these clown suits? Most people in Richmond claim they have no idea who they are. I actually know nothing. I really know nothing. Others have hinted their theories to me off Mike, but no one will tell me on the record. I have suspicions, but I don't want to know.

Truthfully, there are a number of anti-cult locals I could imagine in those clown suits. Until now, the town has been fighting by the rules, with peaceful protests, bylaws, warrants, nothing's worked. But there is a new energy to this video. They're desperate and getting weird. The rules of engagement have been thrown out the window. I said the hell with it, you know? I'll take one for the team if I have to. Huckoo!

Fucking crazy people in this town. Nutsjoice. Whoever invites a cult to a town and expects the town to accept it, it's not going to happen. I would burn the school down. This is the cult queen of Canada from CBC's Uncover. I'm Rachel Brown. Episode 4. Clowns.

The cult had their two-week hiatus from the school, but now they're back. And they're making it clear they're staying with paint. Lots and lots of purple paint. Now do you know where we're going now? I take a drive past the school with my producer Pippa. This is the school. Holy shit. I thought it would be darker purple. No. It is very purple. But that is Romana's signature color.

How would you describe that? Eggplant? Obergine. More like violet? It is a royal purple, though. It is. Locals like former school teacher Shana tell me they've learned to hate the color purple. Oh, I hate it. I absolutely hate it. It's disgusting. Purple is not my favorite color, but does it. really helped cemented in as my least favorite color. For them, it's yet another sign that the cult is making themselves at home. The cult has also put up these bright, and I mean bright, floodlights. They point right at the highway at driver's height, and at night, they shine into people's homes.

I even heard a story of an elderly local who got so disoriented by the lights, she missed the turnoff to where she was going and got lost. Even Mayor Brad starts to lose it, and he confronts the cult in the most Mayor Brad way. There's a camera there, and it turns like this when you pull up, so I rolled my window down, it turned right up to me. I said, hey, you bunch of turds. I said, you want to get your lights off the 371 public highway?

I said, it's bugging a lot of people. After his bylaw officer plan failed, he filed a warrant to have the school inspected, but it was struck down. I give him a call to chat about. about it. He tells me he has yet another strategy in the works to get the cult out. We did something yesterday, but I don't know if I should tell you. What is it? Brad tells me he's taking his efforts underground.

We put a plug in there, sewer. No way. What does that mean? Well, if they're using water, then that plug in there, well, it'll back up and then they can't shower or kick a shit or piss. For a while, Brad has been suspicious. For a while, Brad has been suspicious the cult has been using the villages, water, and sewer without paying for utilities. He opened the manhole to inspect and said he saw and smelled clear evidence they've been flushing. Everybody thinks the queen is full of shift, and now I think they might be in a day or two.

I was telling everybody. Since the cult has moved back into the school, fights between locals in Richmond have ratcheted up. Locals against the cult are more angry and more determined than ever to get the cult out, and weed out those they see as the cult supporters. It's not just cult versus town anymore. It's local versus local. Then, I'm sent a video of a woman driving by the school in a pickup truck, screaming at the cult, threatening to burn the school down.

You're going to be fucked when we burn that school down. You don't have any place to fucking... I'm caught off guard here. Some of the same locals who were incensed by the death threat letters from the cult are now the ones threatening violence out in the open. Well, if they want to come over and beat me up or shoot me or whatever, by all means. You know, if I have to give up something of mine in order for them to be charged with something and get them the hell out of here, I'll do it.

It sounds like you're willing to get hurt. You're willing to put your life on the line for this. Yeah, I am. This is enough. This town has suffered enough for these people. I'm taking my town back. Are people in town feeding off each other's fears and paranoia over the cult so much that it's pushing them to do things they might otherwise never do? Pushing them to do the very things they accuse the cult of doing, issuing threats, burning flags, displaying open hostility?

I learned there's one place of business in particular that has become the front line for these kinds of confrontation. I head over to the one and only store in town, the convenience shop slash post office slash liquor store, the brown bear grocery, owned by Roxanne. My question is, how does it feel to be right across from the spool? Like, you saw it get painted purple, you see all the action. I called Barney's place, and then it sounds good. I mean, it could have been worse. They could have painted it black with zebra stripes or something. Roxanne is petite with wide expressive eyes.

