Lost Episode - "Incest Cults"

[00:00:00] The following podcast contains adult themes, gritty details from true crimes, and naughty language. Listener discretion is advised. There's no time now. I began five years ago, in secret, working all night every night right into the dawn. A thousand experiments, a thousand failures, and then, at last, the great wonderful day.

[00:00:26] Nerds, welcome back to another previously released episode that's been languishing, dust-covered and lonely, in the human fuckery vault low these many years. And this time, it's like, low, really, just so many goddamn years, Jesus, half a decade, give or take.

[00:00:55] Last time this episode was live, Biden hadn't even been sworn into office, so if you're prone to going, oh no, a rerun. Just, chill, okay? This one's gonna feel new to you, even if you heard it way back when. Now, originally, our Season 1 finale, it's among the most twisted topics we've ever gone spelunking in, and y'all were the ones who chose it.

[00:01:22] There was a whole poll thing, people voted, and incest cults legitimately came out on top as the thing our listeners most wanted us to do a two-hour podcast on. The pandemic really was wild. Now, given the triggering nature of the subject, just fair warnings are in order.

[00:01:45] Sex and the sexual abuse of minors are mentioned, but we worked hard to make sure they're not graphic because, yeah, I mean, just, fuck, gross. And given the heinous nature of parents overstepping the most sacred boundaries with their children, We got two very entertaining, not at all creepy, sleep-deprived parents with clean criminal records to come in and play special guest judge.

[00:02:14] You'll hear New Orleans singer Sean Toose and mother of two sons Debbie Davis, as well as Garrison Paz, Hollywood film industry survivor and father of a now probably teenage boy. Who knows? It's been a thousand years, but they are balancing out our child-free insights. This is the episode that covered quite a lot of Vampire Jesus.

[00:02:38] So grab a snack, get caffeinated for your long drive, prepare for the dog walk, whatever you do while listening to podcasts. Get them ready to go because this is a solid podcast episode. And you'll hear us back here with a brand new episode, as promised, the next time a new episode loads into your feed. Incest.

[00:03:05] It's one of those words that elicits a shudder in most everyone. Not so much as a judgment against victims of incest, but more as a knee-jerk response. This response is the byproduct of an internal mechanism that discourages folks from having sex with their relatives.

[00:03:28] These mechanisms exist in the animal kingdom as well, though with less ethical awareness. The evolutionary purpose? Children born of first-degree relatives have over a 50% chance of developing a severe disability. And by first-degree, I'm referring to a child and parent or a brother and sister.

[00:03:53] It is a tragic and heartbreakingly dusty corner of life and its many maladaptations. Incest is a form of abuse, and it should come as no surprise that the perpetrators of said abuse are emotionally and psychologically damaged individuals. The word itself comes from the Latin incestis, which means impure or unchaste.

[00:04:22] The reach of trauma inflicted upon victims of incest requires an entire lifetime in order to be fully understood. Children in these situations are completely disempowered, subject to the whims of their parents' or elders' unmet needs.

[00:04:40] The annihilation of self-concept can sometimes result in these children maintaining a sexual relationship with their relatives well into middle or old age. Incest becomes an imprisonment, shrouded in both secrecy and shame. A departure from innocence, hurtled toward a worldview that remains forever fractured.

[00:05:07] And for some, it's the only version of the world they'll ever know. Families, they're a tough nut to crack. We often hear folks chat about the families they're born into versus the families they'll someday choose. Sometimes, choosing a new family means a departure from the spinning wheel of toxicity and generational trauma.

[00:05:32] And other times, that chosen family becomes merely a replication of the very thing we wish to escape from in many ways. All families are wholly unique, but in many others, well, they're all the same. From that perspective, the Colts were like any other family. Sort of. They were a close-knit bunch, living on a family farm in New South Wales, Australia.

[00:06:02] The children could often be seen moving about, riding dirt bikes and ATVs across the property. Love seemed to be the prevailing concept amongst the group, as the women looked after their youngsters, and their men would work odd jobs to bring home the proverbial bacon. Christmases were a time of wonderment and tradition. On the morning of, the kids, overjoyed, would tear through piles of presents

[00:06:31] as one of their uncles would visit the bunch dressed up as Santa Claus. Not so abnormal. Not such a bad way to grow up. The family patriarch was a man named Tim Colt. Born in the 1940s, Tim grew up in New Zealand. That's where he would meet his bride-to-be, June. The duo would marry in 1966 and then migrate to Australia.

[00:06:59] They wasted little time in building a flock, as the pair gave birth to seven children over the next decade. Martha, Betty, Frank, Charlie, Cherry, Paula, and Rhonda. They moved around a lot. But this suited their lifestyle. The Colts fashioned themselves as a traveling family band, showcasing their talents at county fairs and festivals across the country.

[00:07:28] They even put out a number of albums containing what they described as, quote, family love songs. Tim would strike a self-satisfied pose, rocking a bolo tie for good measure. In time, their kids had kids. And over the years, the brood swelled into the dozens.

[00:07:58] However, June died prematurely in 2001 at the age of 55, with Tim soon to follow in 2009. After their deaths, the couple's children still banded together, purchased several acres in the hills behind the farming village of Burowa in New South Wales for $100,000.

[00:08:23] From there, nearly 40 Colt descendants would occupy the land in a move that would ultimately reveal the family's dark secret. One that Tim likely imagined he'd taken to his grave. The locals of Burowa often struggled to get a good read on the Colts.

[00:08:47] Occasionally, they'd be seen rolling into town for provisions, with half a dozen kids piling out of a truck. Some were rail thin. All were filthy. Few folks, if any, ever came to know their names. But many were concerned by the isolated group and the consistent sound of chainsaws coming from their property. Some of the kids were never enrolled in school.

[00:09:15] The other children attended intermittently. And it was this inconsistency which, in part, drew the attention of authorities. For more than two years, between February 2010 and July 2012, seven welfare reports on the Colt children were filed, indicating risk of significant harm.

[00:09:38] The report cited general neglect and a failure to maintain a hygienic and appropriate living environment. But the shit really hit the fan when one day, a teacher overheard one of the Colt kids mention in casual conversation, quote, My sister is pregnant, and we don't know which of my brothers is the father. Their lives would never be the same.

[00:10:07] On June 6th, 2012, caseworkers and police paid a visit to the farm. Imagine, if you can, that you're riding along for the day. Sitting in the back seat of the caseworker's vehicle, you turn down a dusty road that opens up into a recently cleared block of dirt. You roll down the back window and spot four living areas.

[00:10:35] Two caravans, a garden shed, and another larger shed with two tents inside. Dozens of people are scattered across the property, creating a daunting and disorienting scene. Some of them peek out from the inside of their tents. Others shuffle about, confused, with sloped ears, shortened necks, crooked eyes, and rotted teeth.

[00:11:03] Imagine kind of like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. As you inspect the family quarters, there's no sign of a toilet, shower, or a bath, save for a few buckets near the beds, collecting the occasional mix of urine and feces. Caravan number one is covered in mud and filth. A pungent odor pierces your safety mask as you discover most of the children's beds are soiled.

[00:11:31] Dirty cooking facilities and a gas barbecue pit sit nearby. The second caravan looks much the same. Filthy as fuck, plus two broken windows deemed hazardous to the children. Exposed electrical wires and bags of trash sit near the entrance. You wonder how any of them have survived this way for so long.

[00:11:58] Inside the garden shed, you find the rusted chainsaws lying about. Apparently, they were used by the men to clear the property that you see before you. The larger shed contains a dirty stove and a fridge with rotten vegetables and not much else. You finally make your way to the tents, one of which housed Martha and daughters Nadia and Ruth.

[00:12:23] The other tent slept her sons Albert, Jed, and Carl. You search the children for some indication of their well-being. Unable to make eye contact, most of them spoke unintelligibly. The next day, those same caseworkers returned with two camping toilets, a camping shower, and a safety plan. The eldest, Rhonda Colt, was to oversee a cleanup of the compound.

[00:12:52] But return visits in July confirmed the children would continue to be at risk if they remained at the farm. On July 18, 2012, a convoy of police and welfare once again traversed those dirt roads into the hills. With several of the adult Colts watching on, the authorities removed 12 children. They would be placed in four groups with different foster families.

[00:13:21] Their removal to ordinary society revealed the Colt kids had delayed educational development, as many couldn't use a toothbrush, toilet paper, wash their hair, or bathe. Once their safety was secured, from there, the work would begin of unraveling the mystery of the Colt clan.

[00:13:44] Alongside the children being removed, eight adult members of the group were arrested and brought before the courts. The case has been described by lead investigator Peter Yeomans as, quote, like nothing I've ever seen. And was considered by many to be so shocking that in a rare move, the New South Wales Children's Court allowed full details to be made to the public,

[00:14:13] albeit with all names changed to pseudonyms for the children's protection, including their family name, Colt. So what was revealed? Well, there's no real elegant way to unpack all this shit, so let's just go right down the list. June. The family matriarch, Tim's wife, was the byproduct of brother-sister incest.

[00:14:42] Did this influence Tim's perspective on the subject? We're not really sure. Tim's dead. But what we do know is that he started having sex with his kids when they were relatively young. According to her siblings, Tim started raping Betty when she was just 12 years old. Betty had 13 children.

[00:15:04] She contended their father was a man named Phil Walton, now dead, who was known to the family as Tim. But DNA testing showed one of her children, Bobby, 15, was fathered either by her father, whose name was Tim, or the brother she was sleeping with.

[00:15:28] Betty's other kids, Billy, Brian, Dwayne, Carmen, all have parents who are close family members. Betty's eldest child, Raylene, now aged 30, has a 13-year-old daughter named Kimberly. Raylene insists that Kimberly's father is a man called Sven from Sweden or Switzerland.

[00:15:53] However, testing identifies Kimberly's father as either her half-brother, her uncle, or her grandfather. Betty's second oldest child, Tammy, now aged 27, has given birth to three daughters, one of whom died from a rare genetic disorder, and all of whom she eventually admitted were fathered by her closest brother, Derek, two years younger than her.

[00:16:23] Betty's younger sister, Martha Colt, 33, has five children, Albert, Jed, Ruth, and Nadia, four of whom were fathered by her own father, Tim, or by her brother and another child who was also the product of incest. But this convoluted outline barely scratches the surface of what was taking place at the squalid campsite.

[00:16:50] It was the ten youngest of Betty and Martha's children and Raylene's daughter, Kimberly, who apparently ran wild with debauchery on the property. In their new foster homes, the Colt children consistently reported tales of rape and incest. Interviewed by child protection workers and psychologists, they told of a sexual free-for-all.

[00:17:16] Ruth and Nadia said Albert, Jed, and Carl showed them pornographic magazines, touched their breasts, and Albert had sexual intercourse with them. Kimberly said she had oral sex with Dwayne while Carmen watched. Albert, Jed, Carl, Bobby, and Billy admitted they tortured animals, mutilating the genitalia of puppies and kittens. Ruth said her father was Charlie.

