Was I In A Cult? - The Cult of Emmanuel David Pt1: “Life After Death”

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

In August of 1978, one of the darkest chapters in Utah’s history unfolded. A man claiming to be God became the catalyst for a tragedy that left a city shaken and a family shattered. Emmanuel David—born Charles Bruce Longo—founded a small but insidious cult rooted in offshoot Mormon beliefs, prophetic delusions, and total control.Despite the mass suicide—or murder-suicide, depending on who you ask—the cult didn’t die with its leader. The remaining believers held on. They kept the doctrine alive. And for decades, they waited for their God to return.Today’s guest is one of the few who remained.This is Part 1 of her story.________Follow Us for More Culty Content:Instagram & TikTok: @wasiinacultShare Your Story:Have a cultic experience of your own? We want to hear it.Email us at [e-mail] the Show:This show is listener-powered. If Zipporah’s story moved you—please rate, review, and share.Want ad-free episodes and exclusive content? Join our Patreon.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The views, information, or opinions expressed by the guest appearing in this episode solely belong to the guest and do not represent or reflect the views or positions of the hosts, the show, Podcast One, this network, or any of their respective affiliates. Please note that today's episode includes discussions of sexual abuse, suicide, and a mass tragedy involving children. Please listen with care. The David family lived in the International Dunes Hotel in Salt Lake City. Rachel David led her children out to this 11th floor balcony. Morning traffic passed below. And it was from the 11th floor balcony of their apartment

that the eight members of the family either jumped or in the case of some of the children were seen being pushed. The family believed they should join their father in death. Emmanuel David, as he called himself, claimed to be the leader of the world. After excommunication from the Mormon church, he founded a tiny cult of his own. Bruce Lindsay for CBS News, Salt Lake City. ["Salt Lake City"] Welcome to Liz Iacuzzi's, uh, the podcast. Of course, you know that, because you're listening to it.

I'm Tyler Meesom. And I am Liz Iacuzzi. Now, on this show, we explore the personal stories of individuals who spent years, sometimes decades, inside cults. And they made it out. And not every cult makes headlines. In fact, a lot of them don't for various reasons, too small, too secretive, or what they're doing doesn't look like, quote, news from the outside.

Right. There's no fire. There's no mass tragedy, no police tape, just years of psychological control happening quietly behind those closed doors. But today's cult? It's one of the most chilling cult-related tragedies, I would say, in American history. Yeah, and it continued long after the headlines stopped. Now, as for myself, having grown up in Utah, this is one of those stories that kind of floated in the creepy mythology of the state, kind of like the Ogden Hi-Fi Murders, look

that up, the Mark Hoffman bombings. There's a really great documentary series on Netflix about it. I am Tyler. I will plug myself wherever possible. We wish he'd go plug himself. Thank you, Rob. And this is a story that I always knew about and had read a bit about. But when Liz said we had someone reach out who was from this particular group, I was very fascinated.

was very fascinated. And so our guest today, she was part of Emanuel David Colds for 44 years. And the reason I'm choosing to be on the show now is because I feel like I've learned a lot of things from being in a cult and been out long enough that I've pieced it all together and I'm better now. And now I want to tell my story and help others if I can. I was born in Utah. I have a full sister and a half brother. My family grew up Mormon, both sides. My dad was a karate instructor, and he actually grew up in California

and moved to Utah, went to BYU. My mom grew up in Provo, but they met at BYU. They were married, and I'm not sure if they met the cult leader at BYU. I think it was after that, and they joined together. Actually, my mom was really against it to begin with, but my dad told her that if she didn't come along with him, that he'd divorce her. Nicole In many of our episodes, we have often traced the lineage of the cult leader.

