Speaker 1: School of Humans. This show follows the investigation of serial
Speaker 1: murders and contains material that may be disturbing. Listener discretion advised.
Speaker 2: Michaela Valentine, heart pounding, waits in the car for her
Speaker 2: husband Zach. She stares at her reflection in the mirror.
Speaker 2: In her blond wig and heavy makeup, she barely recognizes herself. Inside,
Speaker 2: Zach carries out two fatal attacks on Natasha Berger and
Speaker 2: her neighbor Joy Burnside. The plan was for Michaela to
Speaker 2: help him, but she couldn't bring herself to go through
Speaker 2: with it. When the executions are complete, Zach flees from
Speaker 2: the townhouse and runs toward the waiting car. He jumps
Speaker 2: in next to his wife, his hands, his face, his
Speaker 2: clothes all covered in blood. Zach and Michaela speed away
Speaker 2: from the scene, bolting across the darkened city. Zach calls
Speaker 2: to check in with Mirinda. The job is done, he
Speaker 2: tells her. Marinda hears Michaela crying in the background, and
Speaker 2: orders them to get rid of the murder weapons and
Speaker 2: report back immediately to the flat where Cecilia is waiting.
Speaker 2: When they arrive, Zach explains to Cecilia what happened and
Speaker 2: how Michaela couldn't bring herself to kill joy Cecilia was
Speaker 2: not pleased. LaRue and Marcel are ordered to scrub the
Speaker 2: car clean of blood. Ria Grunivald rushes to Natasha's place
Speaker 2: as soon as she hears the tragic news. She has
Speaker 2: to see for herself if things had actually gone this far.
Speaker 2: Rhea watches the slack jawed as the bodies of Natasha
Speaker 2: and Joy are carried out, both covered in white sheets
Speaker 2: in the dark of night. No one recognizes Rihea, but
Speaker 2: the following day a witness comes forward. I heard screams
Speaker 2: coming from Joy's home, she said. When I looked outside,
Speaker 2: I saw a blond woman running from the house to
Speaker 2: her car. That woman was Mikaela in a blonde wig.
Speaker 2: But strangely, the witness tells the police with some certainty
Speaker 2: that who she saw fleeing the murder scene was Rhea.
Speaker 2: As if things weren't bad enough, Rhea's life was about
Speaker 2: to take yet another turn for the worse. She was
Speaker 2: about to become the primary suspect from School of Humans
Speaker 2: and iHeart Podcasts. This is Queen Havoc and her murder cult.
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Kurt Kupchek episode three, Eyes of a Killer.
Speaker 2: In untangling the web of this case, we discover a
Speaker 2: long list of bad actors, but we also encounter people
Speaker 2: like Rhea, vilified for their good intentions. Among these well
Speaker 2: intentioned individuals is the man we've been calling Luke. His
Speaker 2: involvement with Cecilia Stein would come at a steep cost.
Speaker 2: Luke is something of a vigilante. He met Cecilia and
Speaker 2: Electus Perdaz in twenty twelve as the murders were picking
Speaker 2: up steam. His friend Aria introduced him to the Know
Speaker 2: Your Enemy pamphlet, which piqued his interest.
Speaker 3: The book's name was now your Enemy. So I convinced
Speaker 3: a lot of people, how do you PreTect yourself if
Speaker 3: you don't know are your enemy operates? Makes actually aren't
Speaker 3: the same scenes? So I started reading this boon. I
Speaker 3: didn't agree with anything.
Speaker 2: He shared his skepticism with Aria, so.
Speaker 3: I told him, I've got all this questions. She told
Speaker 3: me she'll take me to the person who read this book.
Speaker 3: And that's when I met cecil Lasting for the first
Speaker 3: time and Zach Valentine and Makai La.
Speaker 2: Luke challenged Cecilia's ideas in person and strangely enough, she
Speaker 2: seemed to enjoy it, bantering back and forth with him
Speaker 2: but not providing any real answers. Luke remained unconvinced that
Speaker 2: she was as cunning as she said she was, but
Speaker 2: was intrigued by the group's reverence for her. But then,
Speaker 2: only a couple of weeks after he came into Cecilia's orbit,
Speaker 2: people started dying.