[00:17:46] Charlie's daughter, Nadia, had just taken a bath at her new foster home in late 2012 when she told her caretaker that Charlie raped her with a, quote, stick. Her foster mother asked if it was his, quote, wee stick, to which Nadia acknowledged, indeed, it was. During Charlie's trial, in which he was acquitted,

[00:18:10] he denied fathering the girl, raping her, or sleeping with his sister Martha in a tent on the farm. In finding Charlie not guilty, the judge cited inconsistencies in Nadia's police interviews and evidence. In another Colt trial, Roderick Colt was charged for the rape of his niece, who was also his half-sister, both the children of Tim.

[00:18:36] The trial heard Petra Colt tell police that she had never gone to school, she lived, quote, in a colt, and that, quote, all my aunts and uncles and cousins have been sleeping together. The court was told that Petra had a fight with Betty, went for a walk one evening, and was then dragged by Roderick into his car and forcibly raped as she fought him off.

[00:19:03] He then threw her and her clothes out of the car and called her a, quote, ungrateful bitch and a pig. Of the original 80 charges leveled against the eight adults, including incest, child sexual abuse, indecency against a child, and perjury, most of them were dropped. Although all eight family members were imprisoned after their 2018 arrest,

[00:19:31] only half received custodial sentences. Roderick's trial would yield the lone conviction of rape. Derek would be convicted on two counts of incest. The women would each face convictions for perjury. Many colts, now grown into adulthood, have shown significant improvement in their personal hygiene since being taken from the, quote, incest cult.

[00:19:59] In the years that followed her conviction, Betty Colt faced threats of deportation as she was actually born in New Zealand. But ultimately, she won her freedom to remain in Australia. After her detention, she headed straight back into the scattered remains of her family, now living in various states. Betty moved in with her daughter, Raylene Colt,

[00:20:25] now 34, and at least two younger male relatives on a farm several hours north of Adelaide. In hopes to reconnect with the rest of the clan, she adopted, quote, love makes a family, is a motto, on Facebook, tagging the phrase on several photos of her various relatives. Other family members followed her lead. In a recent visit by the Daily Mail,

[00:20:54] Betty Colt was nowhere to be seen at her family farmhouse. A four-by-four sat in the driveway, and the remains of a double-decker bus lay rusted at the back of the grounds. With a knock at the door, a cross-eyed relative emerged, confirming that Betty had been living at the property. But, he wasn't really interested in answering any more questions about the clan's matriarch. Get the fuck off my property,

[00:21:24] or I'll set the dog on you, he said. I guess in some way, beyond the incest and filth, what makes the Colts so similar to the many families we meet from all walks of life, is that the family they were born into continues to be the family they choose, for better or for worse, no matter how toxic and wounded. To this day,

[00:21:51] their identity remains a public mystery. Wow, God, this subject is a lot darker than I thought. I mean, it's not like I was like, oh, incest Colts, this will be like casually hilarious, but I was, you know, as you dig into the research and you're reading the accounts, you're just like, this is, this is human suffering upon human suffering upon human suffering. Yeah.

[00:22:18] Topped with a level of such extreme gaslighting that these people can never truly live a normal life ever again. Which part of it feels like gaslighting to you? The part where the children are being taught and told, this is love, and this is, you know, family, and if you're trying to- What about the, the albums? Of family love songs. That feel like a little bit of, uh, gaslighting on a 45. Yeah, definitely.

[00:22:49] Uh, were you able to locate any of these records? No, because we don't know the actual identity of the family. All right, that's a shame. Yeah, I know. Do your internet, if you could get some sleuthing together. There are people out there, I went deep in some Reddit forums, and they were just like, I know the identity of the Colts, but I'm afraid to reveal it on the internet. I'm just like, ugh, okay. I guess they didn't know if they would get in trouble, or if they were just trolling everybody. I don't know. Sure. uh, yeah, all the photographs of the Colts are pixelated. Their faces are blurred out.

[00:23:18] Got you. Yeah. So, we can't actually see what some of the children look like. We only can go by what has been described in the media. Right. And so, just to be clear, it doesn't seem like your story has, like, a big religious slant. Like, this wasn't like God came to me and said that this is the way that we should live. Correct. I mean, at least as far as what has been excavated, you know, it's not, uh, it's not a, a cult per se that was, um,

[00:23:48] founded on a specific religious ideology. Um, it seems like if there is an ideology, it's, it's these folks warped perspective of what love is. Oh, sure. There's, there's, it should be, you know, there's definitely cult ideology. You have a central figure, you have, um, ways of living, you have extreme isolation. In that regard. Yes, absolutely. I was just, so, you know, when we were doing research to pick which, you know, incest cult we were going to write about,

[00:24:17] nearly all of them have extreme religious roots. Um, and so I thought it was really interesting that yours didn't, that it was, it's just more like some guy was just like, what if we only fuck each other? Yep. Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How now as, as someone who studies trauma, what in your mind is the likelihood that any of these kids get to have like a, a normal life? Zero. Yeah. Zero. There's just no recovery. I mean, like, look,

[00:24:47] there's in the past couple of months finished a class on, on trauma. And, uh, you know, there was a phrase that jumped out of me in, in one of my classes is that we can heal from trauma, but we can never recover from it. And that applies to everybody. It doubly applies to these individuals, sadly, not just because of the severity of what took place, because in some ways it's all they knew. So they might not have context outside of the internal mechanisms that we discussed in there that said, Hey, this is wrong. Um,

[00:25:18] um, um, but we're starting to see like in the, the younger generations of the cult clans, like these children's, these children are, are cognitively, cognitively disabled. And so they may not even be aware. Um, there, there was a similar incest clan in Canada where a lot of the, the members who were being prosecuted were, were not even considered fit to stand trial because of their, their, their disabilities. Like they, they had absolutely no idea what was going on.

[00:25:47] What was really interesting to me when we were doing research was that, you know, as you mentioned in your story, we do have these biological, uh, sort of reactions that are supposed to keep us from banging our family members. So we don't get all messed up. However, there's also, um, uh, there's one documentary that talks about, especially amongst siblings, there are these, I don't know if they're epigenetic. I don't know if they're trauma related,

[00:26:13] but there are these switches because there's such close intimacy between siblings, uh, emotionally. And you have a shared experience. You have shared frame of reference. Uh, apparently like the switch can get flipped, uh, and siblings can really struggle, uh, with the incest thing. Sure. Differently than parents and their offspring. Right. And we see it, I don't want to say commonly, but we see it common enough with cousins who, you know,

[00:26:43] who aren't first degree relatives, but it, uh, we can certainly have environmental and social conditions that override our biology. Right. It happens all the time. I mean, if you're a Royal, you'll just be flat out fucking encouraged to bang your family members. It's very true. I mean, you could, you can kind of compare the internal mechanism to the same internal mechanism that tells you that, that shit stinks. Like there's something in your brain that you would just inherently understand that this is disgusting.

[00:27:13] Why? So you don't ever eat it, you know, but we see all the time that there are some people who, uh, who eat a vast array of disgusting things, uh, who are just absolutely not good for them. I mean, dogs and pigs obviously eat their shit a lot. They're doing that for microbiome reasons. Different reasons. Yes. But we, we've, we've seen some people recently in social media who have actually become proponents of eating their own feces. And, which is why you should really stop taking health advice from people on Instagram.

[00:27:43] It, I'm sorry. As someone who gives health advice on Instagram, stop. Point of the matter, it, any internal mechanism can be overridden for sure. All right. Through conditioning. So for you as the researcher and the writer, what was the part of the story that made you go, Oh my God, the most. It was certainly the living conditions were rough. I mean, it was tough to stomach just that these children were, were being brought up this way. Um,

[00:28:10] but it was the descriptions of the sexual free for alls between the children, um, and, and how it's essentially normalized. Parents were aware. Other siblings watched, uh, that parlayed into like dissociative antisocial behavior, mutilating animals and things like that. Like, yeah, it, it, it was fucked, you know? And, and yeah, it's, it's sensational and it's scandalous and we all want to be horrified by it,

[00:28:39] but it, it's just, it's a fascinating unraveling. I guess what you would think of as standard health or homeostasis in a human being, it's, it's, it's tough to look away from. It's tough not to keep reading on and not equally be horrified by it at the same time, but still maintain, uh, compassion, empathy for, for, for the fact that these things happened to these folks. And even the children who went on to do the same thing to their siblings, you know, they themselves were also victims. Right. Well, uh,

[00:29:09] you did an amazing job with this story. Thank you. My God, what a subject to close the season on. So yeah, let's, you know, go out with a bang. Yeah. speaking of going out with a bang, um, Oh God, what a thoughtless and utterly like compassionless segue, but we'll keep it in the final edit. Okay. It is the final episode. Um, I'm going to tell my story. There's a lot of weird shit in the Bible. Spirits talk to the living.

[00:29:38] Dudes rise from the dead. Bearded men carrying giant magic wands part the Red Sea. Ritual sacrifices all over the place. And people praying to a magical higher power for help with manifesting their will is on like, every page. For a book that says, thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. It's as packed to the brim with occult shenanigans, blood magic, and necromancy as any Harry Potter novel.

[00:30:07] Given just how much freaky shit is in the Bible, it's not surprising most people struggle to interpret, and then apply its many lessons appropriately in their daily life. Marcus Wesson was one of the people who got it very, very wrong. Marcus was born on August 22nd, 1946 in Bumblefuck, Kansas, a flat expanse of dust and farmland. His mother, Carrie,

[00:30:36] was a fanatical Seventh-day Adventist, requiring her four children to follow the church's laws with enthusiasm. They observed Saturdays as their Sabbath and embraced the Adventist New Start mindset. For the uninitiated, New Start is an acronym for nutrition, exercise, water, sunlight, temperance, air, rest, and trust in the divine power. Kind of crammed that last one into the tea.

[00:31:05] Church members do not drink alcohol, smoke tobacco, or eat meat. Carrie was an especially big fan of the Book of Revelation, hand-transcribing study guides of passages into short form, with the goal of, making the Bible easy enough for a 12-year-old to understand. Her children were taught to expect the end of the world within their lifetimes. Every night before bedtime, Carrie had the kids play church,

[00:31:32] a combination of Bible study and recreating worship at home. One daughter would sing hymns while her son, Marcus, was pastor, speaking on Scripture in a booming voice which mimicked the intensity of the great evangelists. Ben Wesson, Marcus's father, was a substantially less devout parishioner. He drank heavily and often. Ben was what one might call a touchy-feely drunk.

[00:31:58] Though he had little patience for or interest in his children when sober, except for the times he sadistically throttled them with a switch or belt or hairbrush or really anything, Ben demanded physical touch and affection once intoxicated. He commanded his children hug and kiss him, alcohol strong on his breath and stubble wet from sweat as they complied. Sometimes his hands lingered places they shouldn't.