Yeah, because fortune cookie messiahs don't just show up to the party ready to cult lead. I mean, they usually have a process and this particular cult leader, he was no different. Charles Bruce Longo is his original name. He was born and raised in the Bronx and he grew up Episcopalian, but he joined the military when he was a young man, I think 1939, something like that. He ended up with some Mormon friends in the military, and after he got out of the military, I guess that's when he converted to Mormonism. Apparently, he was in a hotel when he was on a mission in Uruguay, and he had an angel appear to him and said that he needed to lock the door because if anyone else came

in they would probably die, and that he would receive revelation from time to time, and that he would need to believe that and go with it. So he wasn't sure about this revelation, and he talked to Joseph Fielding Smith about it, who is related to Joseph Smith. He was like the mission leader, and he said, oh yeah, this is from God. You are absolutely on the right track. So he went to BYU and he met his wife, Marguerite Brigitte Erickson. Note, yes, she changed her name to Rachel David as part of the cult spiritual renaming stuff that cults do.

She was from Sweden, a convert. After they got married, he became a bishop, I think, something in the church. And this was after he had some followers already, probably, I'm guessing about 20 people, 20, 30 people. And he had a few people that would listen to him preach. He spoke with conviction, with authority, with like, he knew what he was talking about. And a lot of people believed him. He had a lot of charisma, and he had told them, apparently, that he was a prophet, and that they needed to give him 10% of the tithings. All right. Now, as any regular listener to this show probably knows, I grew up a Mormon, right?

And there's always been this baked-in paradox at the heart of the church and the faith. See, the church itself was founded on the idea that Joseph Smith received a personal revelation, a full-on visitation from God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost in the woods of upstate New York. Now, to this day, the church teaches that every member can receive their own personal revelation. You pray hard enough, you live righteously enough, and God might just whisper the answer straight to you. But here's the tricky part. Over the years, quite a few Mormons have claimed that God told them something different. New, bigger, better. And they started their own church, much like Immanuel David did. And there were many of them. And I'm going to let Liz read some of these. We're talking about groups like the FLDS, the RLDS, the AUB, the TLC, the

strangeites. Is that right? The strangeites. Yeah, it was started by a guy who was wrestling with strange. The strangeites, the snufferites, the hedrickites, the bickertonites, the cutlerites. Are these real or did you just... These are real. These are real. The mesemites.

The mesemites are next. The kingstons, the school of the prophets, the church of the firstborn. The iacuzziites don't really have the same Mormon ring tone, do they? No, it doesn't really. I don't think people would follow that one. The restored branch of Jesus Christ, Zion's order, order of Enoch, House of Aaron, Lundgren Group. That one just sounds like a weird like law office and so many more. Yeah, yeah, those are real. And those are just the ones that still exist.

There's many that are defunct. And now the mainstream Mormon church, they don't exactly roll out the red carpet for these spiritual startups. In fact, they get kind of nervous when someone starts claiming fresh revelation that doesn't come with their stamp of approval. They were upset that he was receiving revelation that they didn't like. And they kicked him out and all his followers too. Because they agreed with him and they stood up and said, yeah, he's a prophet.

As far as my group was concerned, and of course, no one likes being broken up with, so like a typical teenage boy, he retaliated with, Well, I'm not that into you either. He just condemned the Mormon church, said that was all wrong. The whole Mormon thing didn't matter anymore. That was just a stepping stone to finding out who he really was. I never liked you anyway. I was just dating you so that I could get to know who I really am and stuff.

Um, I don't understand this next line, but I'll read it. So where does he, Renee Zellweger and his goldfish go? You put it in the teleprompter, but I don't know what the hell I just read. Rob. Is that Bridget Jones's diary? What is wrong with the both of you? What is it? I'm taking the fish. I'm taking the fish. The fish, they're coming with me. You complete me? Oh, well that's Jerry Maguire. Yeah, he gets up and he leaves and Renee follows him and he takes the fish and he's left alone. That is too obscure.

Everybody listening will know that reference. No they won't. I've seen that movie probably eight times and I still. I reference every dumb thing that you say on this show every week that nobody knows. I just wanted to be. Nobody knows Van Halen's name of his own cock. Only you do. Okay? And nobody cares except you. But we leave it in the show, don't we Rob? Editor's note. Cast your vote. Go to wherever you listen to podcasts and where you would normally leave a review. Just let us know if you prefer Van Halen or Jerry Maguire. Jerry, do you know the human head weighs eight pounds?