Speaker 3: This One friend found me about a week later and
Speaker 3: she told me and Natasha Burger and friend's been murdered.
Speaker 2: In his gut, he knew they were to blame.
Speaker 3: I couldn't believe it. Something that don't make sense.
Speaker 2: And so he decided to act, going.
Speaker 3: To my knees and I prayed and I told her
Speaker 3: Lord he can use me. I will go into Cruge
Speaker 3: if you can just partect me and I'll open up
Speaker 3: this whole hole. And it's next.
Speaker 2: Luke planned to conduct his own investigation. He would infiltrate
Speaker 2: electus perdeis, posing as a devotee. He could get close
Speaker 2: to them and confirm his suspicions. Then, once he had
Speaker 2: hard evidence, he would go to the police. Luke tread
Speaker 2: lightly at first, so that no one would suspect anything.
Speaker 2: He needed to earn Secilia's trust, the rest would follow.
Speaker 2: Not aware of the malicious inner workings of EPD, Luke
Speaker 2: began to spend time with some of the members socially,
Speaker 2: Zach Valentine in particular, and up close. He took note
Speaker 2: of how Cecilia played them all.
Speaker 3: Anybody was extremely scaped of Cecilia, and that's how she
Speaker 3: got everybody to listen to her and follow the instructions.
Speaker 2: She used fear and of course scripture. The story of
Speaker 2: King David, who was told by God to destroy the Philistines,
Speaker 2: worked especially well on Mirinda.
Speaker 3: I remember she manipulated Miranda out of David. David killed
Speaker 3: all the people, and the women, and the children and
Speaker 3: the dogs. Everything must be killed, and that's how she
Speaker 3: manipulated Miranda to participa the killings.
Speaker 2: Cecilia reinterpreted biblical teachings to her likings so that members
Speaker 2: believed that what they were doing was God's will, just
Speaker 2: like so many Zelots throughout history who murdered in the
Speaker 2: name of God. Cecilia would speak on behalf of the Almighty,
Speaker 2: and who were they to argue against such divine authority?
Speaker 2: That made Michaela's unwillingness to kill joy burnside, an affront
Speaker 2: to Cecilia and an act of existential defiance. Zach tried
Speaker 2: to reassure Cecilia that Michaela was loyal and that she
Speaker 2: could still be trusted, but Cecilia was unsparing. She berated
Speaker 2: Michaela for not following through on the kill assigned to her,
Speaker 2: and decided all of them Zach, Mirinda, Marcel, LaRue and
Speaker 2: Michaela should all be better prepared for next time. In fact,
Speaker 2: they should practice. Luke wasn't yet deep enough into the
Speaker 2: fold to be included in this macabre exercise. The core members, however,
Speaker 2: arrived at Cecilia's flat one evening to find her in
Speaker 2: the bedroom. Laid out under stackxa newspaper, was a boar's
Speaker 2: head from the local butcher. She handed knives to each
Speaker 2: of her followers and instructed them to have at it,
Speaker 2: a depraved rehearsal for killing a human. She watched for
Speaker 2: a while and then left the room, returning a few
Speaker 2: minutes later with an axe. While their blades were plunged
Speaker 2: deeper and deeper into the boar's head, Cecilia fed her
Speaker 2: followers stories of the conniving ways of Rhea and her
Speaker 2: mentor Pastor Reginald Ben Dixon. He was the aggressor, she
Speaker 2: told them. He turned Rhea against them all he let
Speaker 2: OTC to heard praying incorrectly, thereby forcing them to dispose
Speaker 2: of Natasha. And he, according to Cecilia, had plagiarized her
Speaker 2: Know Your Enemy pamphlet and repurposed it for an OTC course. Finally,
Speaker 2: Cecilia's devotees, breathless and bloody, surrounded the mangled pig's head,
Speaker 2: ready for their next kill. This time it would be
Speaker 2: Mirinda's turn to prove her loyalty. And this time we'll
Speaker 2: hear about the murder.
Speaker 4: In her own words, no one ever screamed when I
Speaker 4: killed him. They were dated in seconds.