[00:32:25] One teenage friend of Marcus reported in adulthood that Ben had offered him $50 to, quote, suck his big dick, end quote. In 1956, the Wessons moved from flat Kansas to sunny California. The change was drastic but did little to affect life inside the Wesson home, which was equal parts religious boot camp and child abuse obstacle course. As he grew, Marcus shed his previously traumatized and introverted persona

[00:32:55] and began speaking more openly with teenaged peers about his personal beliefs. These included leading a life devoted to Christ, plus a bonus desire to have multiple wives. This was the late 1950s. And while romanticizing religious extremism and polygamy might sound like a fucking weird thing for a young black man to do with his pals in 2021, it raised no red flags at the time. Marcus was described as polite, thoughtful, intelligent,

[00:33:23] and pretty normal outside of his fringier beliefs. In 1966, he joined the Army, working as a medic in Vietnam. Upon the honorable completion of his service, he used the GI Bill to begin attending college. If the combination of childhood trauma and going to war hadn't already set Marcus up for a mental break, the year 1970 sure did. That's when his alcoholic father, Ben, announced he was running away

[00:33:50] with Marcus' 19-year-old cousin, Larry. The pair had apparently begun a sexual relationship two years prior. Ben and Larry no longer wanted to hide their relationship and had acquired a home in San Jose together. Ben's wife of 20-plus years was not invited. Neither were Marcus or any of his siblings. The scandal got around town so fast that Marcus was forced to drop out of college. The 1970s may have been swinging,

[00:34:20] but gay incest was too salacious for even the most liberal of Californians. Later that year, Marcus met 34-year-old Rosemary Solario, a married brunette mother of six kids recently separated from her husband. Though Marcus was just 21, he soon moved in and became the new father figure of the house. He put the entire family on a vegetarian diet, mandated regular Bible study, and began beating Rosemary's children for rule-breaking,

[00:34:50] especially the boys. For reasons that are unclear, he refused to get a job. To make ends meet, Marcus would steal food and household items, using Rosemary's children as distractions when committing his petty thefts. He had the unique ability to interpret, then teach, scripture in such a way that it justified all of his actions. Despite the savageness of the beatings he dealt,

[00:35:17] Rosemary and her children all described him as a deeply compassionate and gentle teacher, one who shared his mother's passion for making the Bible accessible. A few years passed. Marcus and Rosemary had a child together, a dare. While Rosemary's sons despised Marcus's violent punishments, the family accepted him as both their father and a prophet, one in close conversation with God himself.

[00:35:43] But then God started telling Marcus some really, really weird shit. One day, Marcus approached Rosemary in their living room. He sat down and calmly, pastorally informed his partner that God wanted him to marry, not her, but her 14-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, who would bear them many, quote, soldiers for Christ, using Marcus's seed.

[00:36:10] Rosemary said she didn't like this plan. Marcus said that what she wanted didn't matter, because Elizabeth was already pregnant, and God's facts don't care about your feelings. Rosemary was nearly 40. Marcus was just 25. He had been secretly, sexually involved with Elizabeth for two years, and already informed the teenager that God had chosen her specifically to be the mother of an army for Christ.

[00:36:39] In a perfect world, this would be the part where Rosemary and her much-abused sons arm themselves with the household items Marcus stole, smash his genitals into vegetarian taco dip, leave him on the steps of the nearest police precinct with a bag of tortilla chips and a dollop of sour cream, then vacate California to start several decades of intense but compassionate family therapy. But this world is far from perfect.

[00:37:07] There isn't enough time to explain exactly what happened next. A companion episode to this story will go up on our Patreon in June, so we can cover just how much crazy shit is being left out for time. But suffice to say, it took way too long for Rosemary to get Marcus Wesson out of her life. Cut to the 1990s. Rosemary is out of the picture and not by her own choice.

[00:37:32] Marcus Wesson has been legally married to Elizabeth since 1974. They now have nearly a dozen children together. Marcus has isolated his growing family from regular society, moving them to remote locations, like an old disabled tugboat parked in a harbor or an army surplus tent in the middle of the California woods. The family often lives without running water or electricity

[00:37:59] and scavenges for food in dumpsters behind restaurants. The Wessons homeschool their brood, focusing on reading, writing, and Marcus's extremely unique interpretation of the Bible. How unique? Well, for starters, Jesus was a vampire, and the apostles his familiars, which is why the blood of Christ grants drinkers everlasting life. Like Moses,

[00:38:28] Marcus is God's chosen prophet, the man who will herald the rapidly approaching end of the world. A woman's singular job is to serve and assist her husband's mission. A man should have multiple wives. Also, it is a father's job to teach his daughters how to, quote, be a good wife, end quote, including how to perform sexual acts. Children also receive a vampire name

[00:38:57] in addition to their Christian name. Marcus, for example, was known as Je Vem Marc Suspire, a portmanteau of the words Marcus, Jesus, and vampire. In one oddly progressive move, Marcus taught that God loves queer people and sees them as superior to heterosexuals, writing that the very first human relationship was a, quote,

[00:39:25] homo marriage between the creator and the first man. In his manifesto, Wesson states that the gays and lesbians of today join together physically, just as the masters and man join together spirit metaphysically in the past. Thus, the gays, lesbians, and bisexuals should be the master's true people yet, weaker only to the master himself. Which is, I mean, that part's kind of cool.

[00:39:54] The Wesson children were required to memorize and recite Marcus's teachings daily. Since they attended no normal school or church and were not permitted to have friends outside of the family, they had no understanding of exactly how much shit their dad was full of. Marcus trained them to deeply fear all people outside the family, showing them videos of the U.S. government's deranged assault on David Koresh and the Branch Davidians at Waco,

[00:40:23] dictating how the bodies of children just like them were burning alive due to the outside world's hatred for God's chosen people. The Wessons were instructed to say nothing about their lives or beliefs, and his daughters were to never talk with men outside the family. Rules were enforced with an iron fist. Marcus beat them with broomsticks, electrical cords, rope, those novelty mini-bats you get at baseball games,

[00:40:53] and eventually, those full-size bats you play baseball with. Even the infants were not spared. If they cried, their mothers or elder siblings were made to whip the bottoms of their feet where the marks wouldn't show in public until the crying ceased. Neighbors and locals did know something was off.

[00:41:23] They didn't smile or laugh, joke or cry. As soon as the children became teenagers, they were made to get low-wage jobs to support the family, since neither Marcus or Elizabeth would. After their work shifts, each were interrogated about their interactions with co-workers. The sisters especially were rewarded if they snitched on each other. If caught talking to men for any reason, they were ritually beaten three times a day

[00:41:53] for 10 to 30 days as punishment. Their father, meanwhile, got stranger. He married parts of various religions together into a Franken-doctrine, which produced his signature look. Long, graying dreadlocks climbing down his back toward his knees. The brown robes and minimalist footwear of Ben Kenobi from Star Wars. A large walking staff like the one carried by Moses.

[00:42:21] Weighing in at around 300 pounds, with a deep, calm, but also intense voice, he would sometimes evangelize in the middle of the Fresno, California sidewalk, preaching to anyone who would listen. One local referred to him as, quote, a frustrated cult leader. Marcus achieved his final form when he started marrying his daughters to himself and each other. His daughters, Kiani and Sabrina, first joined their mother, Elizabeth,

[00:42:51] as Marcus's formal, but obviously totally illegal, wives in the mid-1990s, producing three incest babies, Illabel, Jeeva, and Marshy. Eventually, Marcus said, fuck the formalities and began declaring all of his female offspring his wives, using the Bible's Adam and Eve story and passages about polygamy as justification. When their mother, Elizabeth's sister, became too crippled by drug addiction to function,

[00:43:21] Marcus also pulled his nieces, Ruby and Sophina, into the family, marrying Ruby to his daughter-wife, Kiani, and forcing the pair to perform lesbian sex on each other. By the year 2002, the Wesson family had expanded to around 20 members. The Wesson women did nearly all of the work, grinding at McDonald's and convention centers to pay the family's rent, water, and food bills. They cooked, cleaned,

[00:43:50] and child-reared at home. When the tugboat or a home needed renovations, Marcus acted as manager and overseer only. The girls were made to scratch Marcus's head and armpits while the family watched movies together. And Marcus always picked the movies, which were usually Jet Li or Jackie Chan violence films or disaster films like Twister. Sometimes, Marcus would lock himself in a room while listening to trance music to pen his manifesto,

[00:44:20] a nearly thousand-page combination of free-form poetry, biblical reinterpretation, and vampire fanfic worthy of its own Reddit sub-forum. The title? In the Night of the Light for the Dark. I'm serious. The title is In the Night of the Light for the Dark. It is riddled with typos, syntax errors, and grammatical choices as baffling as the marriage of Christianity and vampirism,

[00:44:50] which it contains. For the sake of time, we have to jump ahead now to 2004. So, by now, niece wives Ruby and Sophina, both in their mid-20s, have discovered the outside world and escaped their patriarch's manipulative brainwashing. In order to escape, both had to flee on foot with no money, leaving their infant children behind. And by March 12, 2004, they'd decided they'd spent enough time

[00:45:18] separated from their kids. Ruby and Sophina arrived at 761 West Hammond Avenue just off Highway 99, the current home of the Wesson clan. In the afternoon, they were flanked by the various male family members who had despised Marcus Wesson for decades. All were prepared for a part intervention for the wives, part rescue mission for the children, part what-the-fuck for Marcus. The escapees

[00:45:47] knew the entire family had been training for decades to kill themselves should law enforcement, child protective services, or anyone else ever try to undo Marcus's menage. Marcus, then age 57, was already outside with three of the older girls when they pulled up. A confrontation predictably ensued. Sophina ran into the home to seize her seven-year-old son, Jonathan, but was thwarted by 27-year-old daughter-wife, Keani.

[00:46:16] A physical fight broke out, both women pulling on the young boy's body as he cried. The men outside argued loudly with Marcus. Screaming, cursing, and crying escalated, drawing dozens of onlookers. Police arrived on the scene, finally. Then matriarch Elizabeth Wesson. Ruby and Sophina tried desperately to explain to the officers that their arrival meant Marcus, or someone else inside the house, would kill the children.

[00:46:45] But between the shouting and the crying and the chaotic arguing over whose kids belonged to who, whose birth certificate had what signature on where, officials on the scene were overwhelmed and confused. They had no idea how many children, if any, were actually stashed inside the building on Hammond Street, which wasn't even zoned as a residential property. A standoff, which lasted almost two hours, began as police waited for child protective services to show up and help them

[00:47:14] handle the mess appropriately. Then, suddenly, Elizabeth Wesson ran out of the house and collapsed into the yard, sobbing. They're all gone! Before collapsing into Sophina's arms, she wailed. Ruby and Sophina understood and began to scream and scream and scream. An uncle turned on police, enraged, yelling for law enforcement

[00:47:44] to get the fuck into the house and do something for the love of God! Do something! Daughter wife, Kiani, appeared in the doorway of the building, face twisted with rage and told Ruby and Sophina, they're gone and you're next. At 4.47 p.m., SWAT finally on sight, Marcus emerged from the house. His clothes and hands were stained with blood. By the time

[00:48:14] the dust settled, nine Wessons were dead. Sabrina, age 25, Elizabeth Kina, age 17, Illabel, age 8, Aviv, age 7, Jonathan St. Charles, age 7, Ethan, age 4, Marshy, age 1, Jeeva, age 1, Sedona, age 1. All were found

[00:48:43] stacked in a pile on top of one another, shot through their right eye, except Jonathan, who was executed through his left. Police found them surrounded by coffins, which the children apparently used every night as beds. Several of the survivors, including Mother Elizabeth and several daughter wives, were taken into custody for questioning. Marcus spent the next two days being interviewed by police, who described him as, quote,

[00:49:14] very intelligent, very articulate, and well-spoken, end quote. The funeral for the victims of the Wesson cult murders was described as a public spectacle, with nine white coffins lining the front of the church, eerily mirroring the room full of coffins that some of the victims had slept on while alive. TV cameras rolled outside as nine doves were released to symbolize the souls of those lost returning to their god.