She might just be the last remaining neutral Rich Moundian, and her store is the last remaining meeting place. Everyone has to get their mail from her, and their liquor. But what should be no man's land has become a battleground for the two sides of Rich Mound to meet and fight. I have the people in here. They just start screaming at each other. And it's like, what do you guys do?

doing. She was in here minding her own business, literally, when the cult arrived. And Ricky, we've heard of Ricky, he comes in and he says, Roxanne, guess what? I'm like, what? The queen is moving in. Like the queen of Canada. The real queen.

I'm like, really? We thought he was just joking. He was not joking. The day the cult showed up, Romana herself came into the store with backup. Roxanne immediately knew who they were based on their white uniforms, white shirts and white ball caps that say security on them. The queen came in. She stood where you are and said, we are not here to make trouble.

And then she said, would you be able to get groceries for us? So what did you say? Well, I actually said, said, sure, not realizing what the dynamic was going to be. She starts bringing in groceries for them, some special orders too. It was a lucrative arrangement for her, if not a little weird. Like, if they come here to pick up their groceries or whatever, they're on a timer. They have to report when they're here.

Like, okay, we're at the store now. And then after they've paid, they have to say, okay, like, we paid, we're leaving now. And are they doing this like on walkie-talkies or are they doing this phones? On walkie-talkies. I just laugh at them. Like, walkie-talkies? Like, come on, people. When the anti-cult protests were being organized, Roxanne felt that as a public service employee with the post office, she couldn't be part of it.

Her friends and other locals didn't see it that way. They were across the street from my house screaming at me. Who was? Oh, the town people. Why aren't you in this? And you have to come over and be in this. I'm like, no, I don't. Roxanne was under fire for selling to them.

And every time the cult came in to do their shopping, the locals would be on the attack. Oh, we're going to kill you. and we're going to ber with school down. Oh, yeah. When we have guns, like, oh, you've died. I've tried saying, like, take it outside. I might as well talk to this wall.

As Roxanne tried to tell her friends and neighbors, she actually, by law, couldn't refuse to sell to the cult or give them their mail. She provides an essential service that they, like anyone else, are entitled to. But the people in town just wouldn't listen. Well, we got threatened. Like, people would phone and say nasty things. Like what? Like, oh, your store's never going to survive.

They all took to Facebook. And some were writing that, oh, well, if the town business wasn't supporting them, they would leave. And, oh, let's burn the store down. And, oh, yeah, we got it. all. And to make matters worse, the cult's orders were getting more demanding. Well, it was the water. They wanted you to bring in water and the gas. They wanted us to get 16 jugs. It was starting to get to be demands. Like, do this, do this, do this. I was really worried, like, okay, how's this going to go? The pressure she was facing from the cult was made worse by the

pressure from her own community. Well, actually, we lost our best friends. Our grandson went to school, like on the school bus, and somebody said to him, oh, your grandma sells to the cult. It got so bad that Roxanne started getting physically sick. Oh, I had pneumonia. I had influenza A. I had shingles twice.

It was bad. It was the stress. of what my town people were doing to me because of her. It was like backlash. She went to her doctor and explained the whole situation. His cure was simple. No more selling to the cult. The doctor told me, like, enough.

Cut them off. She broke the news to the cult's press secretary over text message. It was, I'm sorry, but my depression is going on. overdrive. So I don't think this is a good idea anymore. And they were actually very understanding. Since she stopped fulfilling special orders for the cult, she started feeling better. But her relationships with some people in town seem broken beyond repair. There are people that we know talk bad about us. And now we're kind of not sure of who we could trust, who are friends with. who we're not friends with.

Nobody knows who they could talk to in this town. For me, Roxanne's story shows how hardline the anti-cult people have become. Either you're 100% with them or against them. And for one newcomer to Rich Mound, this has all gone way too far. You're either, it's black or it's white. It's not gray.