Speaker 2: Merenda Stein, guided by her undying loyalty to Cecilia, was
Speaker 2: outraged at Pastor Reginald Ben Dixon's inequities. He had stolen
Speaker 2: both Cecilia's intellectual property and Rhea's admiration. In her book
Speaker 2: The Kruger's Dwarf Cult Killings, journalist Jana Marx details the
Speaker 2: scene where Cecilia called an emergency meeting and informed them, quote,
Speaker 2: we have to take him out. This is war. We
Speaker 2: are living in the end times and redg has turned
Speaker 2: against God. What you're hearing now is a maximum security
Speaker 2: correctional facility south of Johannesburg. It's popularly known as Sun City,
Speaker 2: after a famous holiday resort in South Africa's Northwest province.
Speaker 2: The inmates ironically chose this name, implying that any time
Speaker 2: spent there was the furthest thing from a holiday. It's
Speaker 2: a kin to calling Riker's Island Disney.
Speaker 3: World with you.
Speaker 2: When I entered the prison, I was fristed from head
Speaker 2: to toe. I boarded a rickety old bus that took
Speaker 2: us to the women's prison. Next, we slowed to a
Speaker 2: stop in front of a high razor wire fence that
Speaker 2: surrounded a large brick building. The sun was out, there
Speaker 2: was a bite in the wind. I followed a stream
Speaker 2: of visitors off the bus and through layers of fence.
Speaker 2: We were all frissed again and again. Each time I
Speaker 2: became more nervous. After what felt like an eternity, the
Speaker 2: guards checked me in his curs who would check excitement
Speaker 2: and fear course through me. I was about to come
Speaker 2: face to face with the greatest evil I had ever known,
Speaker 2: Marinda Stein herself. Like with the first murder, the group
Speaker 2: heavily scouted at the location. Pastor Reginald ben Dixon lives
Speaker 2: on a one way street. His house has a long driveway,
Speaker 2: a security gate, and a surrounding cinder block wall. Mikayla
Speaker 2: rents a car, LaRue replaces the license plate with a
Speaker 2: stolen one, and Zach, Merinda, and Marcel pile in and
Speaker 2: had to rege his house. On the drive, fourteen year
Speaker 2: old Marcel becomes suddenly nauseous. She asked them to pull over.
Speaker 2: The murder squad decides that Marcel is too sick and
Speaker 2: they all returned to Kruger's sturt. This was not a
Speaker 2: good look for Marcel or Mikaela, for that matter. When
Speaker 2: Marcel got sick, it was Michaela who tended to her.
Speaker 2: Over the past few years, Marcella and Michaela had bonded
Speaker 2: while Marinda focused squarely on her duty to Cecilia. Michayla
Speaker 2: became Marcel's sole ally and confidant. Marcel looked up to her.
Speaker 2: Both were relieved that their deadly assignment was aboarded. That night, Thursday,
Speaker 2: August ninth, twenty twelve, Reginald ben Dixon receives a call
Speaker 2: from Zach Valentine. Zach uses a fake name and says
Speaker 2: he's seeking a spiritual counselor. He flatters him and says
Speaker 2: Reg comes highly recommended. The two men make an appointment
Speaker 2: to meet the following Monday at a local coffee shop.
Speaker 2: Reg jots it down in his date book. On the
Speaker 2: day of the appointment, the thirteenth of August twenty twelve, Zach, Marian,
Speaker 2: and Marcel make their way to Ben Dixon's home. They
Speaker 2: call and ask for a rain check, assuming he would
Speaker 2: be at home for a while, before making other plans.
Speaker 2: The scouting mission conclude that Ben Dixon's wife would be
Speaker 2: away until later that evening. About that same time, Ria
Speaker 2: Grunivald gets a text on her phone from a number
Speaker 2: she doesn't recognize. Have you said your goodbyes to Reg?