[00:49:43] Carrie Wesson, Marcus's fanatical mother, was still alive at the time of the murders. In the only interview she ever gave, she stated that, quote, the Marcus on TV I don't recognize. That's not my son. The Marcus Wesson I raised was a brilliant, loving, God-fearing child. To make him do this, there must have been some big trauma, something that pushed him over.

[00:50:12] Ours is a Christian family, not a cult. Wonder what that big trauma could have been, Carrie. The trial for frustrated cult leader Marcus was so beyond belief, so packed with revelations and testimony that would make any rational person's jaw drop, that it's why there's going to be a bonus episode on our Patreon. But here's the short version. A jury ultimately determined that 25-year-old daughter-wife Sabrina had been the executioner

[00:50:42] of all the dead children, then turned the gun on herself, because her father trained her from birth to do so, and then gave the signal for her to pull the trigger during the police standoff. Despite never touching the murder weapon, Marcus was convicted of nine counts of first-degree murder by way of brainwashing and suicide pact, as well as 14 counts of forcible rape and molestation on seven of his daughters or nieces.

[00:51:11] He was sentenced to death on June 27, 2005, and dispatched to San Quentin State Prison. Marcus Wesson is still on death row today. He is 75 years old. Multiple sources from the prison say that he spends the majority of his time writing, masturbating, and smearing his semen into his dreadlocks, which is, somehow, the least disgusting part of this entire fucked-up,

[00:51:41] 100% true story. He remains known as one of the worst mass murderers in California history. Now, I've asked you about this, you know, off the air, off the record. No shot at getting these books. No shot at getting, like, the Gospel of Mark Wesson

[00:52:10] or Mark Jivam, Pierre. Jivam, Mark, Suspire. Whatever, right, yeah, whatever that was. Jivam, Suspire. The Gospel according to Jivam, Mark, Suspire. Obviously, it exists. There is a book, I'll talk about it later when we're with the guests, that has some excerpts from the book in it, and so obviously the author got his hands on that, but this tome is around a thousand pages.

[00:52:39] That's incredible. Yeah. He should write my doctoral project. He should not, because most of it is free-form poetry that makes no sense, as I mentioned. As long as it's in APA formatting, it's fine. It is not. It is absolutely in a format that I, and I've been doing editing for years now, I have never seen before. Also, I'm a poet, and I've never seen, anyway, point is, you don't want to have Marcus write this. Fair enough. But I looked,

[00:53:10] and I could find excerpts from it on Reddit. I could find some pages here and there on some random blogs. The best excerpts from it are in this book that I'll talk about later. We'll put it in the show notes, so I do highly recommend if people want to get the whole story that they read the book, because it's just like, it's a really incredible piece of journalism about something horrendous. But, yeah, and the book is divided into three parts, and it's like, Marcus's weird poetry, Marcus's biblical edits,

[00:53:40] and then, I'm not fucking kidding when I say it's like Reddit vampire fanfic. That's awesome. It's just, and like, there's a version of him and all of his kids, and it's just like, him running around killing people as vampires. Now, it's interesting to mention that Marcus, in interviews after the murders, was like, so I don't mean that I'm literally a vampire, or that Jesus is literally a vampire. I meant that we're like spiritual vampires, that like,

[00:54:10] we feed on spiritual energy, and we lead, and his kids are like, no, that's no, that's not fucking accurate. I definitely thought he meant like Blade II level vampire. Interesting. So, Marcus is always, he seems to be someone who's always kind of twisting the dial to try and have things. He's a very gift. He's a very gifted manipulator. Wow. Like, real gifted. Okay. But his kids were like, no, you taught us that you were God. I wonder if he'd been writing in prison

[00:54:38] outside of the semen smearing. I mean, they said that all he does is write, masturbate, and put jizz in his hair, so. Fascinating. Yeah. Yeah. I know like, you know, a lot of Gacy's paintings ended up at auction. I wonder if there'll ever be writings of Mark Wesson ending up at auction. That's a good question. Last I could find on the case is they were thinking about like, should this person, you know, what should we do with this person with COVID? I mean, obviously he's on death row. Sure. So they weren't like,

[00:55:09] hey, maybe we'll release this guy. But he is 75 years old. Right. He doesn't look great. And there has been some question about like, what they are going to do with some of the older folks on death row who just don't seem to be going anywhere. But yeah, I am very curious as to whether any of his writings will come out. And he, he wrote letters to, you know, this journalist who, who wrote the book that I used as research. Okay. So some of that, some of the content

[00:55:38] in the letters sort of explaining or explaining away some of the stuff will be in the, the follow-up Patreon episode that we, we put out. But wow, Marcus. Oh my God. I mean, when did you, you were juggling maybe a couple of different stories. What was it about this one that just said, nope, this is the one. Vampire Jesus. Vampire Jesus. I actually started writing a different one. I was going to write about the children of God.

[00:56:08] Fascinating incest cult in the 70s. Influenced a lot of other cults. So they were, so I started writing about them and then I found a random YouTube video interviewing the Wesson children years after the murders, like a follow-up with them and was like, what? And then somebody said something about vampire Jesus and I was like, no, no. And so there's literally 670 words of the children of God sitting abandoned as a word document on my computer right now because I was like,

[00:56:38] vampire Jesus, I'm fucking in. Okay. Yeah. That's what did it for me. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So we've got children survivors, obviously, because you've watched a video. Mm-hmm. How many? Do you know? Oh, God. I don't know off the top of my head. I'd have to go in and count. Okay. So it's a handful though. Yes. Right. There's a few. Okay. Any of them maintain a relationship with Mark? Oh, that's a good question. I don't believe so, but Elizabeth, his wife,

[00:57:07] continued to. So Elizabeth visited him in prison. And what's interesting is Elizabeth, like, she seemed to just cognitively bust. Like, they were trying to figure out whether she should be prosecuted as part of this because obviously she fucking knew that her husband was sleeping with their kids, having kids with them, and then the kids were given to her as like, hey, you're the mom of these. But she claimed,

[00:57:37] I never knew about the incest. And everyone was like, what? Ew. And eventually, I think the determination was just that, you know, Marcus started grooming his wife Elizabeth when she was nine. He started sexually abusing her when she was 11 or 12 and she was pregnant by the time she was 14. And ultimately, people were like, you were complacent in the abuse and in the rape of all of these children, but you were a victim as well. Right. So we're not going to prosecute you as well. Interesting.

[00:58:06] You started being sexually abused when you were a child. Wow. So, I don't know about the other kids. I'd have to go back and check for you, but I do know that Elizabeth continued to have a relationship with him for years. Huh. Yeah. What an enigmatic strange individual. He, there's a, I'll talk about it more in the Patreon episode, but there are, he was so good at manipulating people. At one point, his, you know, his niece ran away,

[00:58:37] escaped the cults. You know, I mentioned they escaped. So she had an escape before she actually escaped and she escaped. She ran off on foot. She had no money. She had to get far, far away. She ended up at a friend's house hiding. Marcus and Elizabeth showed up in a van, the family van, being like, you know, just come outside and just, Elizabeth went in and said, just talk to your dad. Just talk to your dad. He just wants to talk to you. Just want you to do this the right way. And as soon as she got in the van to talk with her dad, they locked the doors and they drove off and they dragged her all the way back

[00:59:06] to the tugboat. And then Marcus locked her up and just head fucked her for, I mean, just talked at her for, they said around 12 hours and was like, you can't leave and here's why you can't and I love you and Jesus wants this and by the end she was just like, okay, I'll stay. Wow. And she didn't try and get away again for years and she did finally get the nerve up again and obviously broke away and then all of this happened but he was so good at talking people into doing things

[00:59:36] that, you know, he just sounds kind of like a manipulative genius. Mm. Yeah. It's fucking bleak. It's fucking bleak. Yeah. Want to share our bleakness with some other people? Let's see what our guest judges have to say about this. Okay. Gary! Bring in the guests. Hi, guys. Hey. What's up, y'all? Hello.

[01:00:06] Yeah. Yeah, sorry about the termites. Yeah, the termites are awesome, by the way. That was a nice touch. It's just that time of year. Yeah. Yeah. That's what you get. Welcome to spring in New Orleans. It's good times. Um, so we have you on the show, uh, because you're both interesting and well-spoken, fascinating people, but primarily because you're parents. And so we felt, who better to weigh in on such a bizarre subject than, than people who have their own offspring and perhaps thoughts

[01:00:36] about how those, those offspring should be raised. So, uh, Debbie, would you mind telling us, uh, about your progeny? Um, I have two boys. Ben is 17 and Henry just turned 14. And, um, you know, they're boys. So, marginally easier than girls. So, uh, so two boys and also, um, a third son that is with us today. Oh, yes. Yes. Well, I was out walking Charlie when

[01:01:05] I got picked up and brought to this. Sorry, you know, Gary, he just kind of... It's unpredictable. He's very unpredictable and he doesn't care, uh, about transporting dogs through the air, so... Well, I didn't have another poop bag with me, so joke's on Gary. Yeah. And Mr. Paz, how's, uh, what's going on with your parenting life? Uh, everything's good, honestly. Uh, my son's name is Theodore Kenneth Paz. We call him TKP or we just call him Theo.

[01:01:35] Uh, he's about three and a half and, uh, other than him being afraid or just anxious of being around other people that aren't his mom and dad. He's pretty great. He was, uh, he was kind of a slow, blossoming child so that when the pandemic hit, he was just starting to become really social and then when everything shut down, all his classes shut down, uh, like his little get-together things and so, like everybody else,

[01:02:05] we started Zooming on these other little, his little classes, but now that we're trying to get out and see people, you know, he's still a little bit just kind of, since he watched us avoid people on the street for about a year, just taking walks in the neighborhood, it kind of stuck. Interesting. Right. So, he's slowly getting back into it and it's not that he's like, runs from them but he's just kind of- He's wary. He's wary of them. He seems like other people and he'll just be like- To be fair,

[01:02:34] that's not a terrible thing. It's not awful. I mean, people are disappointing, so, you know. Keeping an arm's length from us, not necessarily a bad policy. Well, and I mean, given the stories that you guys have just heard, perhaps it's best that he's- Well, actually, no, it's not best that he's avoiding everybody but his parents because it seems like the parents are definitely a fucking problem. Yeah. At least in this set of stories. Before we launch into the stories,

[01:03:04] so, Deb, what would you, if you ascribe to any school of parenting or what you think is best for kids, what would you say yours is? Oh, school of parenting. Um, steady diet of peanut butter and classic rock? I don't know. That's pretty much the tenets of my parenting style. Yeah. It's not bad. Yeah, I don't, I don't, I have no complaint. You better not have an allergy to peanuts or Led Zeppelin because you'll die on my watch. Okay.