Make your voice heard. He didn't really establish a church and he didn't want anybody going out and proselytizing either. There wasn't like a church service that they would go to. They would all get together and David would say, okay, you all need to pray overnight for such and such to happen. And it slowly evolved over time. At first he was a prophet, then he was, oh, he was Jesus Christ. And then, oh, no, he's actually God. So he came here as a normal man with no power to pave the way for the Second Coming, but as God the Father. And I really think that He's one of the ones that actually believed what He was saying, and He really believed

that He was God. According to some of the other people in the group, there were some spiritual things that happened that proved to them that he was really God. Yeah, he made your money disappear from your wallet and magically appear in his. And Zipporah's parents? Well, they were one of the very special chosen few. He had my mom and dad, his brother-in-law, and then two other members. And that was pretty much, that was the core that stuck with him until the end. But they were expected to devote everything to him. He controlled every aspect of everyone's lives, like their marriages, sex, how much money they made,

and where it would go. And they were really pressured to make money for him because he couldn't go out and work because he had to stay home and pray and figure out what the next revelation was. And my parents were told that their marriage was not right, that they got married the wrong way, and they were told to get a divorce. So my mom ended up with two kids on her own. And because they had married wrong, they could never get married again to anyone. They had lost their mates, is what they were told. All this from a man too lazy to get a job. I know my mom was a lot more heartbroken about it than my dad was, but my dad was so devoted

to David that whatever he told him to do, he would do it. So my sister was about nine years old when they got divorced and I was a product of them getting back together when they weren't supposed to be together. So my mom went through pregnancy and had me by herself and I didn't even have a name for a year because my mom was waiting for my dad to come back and be involved in my life. A dream that unfortunately would never come true. He never paid child support or supported us in any way. She would just take jobs taking care of elderly people or housekeeping or taking care of elderly people or housekeeping or whatever. And when my sister was about 10, David told her that she was evil and that my mother needed to give her up to my grandparents. And the reason is because apparently she lied a lot. And perfect obedience is absolutely essential in this cult. Perfect obedience

from the children, from everyone involved. My sister was told by Rebecca, who is David's wife, that she needed to make her bed a certain way. And she was rebellious and wouldn't do it that way. So she's evil. And so I was pretty terrified about doing anything wrong because I could be next. You don't have any choices. You know, if you don't believe that David is God, then you're shunned. You don't get to stay.

You are not allowed to be rebellious in any way. You are absolutely obedient. I mean, my mom would tell me stories all the time. She would tell me, you know, I'd have a right, if we lived 2,000 years ago, I'd have a right to stone you for being disobedient. I mean, stuff like that. So there was a lot of that threat. So I knew if I wasn't perfectly obedient that I deserve to be stoned. I deserved not to be here anymore. And that was scary. So I internalized a lot of that.

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We love you, Diana. One way that he did keep them in control was I can only go by my dad's experience. He would tell me stories all the time. He told me about a time when it was Jacob is the brother from Sweden. He and Jacob were told by David that they were supposed to pray all night and fast when fasting in our group meant no water, no food. And like Jacob told me about times when he would go days fasting with no water, no food. And they're like, now that's proof that David's God because you can't go days without water, but my dad had an experience after fasting and praying all night. And what they were praying for is to see David as God, to see what he looks like as God. And that's exactly what my dad saw. He saw David on the throne and angels beside him and his own spirit come out of his body

and bow down in front of him. And the things that were going through his mind was his judgments are just, his judgments are just. So that whole hallucination, he saw that and he said, that threw me for a loop. My dad was considered his right-hand man, then he had two other people, and they were considered his apostles. And David told them that they were all here on earth with him as Jesus Christ, as the apostles. So, they all had lives with him as Jesus. So, they were convinced that they were various Bible figures throughout time. My mother was considered

a servant of the servants. What an honor. That's what David had told her, that she was to serve the people who served him. They were all considered servants, and they would do whatever he told them to do. The corps membership was, they were all very important people, but David made sure to tell them that they were not important in this life. They hadn't done anything worth anything in this life. It was their lives before they were great people, but not in this life.