Speaker 2: I hope you did. Ria immediately forwards the message to
Speaker 2: the police officer she's been in contact with, the same
Speaker 2: cop who was a no show at the coffee shop
Speaker 2: sting operation. Not Surprisingly, he doesn't respond. Ria tries calling,
Speaker 2: and yet again the police aren't there for her when
Speaker 2: she needs them the most. Meanwhile, the novice assassins were
Speaker 2: nearing Regg's house. MICHAELA. Was ordered to stay home for
Speaker 2: this mission. She'd stay by Cecilia's side while the others
Speaker 2: followed orders. Cecilia no longer trusted Mikayla to get the
Speaker 2: job done. Marcel, on the other hand, was not given
Speaker 2: an option. Marinda made sure her daughter was there to
Speaker 2: learn by example. Cecilia ordered Marcel to bring a video
Speaker 2: came to record the killing. She wanted evidence of their devotion,
Speaker 2: and she wanted to see reg Bend Dixon die. Interviewing
Speaker 2: Mirinda for this podcast meant giving her a platform. The
Speaker 2: ethics of that concerned us quite a bit, But after
Speaker 2: months of pouring over the facts of this case, we
Speaker 2: were missing a critical piece. What on earth motivated these
Speaker 2: seemingly normal people to become killers? I believe that talking
Speaker 2: to her might provide more insight into Cecilia's mindset and
Speaker 2: the group dynamics she cultivated. I wanted to figure out
Speaker 2: why Mirinda and the rest of EPD did what they
Speaker 2: did and how they justified it in their own minds.
Speaker 2: In the visiting area, there were about ten other inmates
Speaker 2: facing their loved ones in an echoy and sterile room
Speaker 2: with a folding table that held handmade crafts for sale,
Speaker 2: crocheted holders, and beat a jewelry, all made by inmates.
Speaker 2: I walked past the tables and then heard a voice saying, Curt,
Speaker 2: how are you there. She was the face I had
Speaker 2: seen peering back at me, frozen in mugshots and courtroom photographs.
Speaker 2: She smiled at me and thanked me for coming. We
Speaker 2: sat down on a long, wooden picnic bench in the
Speaker 2: center of the room. I was now a foot away
Speaker 2: face to face with Merinda Steyn. She was as nervous
Speaker 2: as I was, and told me so. Honestly, I felt disarmed,
Speaker 2: mostly by her politeness, her seemingly normal demeanor, but that
Speaker 2: light soon dimmed, clouded by who I knew her to be,
Speaker 2: and that storm only grew as she started telling me
Speaker 2: what happened with Ben Dixon. Now, as you can tell,
Speaker 2: the audio quality of this interview was pretty rough, so
Speaker 2: that an actor to read some of what Marinda shared
Speaker 2: with us so that you can clearly understand her chilling words.
Speaker 2: I knew the interaction would be tense and a bit awkward,
Speaker 2: but what I really didn't expect was how casually Mirinda
Speaker 2: would talk about the act of taking someone's life, and
Speaker 2: so brutally she was proud of what she'd done.
Speaker 1: I had a bad child.
Speaker 4: I had a bad child, did and he looked exactly
Speaker 4: like my father Sam. He was such a trusting idiot.
Speaker 2: The kill team disguised themselves in police uniforms, their weapons
Speaker 2: of choice knives and an axe. Marinda described calling Redge
Speaker 2: from the front security gate using a burner phone. She
Speaker 2: claimed they were detectives from the South African Police Service
Speaker 2: who needed to speak with him about the recent murders
Speaker 2: and a possible connection to his friend Ria Grunewald. Ben Dixon,
Speaker 2: of course, wanted to help with the investigation, so he
Speaker 2: let the killers in.
Speaker 4: He was sort of a bit suspicious, and he was
Speaker 4: sort of a bit suspicious, and then he started talking
Speaker 4: to us, and he opened the gate for us, and
Speaker 4: we're walking out like a long driveway.
Speaker 2: Marinda came up with a ploy to come their way,
Speaker 2: and why.
Speaker 1: Don't we go into speaking?
Speaker 4: Then I said to them, well why don't we go
Speaker 4: and speak inside the house, you know, because now the
Speaker 4: walls are high, but the neighbors would see.
Speaker 2: As the pastor and EPD walked up the front yard
Speaker 2: toward Ben Dixon's home, Marinda and Zach locked eyes.
Speaker 4: So we went just around the bean, and we went
Speaker 4: just around the bend, and he walked in front of us.
Speaker 4: And then Zack didn't even wait for me. He just
Speaker 4: started eating him over the head and he fell there
Speaker 4: in front of us. So we were never even in
Speaker 4: his house.