[01:03:34] Good times. Paz, how are you feeling? Uh, we, uh, we definitely give him a bunch of almond butter. He's not allergic to peanut, he's not allergic to anything. Uh, this is wood, right? You know, I kind of, uh, I kind of liked how I was raised where, you know, my dad did dad things and then he like looked at my mom and she would either give him like a cutting look or like some sort of nod of like, yeah, that's fine.

[01:04:04] So, that's kind of what we're doing. Um, and he listens to, he, he loves music. He listens to all kinds of music. New wave. We're 80s and 90s kids. So, we got that going for us. Yeah, yeah. He likes, uh, but I mean, it's crazy because, you know, he likes Zombie by the Cranberries, you know, I'll throw on some Joy Division and he's into that. He's into all kinds of stuff to be perfectly honest. He's going to be emotional. He's going to be Yeah, yeah, this is Just like his daddy. He's going to write

[01:04:33] a lot of poetry. Yeah, I don't think the pandemic had much to do with his misanthropy. The fact that he's been listening to life smashing pumpkins. being a plague toddler is, yeah, a unique thing. Here's a question though. Oh, John. Oh, yeah, he'll be fine. When Tufia was an infant crying in his crib, did you let him cry it out? No. You attended to him? Yes. Every time? So, my wife, Georgiana, is more of like attend to them and not let them cry it out.

[01:05:03] I don't know all the different names of the schools and the doctors that they've been named after. The cry it out method is called Ferber. The Ferber method, right. That's right. Thank you. I do recall that. So, we were honestly both too much of pussies to let him cry it out. No. We were both. We tried it for a little bit and she was like, no, this other guy, I forget his name. If you always

[01:05:32] attend to them, you know, they'll build up trust sooner and work it out on the back end. Absolutely. So, we did not let him cry it out. We always attended to him and we were like, hey, Bubba, we're here. Everything's okay. We call him Bubba for short, even though he looks nothing like a Bubba, but we just call him Bubba. Yeah, they don't have to. Yeah, no, they don't have to. I call both my kids Bubbs. Yeah. You guys weren't pussies. You were compassionate. Yes. That's what it was all about. To be fair,

[01:06:02] the female body shortly after having a child is hardwired not to ignore those cries. Like, it physically hurts. So, I'm assuming you didn't let your babes cry it out. You know, I did and I didn't. We lived next door to our best friends when my first son was born and his dad was a pediatrician. Yeah. And swore by the Ferber method. But it was a little bit more than I could handle because I would sit there and hear him crying in the other room

[01:06:30] and not go in and then suddenly I would start to leak. Charlie, yeah, we're not talking about you, buddy. We're coming more to understand the strange epidemic that is pediatricians giving advice on the psychology of infants and what is good and not good for them. Despite having no formal training in child psychology or neurological development or... They pull them out of your body and then go, oh, you know what? He needs. So,

[01:07:00] what would happen in your body when your baby was crying and you were trying to not go to them? I would start, my pulse would start to race and I would start to leak. Oh, okay. When we say leak, you're talking like you're lactate. Gotcha. Okay. Boobies. It could mean crying. I'm just, you know, I'm just, oh, that's a cute euphemism. Something Joni Mitchell would have come up with. And you make me leak. So, Edward, would you mind explaining what you've learned

[01:07:30] as a soon-to-be doctor of psychology about the issues with the Ferber method? Ferber? Ferber. Ferber method. Well, Garrison already touched upon it. But you broke it down pretty well a couple weeks ago. Sure, sure, to kind of put context around what he was saying. Our attachment years are the first three years of our lives and our attachment years are largely what shape a tremendous amount of our personality in terms of how we navigate the world as we grow up. There's something

[01:08:00] that, well, in attachment theory is referred to as a trust bridge. And when children start to individuate in those first three years, when they start to essentially, when children start to separate themselves from their parents, which is healthy for them to actually get somewhat of an egotistical break from their parents, what's most important for them is that trust bridge. If they fall on their ass, they look around and someone's there for them, that they can always

[01:08:29] return to home. And that's what's going to build their confidence. That's what's going to build their self-esteem. That's what's going to make them healthy, well-adjusted individuals. So a lot of folks, not to shame anybody, truly, but a lot of folks who just let their kids cry it out because they feel as though that's going to teach them how to self-soothe. They think they're teaching them resilience. Right. It doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way in those years, especially. They don't have the resources for it the same way

[01:08:59] they don't have words. Right. They can't self-soothe. It's just not possible. Sure. And I've heard it, I've heard it expounded by more than one person that human babies are born about three months premature because if you let them grow to their gestational finishing point, they wouldn't be able to escape the mother's body. But, you know, most mammals can walk within a few hours of being born. Right. Most mammals have some sort of self-sufficiency to them so that if the mother dies,

[01:09:28] the baby won't just die in wilderness. Right. But human babies aren't like that. And anybody who's had a newborn knows that the first three months they're kind of larval. Yes. My sister called my nephew the potato. And you're like, oh, holy shit, there's a person in there. Look at you. You got a personality and everything. For the first three months they're just these wormy little things. So, Edward, as a professional, I have two questions for you. Sorry. I know you're not a professional yet.

[01:09:58] Not yet. That's the reason why we're ending the show at 13 episodes so I can just finish the fucking thing. Yes, yes. And then you'll be doctor? Then I'll be Dr. Edward. And then we can have a lot of fun with that. All right. So, what is your assessment of the Wesson family's approach of beating the bottom of their infant's feet with electrical wires until they stop crying? How good was that for the baby's emotional and mental development?

[01:10:26] As far as the wellness of the child, it is a straight shot to antisocial behavior and dissociation. Yeah. But as far as being a strategic abuser, not a bad plan. Not a bad plan. Oh, well, okay. Great. Yeah. We just look at it from different perspectives. It should be noted that children can't self-soothe at that age. They can't self-flagellate either. Right. So, if they're Catholic, it sounds like you're on the right path. Yeah.

[01:10:56] Yeah, no, you're right. You're right. Sort of a onesie, like sort of hair shirt onesie situation. I think that flagellation, they need help with that. I'm really glad that you're here to contextualize that for us. That's super important. And so, my other question is, so, my, and this is not to slam my mother. My mom's probably going to listen to this episode, so I want to say this with love. Love you, too. We love you, mom. But my mom had a theory when I was a toddler and my sister was a newborn that children needed what she called

[01:11:25] in the newspaper, this was published in a article on Mother's Day, Tough Tenderness. And they asked her what her parenting style was and she said tough tenderness was really necessary. And I read this as an adult with many attachment issues and anxiety disorder and went, well, there we have it. And then I handed it to Edward and said, what do you think about this? So what do you think about the tough tenderness approach to child-rearing three-year-olds? Well, everybody's definition of toughness

[01:11:55] and everyone's definition of tenderness is very subjective, right? So this is not a formalized school of thought. Sure. Sure. Are you sure? That we can't like comment on, you know, textbooks or anything. There's not a Wikipedia page for this. Yeah, yeah. There's no chapter in Dr. Spock about this. Like I said, in those early years, the children, of course, they need to be corrected. Yes. They need to understand what they should and should not be doing.

[01:12:25] And so if by toughness, you know, you're saying, okay, I'm going to redirect you here and say, no, don't do that. Don't do that. We don't do that. We don't treat people that way. We don't behave that way in stores, et cetera, et cetera. If that's what you mean by toughness and doing it with a certain amount of tenderness, great. I'm a big fan. If toughness is dragging you out by the hair or punching you in the back of the head like I've seen in the mall way too many times in my life.

[01:12:54] Yeah, I've seen that happen a lot. That is... I will say that my mom never punched me in the back of the head of the mall. So mom, if you're listening, thank you so much for not doing that. That was a really good job. There are malls everywhere. It's not like you can't have an opportunity. It's actually surprisingly hard to not hit your kid in the back of the head in a mall in New Jersey. It's true. You're in a mall, like what, 90% of the time? Yeah, you're in the grocery store, you're in the drugstore and suddenly you're like, I'm in a forever 21. How did this happen? And now at the Gap, I have to smack my child because when in Rome. There will always be a raging debate

[01:13:24] of whether or not you should lay hands on a child and it's not really a debate amongst professionals. It's a debate amongst parents. Yes. It's a debate among people who want to hit their kids but think they shouldn't. Because that's how we were raised and that's how we feel comfortable raising children and we lack some people and again, this is not judgment to parents who are listening. Some people lack the sophistication or the insight to be able to do it any other way. Sure. You know,

[01:13:54] and I'm guilty of sometimes popping my dog on the butt because I think, well, she can't understand me otherwise. Right. But I've actually done damage. I've harmed my dog. Whether I want to believe that or not or tell myself, oh, she'll be fine, it's going to translate in all of our interactions going forward. Right. It's interesting that we think, oh, you should never lay hands on an adult. No, literally, there's gray area. A child in their most vulnerable part of a person's life we're just like, well, you know.

[01:14:24] Fuck it. They had it coming. Yeah, that's how I was brought up. Yeah, it'll be fine. Walk it off. That's fine. I'm traumatized and look how great I turned out argument. I'm getting really tired of that one. Yeah. I was thinking about that the other day. You didn't loan debt. It's for you. I'm really tired of the idea that just because we're all traumatized the next generation should be. I was like, no. Well, we're just now, I think, stepping out of the phase

[01:14:53] in American civilization where we're not entirely equating economic success with emotional health. Yes. Whereas we believed before, if we had a house and a car and we had a good job and a pension plan, that meant we turned out okay. It's like, no, you were just born in a different economy. That's really it. The end justifies the meat. Right, right. You're not actually emotionally well. And we're also starting to finally escape some of the Christian patriarchal nonsense. So like, in my family, there's a section

[01:15:23] of my family that I don't speak to because they are such devout, strangely warped Protestants that it's like, oh, you got a disease? Well, that's because you must be a bad person and God is punishing you. So it's not that you're poor. Oh, yeah. No, I'm poor because I went into the arts. That's why I'm poor. But they truly believe, you know, this person must be,

[01:15:52] your illness is a reflection of your moral character and if you were a good person, God would reward you with healing. And because I was not magically cured, it means I must be like the spawn of Satan. which is not impossible. I just don't think it has anything to do with the illness. Right. One classic book in the industry that everybody should check out as a parent or just who's been a part of a family. Bradshaw on the family. So good. It's one of those classic books that really breaks it down

[01:16:22] in not overly dense and complicated terminology, really kind of helps you understand just the impact of those early years, those attachment years that we're talking about and unfortunately a lot of these kids and these stories that we covered this month have suffered through. Many of them will never recover from. Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of those stories, why don't we, why don't we get into them? Let's jump in. Yeah. So Debbie,

[01:16:52] do you have any thoughts, questions, feedback on our friends, the cults, the cults, cults. The pseudonym. Yeah. I think they're aptly named. Yeah. The cult, cult, tomato, tomato, I mean, it's so close. Yes. Yeah. No, it's great. So in listening to this story, what emotions, did your nipples begin to leak? Did you, you know, like what happened? Well,

[01:17:21] I've had two babies, so, you know, other things leak, but that's usually when I sneeze. Sure. So what too soon? No, it's fine. Okay. Never. You're in the right place. Yeah. I'm pretty sure I knew my audience, but I hadn't. Yeah. This is them. Yeah. Okay. We are they. So I don't know the cults. I, I was reminded over and over that Australia was originally settled as a penal and leper colony. Yes.