They needed to earn that. By filling my bank account with your bank account. Now, like most cults, you get a new name upon arrival. It's a great way to strip you of your past identity, your family, your autonomy, and you replace it with a new role, handpicked by the leader. You start seeing yourself through their lens, not your own. And that makes you easier to control because if they gave you your new identity, they can also take it away.

So yeah, my dad was Abraham. His new name was Matthias, which is not an apostle, but he is in the Bible. My mom was, she was given the new name of Ruth. Oh yes, one of the rare mentions of a woman in the Bible. Mm hmm, yes, they do play a lesser role in the greatest of all books, right? So, according to different sources and counting methods, there are about 1200 male names in the Bible. Now, go on Liz, take a good guess how many women are mentioned in the Bible. The same amount in an 80s action movie cast. No, more, but not much more.

The ratio of men to women is about 1 to 12. There are about 137 women named in the Protestant Bible. And what are those women doing? I mean, a lot of them are like harlots or a lot of them have done a lot of bad things. They're turned into pillars of salt, you know, things like that. People's mothers, people's mothers, right, a lot of mothers. Somebody has to give birth to the brilliant men. That's right. But Ruth is actually a pretty decent character.

She had her own book, the Book of Ruth. It's a short four chapter book in the Old Testament, tucked right between judges and first Samuel. Now Ruth is a Moabite woman, so technically an outsider. She marries into an Israelite family. Now when her husband dies, instead of returning to her people, she chooses to stay with her mother-in-law, Naomi, another woman. Ruth is known for her loyalty, her humility and obedience and is famous for saying to her mother-in-law, �Whither thou goest, I will go." So the subliminal messaging in changing her

name to Ruth, well, it's not so subliminal. She was a strong woman. From what everybody else said about her, that she was a follower and she was absolutely devoted to David. She would have done whatever he wanted her to do. She would give money to David. She would be there to do the housekeeping, do some cooking, run errands. I know that David, Rebecca and their kids, they ended up having seven kids. They traveled around the country for a while. They started living in hotels and they rented the best suites and the members, they would wire money to David to pay for all of this stuff because God deserves everything

in this world. It's all his anyway, so it all belongs to him. Bro. There is no logic in that. Buy him a nice hotel room because he's God, but he deserves it because he's God, because he owns it all. Yeah, if he owns it, why do you need to buy it for him? Right. This guy truly got away with like, I don't fucking feel like doing shit. I want to live in a nice hotel room. I want room service. I want to sleep in. nice hotel room. I want room service I want to sleep in and I don't really want to take care of my kids So I'm gonna call myself God receive some revelation We say it's crazy, but how much money does the Mormon Church have and people willingly turn over their 10%

You know, there's one born every minute, right? Speaking of that you can join our patreon account by going to patreon.com Was I in Occult? That private jet won't fuel itself. That's right. Liz is God and she owns everything, so you may as well just give it to her. Yeah. We have to share the jet, which, you know, kind of makes me feel like a pauper. Yeah, we should probably get three jets.

At least one for the men and one for me. Yeah, you're right. It's about time a woman got her own jet. I mean. So help us folks. Be a feminist by Liz a Jet. My dad actually ended up going to prison for giving a false reason for needing money. He told some of his students that he was the uncle of a girl who was in the hospital,

and that he needed money for her treatment, and several people donated money so that he could take that money and give it to David. A couple of the other followers got caught for the same thing. They ended up with wire fraud charges. And then all of a sudden, some of David's prophecies started to reverse. Hmm. That's weird, because I guess even God needs to follow the law. Huh. And my mom was told, and it would have been probably a few months before my birthday, because I turned four, David and Rebecca sat her down and told her that she needed to change her name back to her old name and leave the state because a major event was going to happen that the whole world would take notice.

They didn't go into details about what it was or anything, but that she needed to be incognito and not be associated with the name David. And I remember this car ride, we drove all night on whatever money she had at the time. We drove all night on whatever money she had at the time. And we drove to Colorado and she got a job as a nanny. And then a few months later in August, she saw on the news what had happened. So yeah, but nobody knew that it was coming.