Speaker 2: Zach got impatient and hit Bendixon over the head with
Speaker 2: the back of the axe. They didn't even make it
Speaker 2: into his home. Then Marinda joined in, stabbing him with
Speaker 2: her fishing knife. Marcel fourteen years old, watches and muted
Speaker 2: horror as this gruesome reality unfolds before her. Sitting there
Speaker 2: in her prison jumpsuit. Marinda twisted this into some distorted
Speaker 2: form of grace. Well, person, I.
Speaker 1: Believe in killing a person quickly.
Speaker 4: I believe in killing a person quickly. No one ever
Speaker 4: screamed when I killed them. They were dead within seconds.
Speaker 2: Here's Christelle Boisen recalling Mirinda's court room testimony.
Speaker 5: She was explaining that between her and Zuk, while they
Speaker 5: were busy with Rex Benedict and stabbing him and slashing him,
Speaker 5: they actually got so excited that Zuck accidentally hit her
Speaker 5: with the ex and she was telling him, hey, just
Speaker 5: you know, stay clear. She was explaining this in.
Speaker 2: Court Even when it was obvious that reg was dead,
Speaker 2: Marinda continued to stab him. Her depravity was not only
Speaker 2: proof of her loyalty to God and to Secilia, but
Speaker 2: the result of some research.
Speaker 5: She says, she one time remember watching a documentary or something,
Speaker 5: and they say that if you want to know if
Speaker 5: someone is dead, you must look at this space on
Speaker 5: the throat, and if the space stops throbbing, then you
Speaker 5: know that the heart stopped pumping. And she was stabbing
Speaker 5: rex Bena Dixon and waiting for this not to throb anymore,
Speaker 5: and then she would know that he's dead.
Speaker 2: With their work done, they leave Regg's lifeless body on
Speaker 2: the grass in the front yard, locking the security gate
Speaker 2: on their way out. When they pull up at Casana Flats,
Speaker 2: Mikaela is outside sitting in her car. Zach, still hyped
Speaker 2: on adrenaline from his second murder, boast to his wife
Speaker 2: about what they'd done. Marenda and Marcel follow behind, corroborating
Speaker 2: Zack's account of their kill like a hunting party celebrating
Speaker 2: their conquest. Mikayla, numb with shock and careful not to
Speaker 2: show any indication of fear or disapproval, forced a crooked
Speaker 2: smile inside, though she trembled terrified at what her husband
Speaker 2: had become a monster of his own making. At this point,
Speaker 2: I think it'll be helpful to sort out all the
Speaker 2: police and detectives involved in the investigation of these murders.
Speaker 2: It can get confusing since the police treated the first
Speaker 2: couple of crimes as unrelated the car and church bombings,
Speaker 2: Reggi's murder and the killing of Natasha and Joy, so
Speaker 2: what became known as the Kruger's Dorf killings were investigated
Speaker 2: in stages. It's hard to pinpoint the exact chain of
Speaker 2: events and police involvement at each stage. Many statements from
Speaker 2: the cops make it sound as if they were there
Speaker 2: the whole time, even if they were not. Everyone we
Speaker 2: spoke to seems to have an opinion about how it
Speaker 2: all went down. So here we go. From what we
Speaker 2: can gather. Captain Venvick was aware of the cases surrounding
Speaker 2: the car and church bombings, and may have even been
Speaker 2: briefed on them, But when we spoke to him, Benvick
Speaker 2: told us that he wasn't officially assigned as a lead
Speaker 2: investigator until after Pastor Reginald ben Dixon turned up dead.
Speaker 6: So it happened Onion of August that I was called
Speaker 6: to ic a person was deceased, and that is actually
Speaker 6: I became involved in this guys.
Speaker 2: Then there's his associate, Colonel Henny Diager, a career cop
Speaker 2: with a brooding, tony soprano type presence. Colonel Diyager had
Speaker 2: been part of the investigation team since the car bombing incidents, assisting.