Can't be in the middle. This man sees himself as Rich Mounds' voice of reason, and he's calling out just how unhinged his town has become. I fear some of the locals more than the cult. They're more extreme. This ascent isn't for everyone. You need grit to climb this high this often. You've got to be an underdog that always over delivers. You've got to be 6,500 hospital staff, 1,000 doctors all doing so much with so little. You've got to be Scarborough.

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when the time comes. Because at Desjardin business, we speak the same. language you do, business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk, business. I love the color of your home. I like it. We just painted last year. I've been told Rich Mound is split into two sides, the anti-cult side and the cult supporting side. But it turns out some locals don't agree with either side. In fact, they feel that the anti-cult folks might be the real threat. They've been far more vocal.

Some of them are capable of doing things that I don't think the school people would consider. This is Jody Smith. He's been watching the anti-cult tactics ramp up. The confrontations outside the school, the clowns burning flags, the fights in the post office. And he thinks it's all gone too far. Because of his friendship with cult sympathizer Melinda Fisher and host of the cult Ricky Manns, I've been told that Jody is a cult supporter just like them. But when I approach his bright blue house, he clears that up right away.

No, like I say, I do not support the group. I do not believe in their theology. I support their rights as a Canadian to believe what they want and live in peace. even though you are a little wingnut, that's fine. Jody's in his 70s and has a round face with rosy cheeks and the smiliest disposition. He and his wife welcomed me into their home with freshly baked scones. I'm struck by how reasonable he is. He tells me he and his wife only moved to Richmond a few years ago.

When you come to a small town, you're the new person for the first 20 years, but basically they were friendly and people don't lock their doors here. They don't lock their cars. They don't lock their houses, and they're willing to help you with just about anything. They moved into this little blue house and met their neighbors. Just a couple houses down lives, former karate teacher, failed cannabis entrepreneur, and cult landlord Ricky Manns. But to Jody, he's just a handy neighbor with some wild ideas. We agree to disagree.

I've worked with him. I've helped him build garages and stuff like that. He's a nice guy. My granddaughter loves him. And, you know, he's just a neighbor with weirder views than me. Ricky tells Jody about how he believes that the former prime minister, Justin Trudeau, is actually being held in Guantanamo Bay and how Jody shouldn't pay his income taxes to the fake government. Jody just shrugs it all off.

He's not an evil monster. Oh, he has some very strong opinions. You know, like you're a good neighbor. You may be a little crazy, but so what? Jody gets to know another neighbor down the block, Melinda Fisher. Like everyone else in town, Jody's got his own opinions of her, too. She's outspoken and volatile. She has a temper.

And a lot of people don't like her because she can be a little abrasive if you don't know her. But Jody doesn't really mind. He and his wife are starting to make some friends in their new town. A bunch of these new friends, including Melinda, are part of the group that calls themselves the seniors. The seniors meet every morning at 7 a.m. in the front room of the community hall where they play pool and hang out. But there had been some drama

over whether these seniors should have special access to this room in a public building. Well, there's some people in communities that got it in the head that, oh, it wasn't fair that they had that room, although they pay rent every month.

They needed to elect a group to deal with this conflict, a hall board who could run the hall. Even though he was new in town, Jody thought he could step up. I thought, well, I'm new here. I can contribute. I'll get on the board. So Jody, Melinda, Ricky Manns, and a few others decide to show up at a town meeting all together one day and vote one another in.

Anyway, we had nominations, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It was well organized. And the other factions were just in disarray. When it was passed, we had a board. Jody is elected, Hall Board President. And Melinda and Ricky are elected too, despite having a few disarray. incidents in town. Jody and his board take full control over the community hall. They run the rentals and continue to hang out in that front room every morning at 7 a.m. for coffee. They also gripe about local municipal issues, like how they aren't allowed to have their own chicken coops in their

backyard. When they lay an egg, you hear a little clucking now and again. Big deal. I think that would add to the ambiance of a small town. For the most part, Jody's tenure on the hall board goes smoothly. Then the queen came to town. Rick invited her to town. And suddenly, Ricky having a position of power takes on an entirely new meaning to locals. They want Ricky off the hall board because of his ties to Queen Romana.