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at greenlight.com slash colt. That's greenlight.com slash colt to get started. Greenlight.com slash colt. That's greenlight.com slash colt to get started. Greenlight.com slash colt. In August of 1978, David borrowed a car and drove to Immigration Canyon in Utah. It's near Salt Lake City. And he had a hose with rags stuffed into the exhaust

pipe and ran it through to his window. And he asphyxiated himself. The speculation is that he knew that the FBI was closing in on him. I suspect that's probably true. And it was for wire fraud because some of his followers had resorted to illegal means to give him money. Now he's dead. And his wife, because they never talked about what their plan was, we can only speculate, but it may have been that she was waiting for him to come back and be resurrected. But she finally decided that she was going to,

well, what she did was she lined up her seven kids on the balcony of the 11th floor of the International Dunes Hotel, they stacked up folding chairs on top of each other so they could get over the railing. And one by one, each of the kids climbed up there and jumped off to their death. The youngest two ended up grabbing on to the railing and she pried their fingers off and threw them off. And then she had a crowd of onlookers who were trying to get her to stop. They were yelling at her to stop. And she just, they, not one of the kids made a noise, except for the two youngest ones. But yeah, she, and then she stood on top of the chairs herself and jumped. In Salt Lake City today, the widow and seven children of a religious fanatic were pushed or jumped more than 100 feet from a hotel balcony.

Witnesses say she threw or coaxed the youngsters over the rail as horrified spectators watched from the street. This person simply lifted them up and threw them. No screaming, nothing. And the last person paused for a while and then just went over the edge. Police speculate the family believed they should join their father in death. The father's real name was Bruce Longo, but he was known by the name of Emmanuel David. Claimed to be the leader of the world.

He's categorized himself over the years as being the Holy Ghost, Jesus Christ, God. The FBI says David was under investigation for fraudulently soliciting funds by telephone or telegram. David kept his family secluded in expensive Salt Lake City hotels. The children seldom went outside. They did not attend public schools. But in their home lessons, the children wrote that their father had power to destroy. So, all of them died at the scene except for two, the oldest two, Rachel and Elizabeth. Rachel was 15, I think Elizabeth was 13, and they were both taken to the hospital, multiple injuries. And Elizabeth died at the hospital and Rachel survived, but she was

in a coma. She ended up having to have the equivalent of five blood transfusions or something like that. After she came out of the coma, she spent at least a year in the hospital. But she was in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. She did have physical therapy for a long time and they tried to get her to be able to walk again, but she just, it wasn't happening. It's almost impossible to wrap your head around. Definitely the most tragic story I think we've heard on this show to come from the conditioning instilled by cults. And the police ruled it as a homicide.

And that same building, once the International Dunes, later the Shiloh Inn, is now a holiday and express. And since this event, it has been labeled as one of Salt Lake City's haunted houses. Did you know this, Tyler? I don't believe in ghosts, but I do know that people talked about it. It has gotten a fresh coat of paint and a continental breakfast,

but locals say it hasn't shaken its ghosts. According to some guests and staff, they have reported hearing children's laughter, wet footprints by the pool, a woman's voice echoing from the 11th floor. Some maintenance workers have said pinball machines turn on at night by themselves, lights unscrew, tools go missing.

Now is that paranormal folklore or trauma clinging to the walls? Now I don't usually go down afterlife rabbit holes and ghost stories and all of that, but one story from this hotel gave me the actual jitters. In 1997, a 48-year-old woman visiting from Taiwan drowned in the then Shiloh Inn pool. She told her roommate she was going for a swim.

30 minutes later, she was found face down in the deep end. She was a good swimmer. No signs of foul play, no clear reason. And some say child-sized wet footprints were found around the scene. Make of that what you will. Yeah, let's add on to the death, shall we? Let's take a horrific thing and then add another death to it. Now if I don't take over, Liz is going to turn this into an episode from Lore.