[01:17:51] So none of it seemed much like a surprise after that. Interesting. Interesting. So the framework. We have a limited number of criminals and lepers who are breeding. Right. Mm-hmm. Where'd you think this was going exactly? Right. Like, if anything, it should have happened sooner. Well, to be fair, the cults came from New Zealand. They migrated. Even smaller. They migrated. They migrated to Australia. Yeah. It's like, you know, Australia's like weird cousin, New Zealand. Yeah.

[01:18:20] New Zealand's like the crazy inbred cousin. He's a cousin of Britain and Australia. Yeah. Yeah. New Zealand's beautiful. It is. Absolutely stunning. They have hobbits there. Yes. That's a real thing. So you've got hobbits, lepers, lepers, and criminals. Sure. Sure. Again, also Nazgul. All right. We did cover New Zealand's role in colonialism and brutality in one of our recent secret story

[01:18:50] times on the story of the island of UAE. Yeah. It's a good one. It's a good one. This is a plug for our Patreon guys. Sign up if you have not already. Yes. It will contextualize exactly how much white colonialist nonsense may or may not have contributed to the cult family being the way they are. Spoiler alert. It did. Garrison. Yes. Garrison, what did you think? I should have had a drink. I should have.

[01:19:19] I thought about it and I was like, nah. I'm pretty sure there's some bleach downstairs if you want us to mix up a cocktail. I got bleach and green tea. I assume we've all been vaccinated, so that's not necessary anymore. Yeah. No, no, it's true. It's true. My microchip is really bothering me, by the way. Garrison, what did you think of the cult cult? Did your nipples leak? No, not in particular. That you know of. The only thing, and this will, this will, God, I don't want this to sound bad at all. Let it out. Let it out.

[01:19:50] My, my older brother has a very large family. He has nine children and they live in rural North Carolina. And, uh, their eldest is about 27 and their youngest is like five or six. I don't remember. So. You thought about your brother? It, it made me think of them, not in like a good way. I was just like, shit. I was like. I hope your brother doesn't listen to this show. I hope so either. I didn't even know. I was like, man, should I even talk about this?

[01:20:19] I told Georgiana, I was like, fuck, I know I'm going to end up bringing it up. Just because I listened to it and there was like no way I couldn't think of it. And, you know, thank God it's not like that. Do you already carry kind of like a disconnected discomfort with how your brother's family kind of chooses to live? Are they isolated? Almost like compound esque? Yes. Yeah. So you feel, so you feel detached from that part of your family or maybe even concerned.

[01:20:48] I'm definitely concerned. Okay. I'm concerned and detached. Well, I understand why this triggered you. Not implicating your family. I'm not implicating. I'm not doing any, I want to be clear that I'm not saying any of that. It just made me think of it just because of the numbers. The number of kids. Understood. I know it's going to come out. So. Yeah. CPT is going to arrive at your brother's compound any minute now. My brother's going to show up and be like, dude, why are you talking about me? Fuck yeah. You'd be like, bro,

[01:21:17] I missed you. This is the only way to get you out. Man, you have nine kids. Where did you think this was going? Someone had to say it. You were going to be on a podcast. Okay. So you're concerned for your brother's family, but if this was, if this was strangers and you lived in proximity to the cult clan, and you maybe noticed some things or heard some things, saw some things that like, would you say that's none of my business? Or would you take it up with authorities? I would probably take it up with authorities eventually.

[01:21:47] Okay. I'd start with this. It's none of my business. Right. That's the go-to for most Americans these days. Yeah. It's none of my business. Unless it's black people selling water on the corner or having a barbecue, then it's all your business. yeah, no, for sure. Or just breathing. Yeah, that too. Yeah, for sure. Then everybody gets involved. I can see one from my house. That's my business. Right. Yeah. So, what do you think is the triggering thing for you? Like, what would be the point where you're like, I'm gonna say something to somebody?

[01:22:17] Is it the- Well, I think when I would overhear a child saying, what was it? My sister's pregnant. My sister's pregnant and I don't know which brother. We don't know which brother is the brother. So, that's the point. That's probably the point. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. All right. Gotcha. Gotcha. Now, Edward, I had a question for you. There wasn't too, too much in your story about how well, how well the cults re-assimilated. Was there any information about how well they did once they were no longer on the compound?

[01:22:48] I touched on it a little bit in the story. Like, their hygiene improved. That's one thing. That's one thing. Wouldn't it have to? Yeah. Yeah. One would hope. Yeah. Outside of that, very few cults that we know of are holding jobs. Um, if, if, if the ones that are, are like fruit pickers. Okay. Um, you know, just basic menial labor, et cetera. As far as some of the kids and how they dealt with being extricated from the clan,

[01:23:18] we get varying stories. Some seem to be happy that they had been freed from their circumstances. Others were not doing well at all, especially Betty's kids. It's they're the ones that started reporting to authorities that their caregivers were threatening to murder them and smash them with hammers, et cetera, et cetera. Just really weird stuff. But we also have recordings of Betty while she was in detention,

[01:23:45] being able to speak to some of her children that were taken from her. And when they're on the phone talking to her about a lot of this stuff, she's saying things like, Oh, your voice. It just sounds so sexy. She's talking to like 12 year olds, 14 year olds and things like that. Like it's a very, they have a strong bond with mom and, uh, she really wants them back.

[01:24:12] And so I think they are trying to essentially do whatever they can to get back to mom. Eventually they will be of age unless they become wards of the state. I don't know what still in prison. She's not. No, she's living on a farm. Of course she is. Yeah. With about two or three relatives and, it's, it's become Betty Colt's mission to bring the clan back together. Yikes. Wow. Yeah. So not great. Yeah. My nipples are leaking now. Yeah.

[01:24:42] My, my junk is actually leaking and not in a fun way. This is, I have gonorrhea just from the story. Yeah. Yeah. My armpits are leaking. Yeah. We have a lot of health problems. The vaccine. There's definitely something wrong with it. There's something in it. Yeah. For sure. Okay. But I get much better internet. And so do either of you guys. We're all 5G. Woo. Do either of you guys have questions for him about this particular story? Well, I was going to ask and you just kind of answered it in the last little,

[01:25:12] bit. I observed with both stories that it seemed to be mostly the father figure in, I was going to say inserting himself, but that's not, it is, but it isn't. It is. Yeah. Yeah. That the father is usually the catalyst and that the mother or the daughter always seems to be along for the ride, that it's never the mother being like, Hey, little boy, why don't you come and rub my feet or whatever that is about. Um,

[01:25:42] but then it sounds like Betty kind of blows that theory out of the water. Yeah. It blows, it blows the theory. All the coat women lied. As we covered in the story, they all got, they did a little bit of time for perjury. Every single one of them. So we're not going to get a straight shot. But they didn't have any other charges, which is what kind of solidified that theory for me. Well, because it's the, all the, the genetic testing that they did only showed that this child was a byproduct of the mother and a brother and or a father. Right.

[01:26:12] There was no way to extract evidence that the mothers were having any sort of sexual contact with the children. There was nothing there. Right. And honestly, there wasn't enough evidence to hold any particular cult man to actually be convicted because They all share enough genetic information that you can't pinpoint it. Exactly. We can't say which one it is. And since we can't, they're all innocent. Wow. Even though we know it's all of them. Right. You know? Right. It's all of them, but we can't prove which one. So it's none of them.

[01:26:42] Exactly. Yeah. It's very strange. Yeah. But it, you know, that's the law. To be fair, I don't think the legal system was like, you, you need to be prepared for such situations. Like when they were like, Hey, we need to write some laws about stuff. Like, Hey, if a guy has six children by his own daughter. Yeah. That, that did not make it onto the list of things we need to accomplish in this meeting. So there, there are a few incest clans that are out there in the world, very similar to the cults,

[01:27:11] but you know, just reading through them, just jaw dropping. Honestly, like I wasn't prepared to read some of these stories. No. For the record, you put incest cults on the list of potential episodes. We let people vote. It took a while, but then Celeste led the charge and was like, fuck y'all. I want to hear about incest cults. She opened the gates. I'm not afraid to admit that. I want to know what that's about. And, you know,

[01:27:39] so we didn't really know much about it before we dug in. And now that we have, I really regret that that subject was put on the list of potential episodes. It was, well, or perhaps that you didn't subdivide it into other strata of sex cults because it, for better or worse, mostly worse. It's, it's pretty deep. you've gone into there. Yeah. Yeah. At least NXIVM was like, Hey, you know, like they're of age mostly.

[01:28:09] And they're like yoga teachers. And some of them were, you know, the whole thing is just, there's something disgusting, but like incremental. Less disgusting about that versus the, which speaking of disgusting Garrison, do you have any thoughts on the Wesson family and Marcus Wesson's approach to the Bible? Wow. You know, I can't say that I know the Bible at all.

[01:28:38] He's never read it. So his interpretation of it is probably much better than mine because I have no clue what it says. I don't know about that. I really don't. That's a strong word. I think better is, but yeah, better is the wrong word. He actually has an interpretation. I don't. Okay. Gotcha. Garrison, you, you, you born in Honduras. Yes. Migrated to the United States. Oftentimes, you, you, you, you, you find, of course you are, right?

[01:29:05] You often find a lot of Latin American and Hispanic families to be deeply, deeply religious. Was that part of your upbringing at all? When I was a kid, we were never really deeply religious, just like middle of the road, Catholic. Okay. Um, it never got to anywhere near what Marcus, but the Bible just never stuck with you. It never stuck with me. I even, I wanted to take a Bible as literature course at UNO. Wow. Shout out. Shout out.

[01:29:35] Go privateers. Um, and, uh, I actually never got to it. Okay. That's how much disinterest I always had in it. You know, my, my parents were pretty cool with it. They were like, look, if it's not for you, that's fine. Okay. cause I, I told them at some point that I was like, mom, dad, I don't, I don't really believe. And they were like, okay, just don't say shit around your grandma. Grandma. Yeah. Don't say shit around her. It always comes down to your grandma. She was very religious. And they're just like, just, just shut up.