But Jody stands by his friend. And the fact that I wouldn't, Rick was on our board and we wouldn't fire him because of what he had the queen here. My argument was, well, he's done the job. He hasn't done any. wrong to the board, and he's contributing. A petition circulates online called

Demand Transparency, Dissolve the Richmount Community Hall Board, with two exclamation points. Melinda and the seniors are furious. They no longer feel welcome to meet for coffee in the community hall, so they move their morning hangout to a building on the very edge of town. Many of them align themselves with Ricky, and now, pretty much everyone else sees. them as cult supporters.

The more alienated they are, the closer they become as a group. And Jody starts receiving a barrage of harassment through texts and Facebook. I have gotten texts and stuff that are just disgusting. Like what? Oh, that, you know, I'm corrupt and I'm wrong and stuff like that. I even got a Christmas card that wasn't that nice. What did it say? Oh, something about the people here.

aren't behind you, you know, give it up and that's when I was on the board, want you to quit and stuff like that. And yet they wouldn't come and talk to you face to face. This was all on Facebook. And I have a friend that has a name for them, the Facebook Taliban. It's pretty apt because they are. They're hiding behind Facebook. They won't come to my door, knock at my door and say,

Jody, let's talk about this. While Jody says he doesn't support the cult, He does think that the town shouldn't force them off of private property. Now, if you could ever enact any legislation to that, can you imagine, if you invited somebody your home and I didn't like it and we could force them out? Is that right? It stands to reason. It's not rife. He says the town has been whipped up by fears of Romana. Fears he believes are overblown. To me, it's almost an irrational fear. People in town gave them the power by being afraid of them.

I mean, she and her group have issued execution orders. It's not really the best way to ingratiate yourself to the townspeople. I'm new in town. I want all you did. No, that's not a good way of doing it. But I took these threats with a grain assault. Jody's neutrality on this issue has cost him. But he's not phased by it. His wife, however, isn't able to shrug all this off the same way he is. A town meeting is called to air out all this content.

and discussed the presence of the cult. Canadian news program W5 was there to film it. The meeting became an unexpected flashpoint. Tensions boiled over. Jody's wife volunteered to speak, and she did not hold back. People get hurt, and people are getting used to her. No, I'm not. Look off.

Really? I'm getting tired of listening to you. You've been saying these things, and I am not. I'm going to bridge down. to be the nice community ones when I moved in. You started saying I was part of the cult and I'm not. I'm not for them. I'm not.

No, I'm not. If you're not against them, that's exactly what you're. Really? Well, that's how they all start. Wars, she says, that's how they all start. You want to put somebody over here. You want to put somebody over here. And this divided town is about to have.

And this divided town is about to have an election. Last time, Brad was unopposed. He basically volunteered as mayor. But this time, he has a challenger. Jody Smith has decided to run against him for mayor. It's a dying town. It's a small Saskatchewan.

There's a thousand small dying towns in this country. So what sets this one apart right now? Nothing. We have the school people, but that's a minor blip. Jody says, if elected, he'll leave the cult alone. To Brad's mind, this is as good as letting them take over, and he's not going to let that happen. It's my town. So this election is going to be Jody versus Brad, the seniors versus the so-called elites, and in some ways, the town versus the cult.

I feel like I'm watching a war between two sides that, from my perspective, have so much in common. and frankly, share many beliefs held by Queen Romana and the cult. Most people involved in this story seem to fall on the right side of the political spectrum. There's not too much love for the Liberal Party at the time run by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. In fact, this is the land of Fuck Trudeau flags. You can see them waving outside people's homes and on the backs of their cars. Many Rich Moundians are also skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccine or outright think it's part of an evil government plot.

One local told me he would never get vaccinated. I'm not vaccinated. And I never will be. I'll die first before anybody sticks a needle in me. They agree with you on that. Romana does. I'm glad. I mean, we do see eye to eye on a couple of things.