Speaker 2: We think it's not totally clear when exactly Diyager became
Speaker 2: part of this investigation, but he's a major player and
Speaker 2: would soon become a pebble in the shoe of the
Speaker 2: detectives seeking truth and justice. Many of the facts surrounding
Speaker 2: both the Yager and Vinvick's involvement in the Cecilia Stein
Speaker 2: case remain opaque. Then there's Detective Susette Knotse, graceful and bold,
Speaker 2: she is called in a bit later, followed by the
Speaker 2: brazen Detective Ben Boisen and a team of seasoned investigators.
Speaker 2: Both Detective Susette Knotse and Ben Boysen each had to
Speaker 2: re examine a string of suspicious events and reconsider the
Speaker 2: evidence from every angle, essentially rebuild the case and track
Speaker 2: where and how it all began. The other two law
Speaker 2: enforcement officials are Colonel Kobas Yonker, Suzette's mentor, who started
Speaker 2: the Occult Related Crimes unit, and Colonel Christelle Boisen, a
Speaker 2: well respected officer in the South South African Police Service.
Speaker 2: She remains the acting Operational overhead Commander for the West
Speaker 2: Rand District. She's also married to Ben and they often
Speaker 2: help each other out with cases. So here we are
Speaker 2: August thirteenth, twenty twelve. Pastor Reginald ben Dixon's body lies
Speaker 2: on the grass. It's a horrifying scene. Detective Sussette Canotze
Speaker 2: recalls the crime scene photos.
Speaker 1: He was hacked from behind. When he turned around, he
Speaker 1: was hacked from the front.
Speaker 2: The pastor had axe wounds to the back of his
Speaker 2: head and had been stabbed more than ten times on
Speaker 2: his chest and Torso here's Captain Johann Benvick.
Speaker 6: On the scene. It was one of the most gruesome
Speaker 6: motives which I've seen in the even thirty four years
Speaker 6: in this Athrican Police Service.
Speaker 2: Standing there in Ben Dixon's front yard, Captain van Vick
Speaker 2: suppose met Colonel Di Yager for the first time.
Speaker 6: There was another policeman that arrived on the scene of
Speaker 6: Colonel Dia. He said that he was from the occult
Speaker 6: unit of the reservice. I've never met him before. He
Speaker 6: then informed me that the murder had some sort of
Speaker 6: occult connection.
Speaker 2: Here is where the window of truth begins to blur.
Speaker 2: Though according to Yana Marx, who was present at all
Speaker 2: of the court proceedings, both the Yager and Van Vick
Speaker 2: had been at least adjacent to the carbomb investigations. Colonel
Speaker 2: di Yager may have even been assisting on them, so
Speaker 2: it's very likely they would have met before. The other
Speaker 2: strange thing is that Colonel di Yager was brought on
Speaker 2: as a consultant to assess the potential for ritual murder
Speaker 2: in the case of Natasha Berger and Joy Burnside, even
Speaker 2: though their murders were technically outside of his jurisdiction. He
Speaker 2: was reportedly an expert on the occult. The Yager has
Speaker 2: bravado a man's any room he finds himself in any
Speaker 2: crime scene too. His arrival on the scene of Ben
Speaker 2: Dixon's murder was kind of like what we've seen in
Speaker 2: movies when the FBI shows up and takes over, but
Speaker 2: in South Africa, the case remains in the hands of
Speaker 2: the lead investigating officer, which is now then Vick. The
Speaker 2: Yager was confident that Ben Dixon's murder was a ritualistic slaying,
Speaker 2: the work of a Satanic cult, and likely related to
Speaker 2: the previous killing of Joy and Natasha detectives, who said
Speaker 2: Canotse and Ben Boyson, on the other hand, both believe
Speaker 2: that an under resourced police department coupled with the nationwide
Speaker 2: fear of the occult often resulted in a rush to judgment,
Speaker 2: and that dynamic resulted in poor police work, especially when
Speaker 2: a crime aligned so neatly with the biases born of
Speaker 2: their imagined fears.
Speaker 1: The two invesiguiding officers working on the chist concentrated more
Speaker 1: on the Syitanism side, and they totally lost focus on
Speaker 1: the actual murders that needs to be investigated, which actually, yes,
Speaker 1: it was part of the story, but that wasn't why
Speaker 1: the murders took place.
Speaker 2: The yager argued that there should have been more blood
Speaker 2: on the scene, given the brutality of Ben Dixon's wounds.