[01:30:05] Okay. But on the flip side though, how did you feel about vampires? When I was about five years old and watched the lost boys, I was like, five years old. Who left you home alone? My family was with me. I saw American werewolf in London when I was about five. That fucked me up. Yeah. That's too soon. Yeah, totally. Michael Jackson's thriller did it for me. Thank you. Yeah. Really,

[01:30:34] really messed me up as a kid. Yeah. Anyway, but you learned the choreography right off the bat. So, you know, I didn't stick around. I just ran out the room. I'm out. So we've established that you're not a biblical scholar. No. So why don't we, why don't we reframe? What do you think of Marcus's approach to parenting? He's a piece of shit. Just a straight up, terrible, horrible human. I love that his mom was like confused about how,

[01:31:04] that's not, he must've been traumatized. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes, I'm positive that he was by a multitude of things that you seem to have participated in. Yeah. Yeah. Directly contributed to these things that you now are completely unaware of. Oh. I mean, I get that having your husband leave you for your nephew. Cousin Larry. Oh man. Cousin Larry. Sorry, yes, nephew. Yeah, it would have been her nephew. Yeah. Yeah. That might've registered it. Perhaps she was traumatized. Oh, and here's, so here's,

[01:31:34] you wanted to hear things that were cut out of the story. Here's something that was in 2000, uh, I want to say it's 2002, possibly 2003. Dad and cousin Larry break up and dad comes crawling back to mom, Carrie cause he's got cancer. And he's dying. And she says, come on back, baby. The fuck? So good for her. So he left his wife of 20 plus years and their four children to run off with his teenage nephew,

[01:32:05] lived in some state of homosexual bliss, which you know me, I'm not against homosexual bliss, but homosexual incest bliss with a teenager, less enthusiastic about this as a lifestyle. While he was impregnating his own daughters, right? Uh, no, this was the, so Marcus was the one impregnating his own daughters. His dad was the one, uh, uh, fucking his nephew. So then dad comes all the way back and says, Hey baby,

[01:32:31] real sorry about abandoning you and the kids and the butt stuff with, with Larry, but, uh, I got cancer. Would you take me back? And she was like, yeah, love makes a family. Oh boy. when I was listening to both of the stories, I was like, man, I wonder if they did like mafia trees with like all the names and stuff. They sure did. Uh, so there's, uh, they had to keep it together. Yes. Actually writing. And in fact, there is a book, um,

[01:32:58] that was the source material for much of my writing and in the, uh, the Patreon episode. That's a followup to fill people in on all the stuff we had to cut out, but, uh, uh, it's called by their father's hand. And it starts with two full pages of family trees. And it is fucking mind blowing. You're just like, Oh, Oh my God. Cause it gets confusing really fast. Yeah. It was very hard to, to write in research, but then on top of it,

[01:33:26] like you have to remember that Marcus got involved with the mother of his eventual wife first, but then some of those kids that of the mother that he originally were, ended up becoming residents of his home when he left the mother. Yeah. So he, so they weren't his kids, but they were his wife's kids with whom he had children and then had children with those offspring. Some. So he had the grandchildren with a nice twist by the way. Yes.

[01:33:56] Yes. So he had a kid with the original Rosemary. Right. And then he had, uh, almost a dozen kids with her daughter. And then the original Rosemary also had a daughter named Rosemary, whose kids came to live with Marcus. And then Marcus started having sex with that Rosemary's kids. So he's a figure in multiple family trees. Wow. Uh, that Venn diagram is just one big circle.

[01:34:26] It's just one big circle and no. Yeah. Yeah. Just this no in huge letters on it. And there they all are inside. So inside. Yeah. I'm assuming that you have watched some videos of Mark Wesson. I have. I usually don't. What? Watch videos, um, on any of this stuff until really after the, the episode is done. Yeah. Because I, I just, I like to have these folks kind of in my own mind. Sure. how they are just based on the stories and how it's reported,

[01:34:55] like kind of shape who they are. Any interviews with him? Uh, so there's very few interviews with him. Uh, easy. A well-spoken, intelligent, incredibly well-spoken. He has a very soft, calm, deep voice. And I, I don't want to be insulting or insensitive to his children at all, but there are interviews with some of his children, specifically his sons. Um, and his sons all sound like Michael Jackson.

[01:35:25] Interesting. They have, they, they, they have these high voices that don't match their body types. They seem a little bit timid, obviously, because they got this shit kicked out of them on relentingly for their entire lives. Is this the adopted sons or the sons that he actually fathered? No, these are the sons that he actually fathered. Um, and they, and they're, it'll be in the, in the follow-up episode, but a couple of them are very outspoken about. So in the immediate aftermath of the murders,

[01:35:55] um, they interviewed the sons and they interviewed the sons in a traumatized state. So the cameras are rolling on the sons. Um, I think Dorian and Serafino were the ones that they, uh, initially, and they were like, my dad's, Serafino's a boy. Serafino is a boy. Serafino. Okay. Oh, yes. Yes. Uh, so they interviewed them immediately after the murders. And the first comment that they got from any family members was, my dad's a hero. My dad's the greatest father ever. There's no way he could have done this. This is impossible. I'm like,

[01:36:24] it happened in front of a SWAT team. So yeah, it is super possible that he did it. And contrary to later events that with police, this is one where the SWAT team was outside. This is not one where the police are like, Oh, you know, maybe they weren't. This was like, Nope, they literally did. Yeah. So, so cut to when the sons have finally been deprogrammed, they re-interviewed them again. And they're just like, um, I'm fucked up. I can't believe that there's footage of me saying that my dad is the best dad ever. And,

[01:36:54] um, one of them is married now is like, thank God. My wife loves me. Like that's pretty much, he's just like, thank God. I have a chance at like a semi normal life, but I'm never, he's like, I'm just pretty much going to be a little fucked up for the rest of my life. So yeah, that's an optimistic thought. Yeah. Actually just a little fucked up. Just a little fuck. Good for you, buddy. Yeah. Debbie, what kind of thoughts did you have in listening to the Wesson story? Wesson story? He, um, it sounded like a fairy tale family cult.

[01:37:24] Like it did everything I expected it to do. You know, the, the Australian thing. I don't know. That was a little too dark. There was something kind of optimistic about the West. Which optimism? Was it the fact that they might have eternal life as vampires? What, which part? Oh, it actually was, you know, and the fact that like Adam was married to God, it was kind of a fanciful. So at least they believed in something. They did.

[01:37:51] And what they believed in was actually pretty fucking cool. Okay. Homos are superior because Adam was married to God and, and vampires. Vampires. Yes. All right. Okay. And Jesus, eternal life because vampires. Right. Hot take, right. You know? Hot, hot, hot, red hot, piping hot take from Debbie Davis. I mean, ukulelist. And bon vivant. Yeah. Um, I, I, I don't know. It just, it, it,

[01:38:21] it had some, it had some hopeful stuff too. It wasn't like Manson saying, we're going to go live in a hole in the desert with part of race war. That isn't really, Jesus is a vampire. Right. God married Adam and they weren't queer as shit. I mean, there are some moments of niceness that there is safe for the stack of dead bodies at the end. Yeah. Minus that whole thing. It didn't have anything to do with Jesus being a vampire. Did it? Yeah. And it didn't need to. Or homo love. Yeah. Yeah. No love. Jesus is a vampire.

[01:38:52] Happy. When you listed, when you listed their names and ages at the end, I was like, fuck. Yeah. Yeah. It's rough. It's dark. They're shooting babies. You'll hear it in the, in the followup episode. There's actually excerpts from the, the journals of some of the surviving girls. And they were writing poems in their journals about how excited they were to die for Christ. So it's incredibly dark. It is absolutely traumatizing and heartbreaking.

[01:39:21] I am not trying to make light of anything that happened. Sure. But the family was so committed to eventually some people are going to try and break up the family. And when they do, we're going to go to Jesus and we're warriors for Christ and we're vampires. So we have internal, like we're going to be fine. So like, I'm sure it was traumatizing, but also they seemed uniquely enthusiastic and primed about that particular thing.

[01:39:50] And actually it almost happened one time prior. When they were living on the tugboat, all of the parents were out. And one of the girls, I think it might've been Sophina was in charge of, you know, watching the kids. And they saw some white vans circling in the parking lot off the, off the dock. And so they thought, this is it. The government's here. Um, because they did not know that progressive is an insurance company.

[01:40:18] And so it was actually just some guys like killing time in the parking lot and root. And so she lined up, circled up all the kids. So to murder all of them. But then she was like, you know what? I should check with my daddy might be mad if I suicide, the whole family without consenting. She called Marcus and was like, Hey, there's these white vans. They say progressive on the side. We're ready to go. Should I just pull the trigger? And he was like, no, no, not yet, honey. So good job, but I couldn't sure. But yeah, they, they, this was not,

[01:40:46] they had been primed and ready to do this for decades. So Edward, any thoughts, questions? I mean, wow. I mean, so many, but none that I want answers. I mean, I would love to sit down and talk with Mark Wesson about, uh, you know, his thought patterns, et cetera. Usually when you, you get mental disorders that are looped into some kind of, uh, for lack of a better word,

[01:41:15] strained sexual behavior, paraphilias and, uh, and, and things like incest. There's some history of it in the family. And I know, you know, his father ran off with his cousin and I don't know if that is what really stemmed it for him. Couldn't have helped though. But I'm, I'm really curious of what the, what the exposure was for him that kind of changed his trajectory.

[01:41:41] The same way I'm curious about how the fact that June cult being the byproduct of incest influenced Tim cult. Right. I'm very, very curious, you know? And, uh, so I, I would have a ton of questions for Mark Wesson. Um, Sandy's not here. His father was an alcoholic who was molesting all of his children also. Yeah. So, I mean, he, he watched that as a modeled behavior. Yeah. And his mother being really,

[01:42:10] really religious and her, his father really not being, he was able to reconcile those two. Sure. Seemingly divergent. Character. Characteristics into a thing that he was able to embody. I guess my, my, my, my big question. And then vampires would be, did it ever happen to him? Like, I think that's where, what I'm most curious about. Yeah. So it, I've read a lot. I read two books on the subject.

[01:42:40] I read a bunch of interviews. He has never outright stated and no one has ever outright stated. Like I saw this happening, but it happened with so many other family members. And I mean, this was a person who was soliciting Marcus's teenage male friends. My big dick. To, to suck his dick. So, uh, I think it's safe to assume that there was at bare minimum, some inappropriate touching happening here and there. We, um, well, and the children wouldn't have been asked. Correct.

[01:43:06] He asked to the friend because the friend was under no obligation to fulfill this, but the children by sheer merit of the fact that he was their authority figure. Right. I own you. Did not have the latitude to say, no, I don't think I'd like to suck your big dick. Well, and Marcus's sister, um, Marcus had some family members who had some pretty serious addiction issues, uh, uh, as they grew up. And so, you know, that it's speculative, obviously, and it's irresponsible to speculate too much,

[01:43:36] but we do see people try and medicate sexual trauma as adults away with drugs, literally all of the time. Oh yeah. So, I mean, yeah, um, that's a thing. My, um, my dad was put in, uh, a home when he was practically an infant. And it's, it's across the river. It's, uh, Hope Haven, Madonna Manor. And, um, there was a huge scandal that finally broke in the last, I guess,

[01:44:03] decade and a half about all the young children that were brought up there that were sexually assaulted. And he never talked about it. Never ever talked about it. He, he talked about the things that they did to him as far as, uh, the, the abuse, the beatings, um, making him kneel on rice. Uh, he would wet his bed. They would, um, hang his underwear up in front of the other children to embarrass him. And then they would make him sleep in a bell tower. Wow.