You know, but how they go about stuff, that's a different story. It's all very complicated. But even with all these shared values, this town cannot mend fences. Richmount is broken. Maybe it was broken long before the cult arrived. And then the town starts to crack a little bit more. And it unsurprisingly leads back to Melinda Fisher and a piece of property she owns. There's no house or building on it. It's this junkyard right in the center of town, directly across from the community center. The property itself feels like a giant middle finger to Richmond. It's an eyesore to say the least. full of debris, garbage, and flags. I've seen a pentagram flag flying there. Others have told me, Melinda used to have a flag that said, Fuck you, you fucking fucks.

Now, it's become more than a middle finger. It's also the place that could make former schoolteacher Shana's worst fears come true. Then one day, Shana calls me in a frenzy. It's getting crazier. I've been, oh my God. Like, it's insane. how this cult is taking over my life and eating up so much of my time and sickening. Oh, I'm so sorry.

She has just learned that Melinda has added all of the cult members to the title of her junkyard. She just added 12 cult members, the cult members that are in the school. She just added all their names to the land title officially. This includes Romana Didolo, her. herself, her press secretary, and 10 other names I've come to know well from the cult's live streams. Now, they all own a piece of Richmound. On the surface, this may not seem like much. What good is an ugly junkyard to the cult? The thing is, being put on title like this gives them rights in the village of Richmound. Rights? Like voting. And voting rights will come in handy

almost right away, because in a few short months, Richmond is headed to the polls to vote for the next mayor. They are now taking these steps to set themselves up to be able to vote and try to get rid of our mayor and, you know, work at taking over the town, not just the school. Twelve voters in a town of about 100 could definitely sway the election. And feel like there's nothing can do unless these cult people. start shooting at us, we have to just sit and watch them take over our town.

When the cult first came to town, locals told me they worried Richmond could become like Antelope, the town in Oregon taken over by the Regnishi cult shown in the Netflix doc series Wild Wild Wild Country. Followers of that cult had also tried to influence the local election in their efforts to take over the town. And now, Richemount really, really, really is confronting the same threat. I talked to Melinda to hear her side. Turns out she'd been thinking about this for a while. My sister and I were talking about it, and I said, yeah, I said, we need to get more votes.

We need to get these S-O-Bs out of office. I said, you know what? My sister and I are twins, right? Yeah. We end up looking at each other with these big eyes and going, oh, we know we're thinking the same. I said, we know what would really piss these people off. I'm going to give them free rein to the city. I'm going to put them on title.

While the rest of Richmond is playing checkers, Melinda is playing 4D chess. And giving the cult the right to vote is the ultimate power move. Then all voting rights. Not only does this mean the cult can vote, Queen Romana could run for mayor. And maybe he'll snip it in the back. Checkmate. Next time on the Cult Queen of Canada. It's election season in Richemound.

Tune in next week for an all-new episode of the Cult Queen of Canada. Or you can listen ahead to the full series now by subscribing to CBC True Crime Premium on Apple Podcasts or by subscribing to the CBC True Crime channel on YouTube. Links in the description. The Cult Queen of Canada is a production of new metric media and news entertainment for CBC podcasts. The show is hosted by me, Rachel Brown. It's written and produced by Pippa Johnstone and Rachel Brown. The series producer is Chris Kelly.

Sound design and original music by Mark Angley. Our senior producer is Jeff Turner. Our digital producer is Emily Cannell. The series was developed by Chris Kelly, Courtney Dobbins, and Rachel Brown. For new metric media, the executive producer is Mark Montefiore. The vice presidents of podcasts are Chris Kelly and Pat Kelly. For Muse Entertainment, the executive producers are Courtney Dobbins and Jonas Proof. For CBC, the executive producers are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak.

Tanya Springer is the senior manager, and RF Narani is the director of CBC podcasts. If you're enjoying the show, consider checking out another series from CBC. I would highly recommend Broomgate. It's a surprising series about the truth about a broom that almost destroyed an entire sport. Hosted by semi-pro curler and comedian John Cullen, who exposes the never-before-tallel. old scandal that rocked the sport of curling. You can find it, along with all other CBC podcasts, wherever you get your podcasts. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.