Speaker 1: He was saying, no, there was a lot of blood,
Speaker 1: and the blood just went Missy, where's all the blood?
Speaker 2: The Yager told his team that whoever committed this murder
Speaker 2: must have consumed the blood, a clear mark of ceremony.
Speaker 1: So then he said, no, no, no, no, somebody must
Speaker 1: have drank it.
Speaker 2: The police worked earnestly with the yager's theory that this
Speaker 2: was the grizzly act of satan worshiping blood drinkers. However,
Speaker 2: Detective Susette thought it was obvious where the blood had gone.
Speaker 1: Now that person is laying on the grass. So it
Speaker 1: went into the grass and sorted by the gross us
Speaker 1: that is where it went. Nobody drank it.
Speaker 2: In other words, all the satanism stuff was nothing more
Speaker 2: than a powerful distraction.
Speaker 1: You have to follow facts.
Speaker 7: The facts was right in front of them, but their
Speaker 7: attention was drawn to sensation, dragging their attention in the
Speaker 7: sensational route, and you can't investigate like that.
Speaker 2: Ben Poison, also looking at this retroactively, agrees that this
Speaker 2: was a huge mistake.
Speaker 6: And that's why the twenty twelve meters were never solved.
Speaker 5: They were investigating satanism.
Speaker 2: Satanism is not a crime. You investigate the crime. So
Speaker 2: clearly the police started off on the wrong track. In fact,
Speaker 2: they began to suspect that it was actually Ria who
Speaker 2: is behind it all.
Speaker 6: I regarded Riochronvode is also a person that just was
Speaker 6: legitimate and just wanted to help the people and assist
Speaker 6: the people. But because all of the these things that
Speaker 6: escalated at the latest stage, I also became suspicious of According.
Speaker 2: To Reginald Ben Dixon's phone records, Rhea had an appointment
Speaker 2: with him on the day he was murdered. When the
Speaker 2: police confronted her about this, she said it must be
Speaker 2: the Satanists impersonating her, and that's when she decided to
Speaker 2: find a lawyer. Because of this scheduled meeting and the
Speaker 2: fact that she was connected to both Reginald Ben Dixon
Speaker 2: and Natasha Berger, Rhea now officially became the primary suspect.
Speaker 2: They reached out to Ria's old mentor fhavinga for comment
Speaker 2: havinga mentions a Colonel X here he means colonel the yager.
Speaker 8: I got a colonel from the SIPs contacting me who said, listen,
Speaker 8: I need to speak to you. There's been murders. It's
Speaker 8: occult related. It's in Krugerdosdorp area, connected to overcomers in
Speaker 8: christ And I say, whoao overcomers in Christ? Yes, Krnival
Speaker 8: And you know it was that moment. It was that shock,
Speaker 8: it was that disbelief.
Speaker 2: No, this gon't be when we spoke to him, there
Speaker 2: was still an open investigation into police misconduct, thus our
Speaker 2: use of Colonel X. More on that post mortem investigation
Speaker 2: in a later episode. At this moment in time, havinga
Speaker 2: knew right away that the police must be barking up
Speaker 2: the wrong tree. They were ignoring the facts that were
Speaker 2: staring them in the face, preferring to focus on the
Speaker 2: illusions from a now antiquated satanic panic. I say to.
Speaker 8: Colonel x'sit, Colonel X, your suspect is Cecilia Stein. Please
Speaker 8: follow her, kick her. That's your man suspect.
Speaker 2: But the yager wasn't convinced of Rhea's innocence until it
Speaker 2: became clear as day. Rhea's new lawyer told her to
Speaker 2: document her whereabouts every day so that moving forward, she
Speaker 2: could always prove her innocence. But right after Ben Dixon's murder,
Speaker 2: the police confiscated Rhea's cell phones, hard drives, and laptop,
Speaker 2: disconnecting Riha from the world.
Speaker 6: A big breakthrough came when on the morning of fest
Speaker 6: at Ben Dixon's funeral.
Speaker 2: Ria woke up on the morning at pastor Reginald Ben
Speaker 2: Dixon's funeral. She stepped out onto her porch and felt
Speaker 2: the sun on her face. She looked down and found
Speaker 2: a parcel waiting at her feet.