So here's the thing, the key takeaway from this horrific scene, one of the children, well, she lived, that's 15 year old Rachel. She lived through the fall, through the coma, through the surgeries, and that changed everything. And exactly how did the remaining believers justify these horrific deaths? David and Rebecca were constantly praying and fasting and becoming more and more perfect. And their God spirit, the God would have come through them and that light coming through them would have destroyed everyone on the planet. That's their mentality. And that's always how we put it. In her mind, and what we'd all been told, is that her children were perfect. They had repented and prayed enough that they were perfect. And if they were left behind, they would have been ruined by the world and end up going

to hell. David had to leave. They all had to leave. They were a family unit. And David and Rebecca were God together as one. And they made a sacrifice. And for most, this would have ended the group, but they decided to circle the wagons, if you will. Jacob ended up coming back from Sweden.

And then soon after that, we ended up moving back to Salt Lake to be there for Rachel. Jacob again was the biological brother of David's wife, Rachel, and he was also a believer. The other thing that kept most of us together was the fact that Rachel was still alive, because without her, we would have all gone our separate ways. We didn't have anything else in common. Two of the apostles ended up leaving and being like, you know, screw this, this is crazy. And they left. And then my dad was off doing his own thing.

I mean, he believed that because David was so angry with him about getting caught for the fraud thing that he believed he was no longer a part of this whole plan, that he was damned. And so he lived his life like he was going to die and go to hell when it was over. What my mom told me was that he decided he wanted to live his life the way he wanted to and not according to how David wanted him to. That was the story. But he wasn't a part of the group for a long time, but he still believed it. So afterwards, it was me and my mom, Jacob and his wife and four kids. And that's pretty much it. Jacob was pretty much considered the leader. And then it was just Jacob and his boys are the new apostles. They're, you know, yeah.

Rachel ended up living with me and my mom for a while because she was the only one who could really take care of her. And I didn't believe that I was going to grow up. It was assumed that at any point David was going to come back as God and Jesus Christ. You know, the world was going to end and we all had to be ready for that because we needed to be perfect in order to make it to heaven. So we had to really watch our P's and Q's, you know, and that it would be soon. And that's the thing is it could be any time. It could be years from now. So now that he's still not back, people still believe in it. And it's okay because there was never a set date anyway. And everybody in the group believed that at some point

in the future, either before David came back, maybe afterward, that there would be followers that would just like magically come together and know that David was God. And I'm not exactly sure how that was supposed to happen, but that was the thinking. We didn't have like regular meetings. There was no order to anything. It was just, we get together now and then talk about stuff, then go our separate ways. It was my mom's idea of what the cult was, but basically just isolating because we weren't

involved with any family. All of our family were Mormon and we didn't really have a lot to do with my mom's family. And I didn't really have many friends. I would babysit sometimes and I actually did get a scholarship for belly classes and I ended up taking, which was a lifesaver for me because it was something for me to do and focus on, which was awesome. But my mom did sit me down and say, you know, you can't make this important. This has to be just for fun. It can't be something you do seriously because we don't dedicate ourselves to anything,

but we would pray to David in the name of Emmanuel David. That's how we would end our prayers. It was a daily indoctrination. It was more a lifestyle of just, you don't drink, you don't smoke, you definitely don't have sex or even think about sex. That's a no-no. I was told that if I even kissed someone that I could go to hell. I was also told that in this lifetime I had no husband, there was a nobody here for me to marry and because we were going to die, you know, everything

was going to end, which was devastating to me because I really wanted kids. But yeah, that's what I grew up thinking. In the name of lazy-ass, money-grifting con man David... we'll be right back. Amen. Wazana Kolt is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. All right, so I actually use Progressive.

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So the cult of less than 10 members continues to live and Zipporah's family, well, they were just scraping by. So there was some money from taking care of Rachel from the states. And then, yeah, just my mom sewing, like constantly sewing. So it was not easy, especially her being the only person making any money. So having to work and then take care of her at the same time, and Rachel was very high needs, it were on her. I had my chores, but my mom would usually cook.