[01:44:32] anytime he would wet the bed, but he never talked about sexual abuse ever, but he had a fucked up relationship with the church his entire life. Yeah. He never went to church. He never wanted to go to church. He wasn't interested. He never expressed an interest or even talked about God. Mm hmm. But when I was probably about, I don't know, 10 or so, my mom,

[01:44:56] it was important for her to have her marriage vows renewed in a church to essentially have the, the, the sacrament of marriage. And so it was a big deal for my dad to go through it, but it was a local church. It was St. Agnes church. And there was a wonderful priest at the time. It was very, very kind. He was very sweet. And, and my mom just thought he would be the perfect fit to bring my dad, just bring it out of him, not get him to talk about stuff that happened, but to feel safe with the church again. Yeah. Back to the fold. Right.

[01:45:26] And so they did it. They went through the whole thing, you know, got married. It was wonderful. We had a big party. Everybody was happy, et cetera. Later that night, when my mom and dad get back to the house, he still doesn't say anything, but then he just bursts into tears. Mm hmm. And he just cried all night. Oh my God. Jesus. And never said what happened. Sorry guys.

[01:45:56] It's okay. You guys know my dad is gone and I don't think I'll ever get over it, but stories like this, they really, if it wasn't for my mom, if it wasn't for like, like Mark's son who said, thank God my wife loves me. Mm hmm. My dad would have been a statistic, you know, it, just the things that we need, you know, as people. And it, it comes full circle, even to just, just being held as a baby when you're crying, when you're in pain, when you're suffering, et cetera, how,

[01:46:25] how necessary it all is. And how, even though we sit on a show like this and we talk about how scandalous and fucked up incest is with these stories that these are human beings who, you know, whose lives have been destroyed. Mm hmm. even though, you know, we observe it as professionals and as just casual onlookers at just the fuckery that is life. You know, I can speak for everybody in this room. We,

[01:46:50] we wish nothing more than for all of us to heal for people, all the people that we've talked about this entire season to find some peace, find some hope, find some dignity again. And, uh, I don't know, maybe some sliver of life that it's not all fucked up like this. Yeah. Well, and, uh, I think something that's been a through line for the show this season through all of the laughing at things that are very funny,

[01:47:21] like, um, deranged. Because otherwise it'd be like, well, right. How do I even keep going? And there are moments where deranged hitchhikers or truck drivers scream things like smite them. smitey one. That's true. That shit is just objectively funny and independent, but we've tried to, um, encourage people who might feel uncomfortable with the idea of therapy or uncomfortable, uh, weak stigmatized by the,

[01:47:49] by the idea of being traumatized and having to ask for help to like, Hey, it's incredibly, this life, this world that we're all living for is a tin can full of barbed wire that someone jammed you in and is now shaking.

[01:48:31] Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. A subject that you can broach because to talk about it with a total stranger feels like you're inviting this invasive process. Yeah. Which anybody who's been traumatized will instinctively avoid. Right. Yeah. You know what I mean? The last, the last thing you want to do after you've been traumatized is say, Hey, I'm traumatized. Hey, it's broken me. Hey, you want to look at it? Cause it's terrible, terrible. And I don't want to look at it. Right. Right. Like that's such an invasive thing.

[01:49:00] But if you're weirdos are present enough and create an environment safe enough, then at least you can say, yeah, this is awful and you're going to hate it. But look at this. And you will almost always find that you tell your weirdest story, the one you're most ashamed of, the one you're most afraid to expose to the light. And no one in the room flinches. And then they're like, you think that's fucked up. Here's mine.

[01:49:30] Here's mine. Here's mine. And then suddenly you realize that literally everybody is inside that fucking tin can full of barbed wire with you. And it's okay to be struggling in it. And the fact that you have trouble verbalizing it is why people aren't talking about it. It's not because it didn't happen. It's because it's all these things that you can't bring out into enough daylight to look at it and figure out what it is and call it by its real name. And, you know,

[01:49:56] put it in a box and put it away with the other weird shit that's lingering in the shadows. Yeah. You know, the, the idea that you are unique in your pain and your trauma is part of what keeps people paralyzed. Yeah, absolutely. It's an excellent point. Damn. This shit got woke. I'm sorry. I just, I, I ruined the whole fucking vibe. No, no, you didn't. I started leaking. This is fantastic.

[01:50:26] Oh, it's so good. And Jesus was a vampire. He was. Well, so that, you know, I, I mean, I just can't walk away from that. Well, I, I know that this, this podcast has, has gotten a little serious. I want to ask two very serious questions of our guests while they're here. The first is Jesus vampire or not. Debbie, state your case. Before this story,

[01:50:54] I would have said no. It wouldn't have even been something that I entertained, but to hear it just sort of stated as a, as a de facto given in the figure of this whole weird geometric equation. It is actually the least weird thing. That story. Jesus. Well, he walked on water, water and wine. Water and wine. Yeah. Love just kept coming. Love that cross all over the place.

[01:51:24] I was hanging out with that sexy bitch. Thorn in his side. It is. The rising from the dead. Yeah. You know what? Vampire. Yeah. It works. It works. Okay. Yeah. I mean, prove he wasn't. Fair. And I mean, at least in modern renderings, he is very pale. Very, very pale. For a guy from the middle East. Yeah. I mean, obviously can't go out during the daytime. People are like that don't tan well. Just devoid of melanin. I would, I would know. Garrison, Jesus,

[01:51:53] vampire or no? I'm so sorry. You can't not think about it now. Can you? Everything you said is true. I mean, it's, you, you've, you've, I've, I've crystallized the Christ vampire thing for you. But out of respect. And the crosses, I mean, the, the fact that they both need crosses. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's a little too good. It's really on the nose. On the nose. Totally. I think I had a respect for my, uh, my grandmother. Wow. It always comes back. I'm way love this.

[01:52:23] This is for you. Yeah. Now, can you, can you make it, can you make even one point to argue against his being a vampire? See? I can't. That's where the rubber meets the road on this thing. Tell me he's not. Well, you know what? Show me. If he had taken that class at UNO, perhaps he would have been able to. But that was just his literature. Like, Aaron Rice could have taught the class on the 501 literature. And then where would you be? Are we saying he's a day walker?

[01:52:51] Because a lot of that stuff happened in the nice, hot, hot sun of. Well, to be fair, to be fair, Garrison, it was not until the 1922 release of Nosferatu that vampires were burned by the sun. It's true. It's true. That's a, that's a new thing. Yeah. So. Global warming. Oh, yeah, yeah. Climate change. Industrial revolution. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. It was inevitable. And so here's my other very, very serious question. As parents, Debbie,

[01:53:20] what vampire names will you be giving your children? Oh, wow. Well, and remember that Marcus's was a portmanteau of the, of his own name, Jesus's name and the word vampire. So. Wow. You don't have to work that hard. No, but of course I'm going to, because. yeah, no, I respect that. Yeah.

[01:53:45] The fact that my oldest son looks like the vampire Lestat. Yes, he does. Is not making this any easier. Yeah. Frankly. Exactly. And not like Tom Cruise as the vampire Lestat. Like, no, like David Bowie is the vampire Lestat, which is what he should have looked like in the first place. Yes. By the way, if we're recasting that movie, Bowie is Lestat. And he's been dead for five years and he's still better than Tom Cruise. What? Too soon? No, I feel the same way. Thank you. Carry on.

[01:54:15] How do we know Tom isn't a vampire? Uh, Tom is absolutely a vampire. Too short. Not to get off track. Sorry. Not to get off track, but Tom Cruise is a vampire and he does lead a cult. So, I mean, I'm not going to pen for a werewolf, frankly. All right. So, vampire child names. Vampire child names. Jesus, I didn't know this was going to be on the test. I would have come up with something good. I mean, we're going to edit out all of the dead time. So, it's fine. You can take a few minutes if you need to. Garrison. El Cucuy is what I would call him. Wow.

[01:54:45] After the LA radio host. Or, I would say, he's going to be on the test. No. I would, or I would just call him, you know, Vampirito. Oh, I like this. Okay. Child. What would your vampire name for your child be? Just Edward II. We got to skip, skip Jr. We got to go straight to the second. Yeah, You're right.

[01:55:15] It sounds more regal. During, during the twilight days, I got a, I used to get a lot of strange messages on MySpace. They were just, wow. They just latched onto the name. And that was it, you know? So, I just want to pass that on. I want to pass that magic on. I gotcha. I gotcha. All right. Debbie. Yeah, I think we're looking at like, Benjamin Naira, Naira, I don't know. It, it, it begs serious thought. Okay. And I'm sorry I'm not coming up with anything better.

[01:55:43] I'm going to probably email you at four o'clock in the morning and go, I got it. This is so good. That's all right. So when Debbie gets it, we'll voice edit it into this episode. It'll go right here in this spot. I, I would name my vampire child Nosferatu. He, cause he's a little boo. Shits while he sleeps. No, not Nosferatu. Oh, gotcha. Nosferatu. So, yeah. So he's a cute little boo, but he's, he's a little bit of a vampire. So Nosferatu is, so I think it's going to be that time. It's that time. It is that time.

[01:56:14] Garrison. Last vote of the season. Last vote of the season. Are you choosing story A, the tale of the cult cults when they're chainsaws in Australia or. The chainsaws is what stands out for you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I just really like Foley. And, or, or, uh, the Wesson vampire clan. Uh, B. All right. There's one. All right.

[01:56:43] We got one of two votes. Debbie, final vote of season one. if it's a drum roll Foley here, I gotta say the Australian story was a little predictable. I kind of saw that coming. Okay. They don't bathe. There's a bunch of people. You know, like, before the onset wasn't going to happen. Okay. Gotcha. Jesus vampire incest, Southern California. Like, I imagine. Fresno. I imagine them hanging out with like, yeah, I, I don't know.

[01:57:12] I imagine them hanging out with like the Beach Boys and the Manson family. And all right. Um, so I guess we have to have Gary. Pull the guests out from the termite swarm. Yeah. Let's release them. Gary, release the guests. And that's going to do it for this one. Spooky nerds. If you made it through two hours of vampire Jesus and incest cults, well, first of all, respect. And second of all,

[01:57:42] you are exactly the kind of unhinged, curious person we made this show for. Thanks to Debbie Davis and Garrison Paws for lending their parental authority and their extremely good judgment to the proceedings. Shout out to everyone who voted for this topic back in the before times. You were chaotic and we loved you for it. We're glad this one finally got to breathe again after a half decade in the vault.

[01:58:11] New episodes are coming. We promised and we meant it until then. Stay spooky. Stay nerdy. Keep it safe. Maybe call your parents and stay weird. Beard.