Speaker 6: Ria found me and she said that she found a
Speaker 6: beckage in front of a door. Beckage was repped. It
Speaker 6: was some sort of meat.
Speaker 2: Rhonnfolded the damn newspaper. Inside was a large chunk of
Speaker 2: bloody meat.
Speaker 6: Pinned to it was another note leta written in blockwoods,
Speaker 6: look what the doggies lift you've of Richel something to
Speaker 6: that effect.
Speaker 2: The note read, look what the dogs have left you
Speaker 2: of your precious past her. The detectives now had to
Speaker 2: let go of their pet theories that either Satanists or
Speaker 2: Rhea were to blame for the murders. Now they were
Speaker 2: forced to consider the case with fresh eyes. On top
Speaker 2: of that, the haphazard criminals from EPD had fumbled again.
Speaker 6: Fingerprints was found on the letta that repped this piece
Speaker 6: of meats.
Speaker 2: Once again, police found fingerprints.
Speaker 6: I took the fingerprints, and the fingerprints indeed belonged to
Speaker 6: Moderndas think.
Speaker 2: Then Vic took the opportunity to bring in everyone he
Speaker 2: could from EPD. The police had all of them in custody,
Speaker 2: even Secilia. But despite all the evidence and the possible
Speaker 2: motives pointing to Mirinda and Cecilia as the culprits, both
Speaker 2: were released from police custody. In fact, all the members
Speaker 2: of EPD were let off the hook. Before we go,
Speaker 2: there is one other police officer you should know about.
Speaker 2: He didn't work on this case, at least not in
Speaker 2: the way the others did. But he is the reason
Speaker 2: Ben Dixon's attackers wore police uniforms, the reason Cecilia was
Speaker 2: never worried about them getting caught.
Speaker 5: She was extremely confident that nothing will happen to them.
Speaker 1: She was constantly telling them, don't worry. We know the cops.
Speaker 1: They will do nothing.
Speaker 5: Don't worry about it.
Speaker 2: This other officer, his name was drees Stein and he
Speaker 2: was Cecilia's husband.
Speaker 3: Even just see us responsor to the police, So do
Speaker 3: you trust?
Speaker 2: On the next episode of Queen Havoc.
Speaker 1: She came to realize God will never ask you to
Speaker 1: murder anybody.
Speaker 2: So that there was styles where they used to study.
Speaker 3: She likes to provoke. Then again said when.
Speaker 1: She said she's going to the police thing the publix,
Speaker 1: she ended.
Speaker 6: Up date the batting, the read board, the wall and
Speaker 6: the roof was full of blood.
Speaker 2: Queen Havoc in Her Murder Cult is a production of
Speaker 2: Schooly Humans and iHeart Podcasts. Queen Havoc is hosted and
Speaker 2: created by me Kurt Kupachick, produced and written by Jennifer Takini,
Speaker 2: Julia Chriscau and Kurt Kupachick. Lead producer is Julia Chriskau.
Speaker 2: Story editor is Saren Burnett. Senior producer is Amelia Brock.
Speaker 2: Production manager is Daisy Church. Original music composed by Claire Campbell, editing,
Speaker 2: sound design and scoring by Jesse Niswanger. Associate producers are
Speaker 2: DaShan Moodley and Jermaine Kriher. Additional producing by Ben Melman,
Speaker 2: fact checking by Dennis Webster. Recording engineers are Graham Gibson,
Speaker 2: Clay Hillenberg and Josh Hook. Brind Stein was read by
Speaker 2: Angelique Pretorius. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, L. C. Crowley,
Speaker 2: Brandon Barr, Jennifer t Keeney and Kurt Kubachak. We want
Speaker 2: to thank all of those who so generously welcomed us
Speaker 2: in South Africa and shared their stories. We're incredibly grateful
Speaker 2: to you all We also want to acknowledge how traumatic
Speaker 2: these events are for the victims and their families. Please
Speaker 2: respect their privacy. If you or someone you know has
Speaker 2: been affected by cult behaviors, there are resources available, including
Speaker 2: Voices for Dignity at Christine Murray dot com.