So I guess there was a lot of neglect because she was just too busy to be a real parent. But honestly, during that period, between 9 and 12, I was actually fairly happy. I would read a lot. I would just hang out by myself quite a bit. It was much harder by the time I got to be, you know, an older teenager around 14 is about when trouble really started. I was completely alone, had zero friends. We had moved, Rachel had to go back to a nursing home that was fairly close by to where we lived. My mom had gotten a job

because I was old enough to be home alone. And, you know, during school hours, because it wasn't legal to homeschool at that time, I had to stay inside until school was out. But yeah, I was taking swimming lessons and the instructor, I was 14, he was 18, and I kind of had a crush on him. I'm 14 and I know nothing,

like nothing about the real world and how things work, how guys are at that age, none of that. I'm completely naive about all of that. I invited him up to our apartment and my mom had told me that I was never allowed to bring anybody into our apartment when she's not there, but that was like when I was never allowed to bring anybody into our apartment when she's not there. But that was like when I was eight. And I didn't think too much of it. I thought, oh, yay, we're going to play some games, you know, because I never got to play

games with anybody. So I'm thinking, yeah, we're going to just hang out. And no, he ended up raping me and then telling me that he was joining the military, so he was going to be gone. And so yeah, it was pretty devastating for my whole psyche. I went into a deep dark depression after that and soon after that I quit ballet. I just couldn't, I had no real desire to do anything. And I didn't tell my mom. I didn't feel like I could. Like I already knew what she would think of me. And I was afraid maybe she'll kick me out. And I just had all this guilt about just being dirty and bad.

Because that's what I've been told. That's what you are. If you're not pure, you're not worth anything. You do anything before marriage, you're bad. And so that really got into my head. But then a couple of years later, my grandma needed some help. Yeah, so what happened is we moved to Denver because my mom was able to get a transfer from her job to that same job in Denver.

We ended up getting Rachel back because she was in a nursing home in Utah, so we got her a place in Denver. And then Jacob and his family followed soon after. Yeah, and he didn't start kind of being more of an authority until we all moved to Denver. He kind of transitioned into more of a prophet, at least in his mind. Now what started as a fringe following ended in one of the most shocking acts of religious violence in Utah history. And somehow the story didn't end there. Because one child survived.

And while the headlines faded and the world moved on, for the people still inside this belief system, the story kept going, quietly, secretly, and for decades. Next week, Sephora takes us deeper inside the world that formed around the ruins, what happened after the tragedy and how this tiny offshoot of followers rebuilt, reshaped, and kept the cult alive. My mom told everyone what had happened to me. She didn't mention that I was raped, but she said that I had boyfriends and that I wasn't a virgin. And then I was just looked at as this, wow, you really are just a screw up.

Which is why I didn't want them to know in the first place, because I was already angry with myself and embarrassed and humiliated and shamed without them knowing. But afterwards it was like a hundred times worse. That's next time on Was I an Occult? Was I an Occult is written, produced and hosted by me, Liz, the goddess Ayakuzzi. And me, Tyler Ruth Mee-some. As in Babe Ruth. As in the Mee-sonites.

Sound design and mix, and bearing with Tyler's recent rise famed-um stardom, yeah is Rob the random brother turned cult leader para and our lovely assistant editor who is way too good for all of us Greta the angel and Holy Ghost Stromquist From the waters of Lake Erie, It was raising flags. He said, there's no way that that fish should weigh 7.9 pounds. It's just not big enough. To a nondescript office building in Richmond, Virginia,

home to a $700 million fund for children with special needs. If there was a cliche list of how to blow money that you just stole very quickly, this guy did all of them. To the ski slopes of Salt Lake City, where a former Olympic snowboarder landed on the FBI's most wanted list. Ryan James' wedding is one of those interesting narcos who have had two very successful careers, one legal and one illegal.

We're pulling back the curtain on a fresh lineup of opportunists who stopped at nothing to get ahead. These are the stories of people who saw a loophole, a moment of weakness, a chance to get ahead, and took it. I'm host Sarah James McLaughlin. Join me for a new season of The Opportunist on May 19th. Follow now wherever you get your podcasts. Feel the explosive action all summer long with movies like Gladiator, Mission Impossible, Beverly Hills Cop, Good Burger and Transformers Dark of the Moon.

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