Speaker 1: Tell me more about what the lake looked like.
Speaker 2: It reminded me of glass, especially when it was so still.
Speaker 2: Now I never went from one side to the other,
Speaker 2: just because we weren't allowed. But before I became a maiden,
Speaker 2: there was a floating dock out there, and I went
Speaker 2: swimming from the floating dock and we would jump off
Speaker 2: and see who could grab the most sludge from the
Speaker 2: bottom and bring it up, as kids do. I remember
Speaker 2: sitting at Alamoth and there were decks we were right
Speaker 2: up against the lake, and I'd go out there in
Speaker 2: the morning sometimes and the lake would just look like glass.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you'd hear a beaver slap his tail or, you'd
Speaker 2: see ducks swimming, you'd see all the mys rising up
Speaker 2: with the sunrise coming up over it, and then you'd
Speaker 2: hear the loon call. It was a very beautiful, peaceful place.
Speaker 1: Sounds like it.
Speaker 2: During the winter it would completely freeze over, so it
Speaker 2: was just.
Speaker 3: This huge vast snow and ice, and then come springtime
Speaker 3: you'd start to hear the ice breaking up and this
Speaker 3: cracking sound almost like trees falling, that would get really loud.
Speaker 2: It would just echo through all the trees. As you know,
Speaker 2: the winters in Minnesota can be freezing, so I loved
Speaker 2: it when I could hear the ice starting to crack
Speaker 2: and you could see everything was melting, you new spring
Speaker 2: was right around the corner.
Speaker 1: At first, adjusting to being a maiden was a scary,
Speaker 1: lonely prospect, filled with shame and fear. But as the
Speaker 1: years blew by, Lindsay started feeling differently about it, and
Speaker 1: she started feeling differently about Victor. It's hard to imagine
Speaker 1: how that shift would happen, But then I think about
Speaker 1: how people have this ability to adapt and cope, to
Speaker 1: find the light in the corners of a dark room,
Speaker 1: and how after years of sinking into that darkness, you
Speaker 1: might appreciate those folds of light. When Lindsay was a teenager,
Speaker 1: Victor had the Maidens read Paradise Lost, John Milton's epic
Speaker 1: poem about Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden.
Speaker 1: It's kind of surprising and that the story actually follows
Speaker 1: Satan as the protagonist. The story often unfolds through his eyes,
Speaker 1: and basically Satan comes up with a scheme to tempt
Speaker 1: Adam and Eve into sin. Satan convinces Eve to eat
Speaker 1: fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil,
Speaker 1: which is forbidden. Then God banishes them from their paradise.
Speaker 2: Paradise Lost is kind of it's a book about the
Speaker 2: fall of Adam and Eve and how our world became cursed.
Speaker 2: It was just weeks of us going to the carriage
Speaker 2: house and we'd make food and a fire, and we'd
Speaker 2: play music and we'd read the book.
Speaker 1: Paradise Lost is this mysterious book. It's full of hidden meaning.
Speaker 1: But Victor used it in a very literal way. His
Speaker 1: point was simple, look at how great this paradise is.
Speaker 1: If you fall from grace, you'll miss out. He asked
Speaker 1: the maidens to imagine their own version of paradise and
Speaker 1: pushed that fantastical promise one day they'd get their own planet,
Speaker 1: a place they could design themselves.
Speaker 2: So, you know, we were all talking about what we
Speaker 2: wanted them to look like, and how Victor would be
Speaker 2: able to come visit all of us, and how great
Speaker 2: it would be because of our dedication to in this life,
Speaker 2: to him and to the Church.
Speaker 1: What did you imagine your little heaven would be like
Speaker 1: or what would be there? How would you spend your
Speaker 1: time there?
Speaker 2: Oh, gosh, I wanted my heaven to look like a
Speaker 2: huge treehouse, but like I wanted it to be in
Speaker 2: the jungle, and I wanted, you know, the if you're
Speaker 2: trying to get from one cliff to another and they
Speaker 2: have those swinging bridges, tons of those through the trees
Speaker 2: and just treehouses connecting all to one another with monkeys
Speaker 2: and flowers and streams and what are That's kind of
Speaker 2: how my picture in might Heaven looking.
Speaker 1: Like that sounds like a fun place to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He talked about how we'd be able to basically
Speaker 2: just fly on over to each other's almost like stars.
Speaker 2: I would just be able to fly over to one
Speaker 2: another and visit each other. And it was definitely a
Speaker 2: season of for me at least, coming together and really
Speaker 2: bonding with the maidens and sometimes a lot of fun,
Speaker 2: lots of laughs. And I remember in those times thinking like, gosh,
Speaker 2: like how lucky am I out of all the people
Speaker 2: in the church, that He's spending time with the ten
Speaker 2: of us.
Speaker 1: Lindsay remembers when she was assigned to light the lantern
Speaker 1: on the bridge by the pond, the one they kept
Speaker 1: lit so Jesus could find them when he returned to
Speaker 1: bring them to Heaven.
Speaker 2: I remember thinking that lighting the lantern one night with
Speaker 2: one of the maidens walking up, like, can you believe
Speaker 2: out of all the people in the entire world, like
Speaker 2: we are the ones out of all the girls. And
Speaker 2: I remember saying, do you think that there's life on
Speaker 2: another planet? And maybe they have their own set of
Speaker 2: maidens over there? Like what would they be called? You know,
Speaker 2: like just thinking maybe there was another pocket on somewhere else,
Speaker 2: like way across the universe, ten girls who were dedicated
Speaker 2: to living their life for Christ. And I was like,
Speaker 2: I'll still be eighty years old walking with my cane
Speaker 2: through the snow to light the lantern.
Speaker 1: Was Sometimes Lindsay felt like she was in the garden
Speaker 1: of Eden and she could stay in that garden forever.
Speaker 1: All she had to do was resist eating the apple
Speaker 1: from her cocoa punch. In iHeart Podcasts, This is the
Speaker 1: Turning River Road, I'm Alan Lance Lesser and I.
Speaker 4: America Lance Part five Paradise Lost in the Past, Lindsay
Speaker 4: got in trouble for all kinds of things, like when
Speaker 4: Victor thought she smiled too much and took her instruments
Speaker 4: away for a week. Sometimes it felt like no one
Speaker 4: had her back. The maidens reported on each other, and
Speaker 4: she even got yelled at for waking up late. But
Speaker 4: over time, Lindsay grew more at home with the maidens,
Speaker 4: especially when River Road decided to sell the Shepherd's Camp
Speaker 4: their headquarters. Selling the camp made them millions of dollars,
Speaker 4: which gave them a financial boost. Victor moved to the
Speaker 4: maidens to a farmhouse at maiden Love, River Roads dairy farm.
Speaker 4: This meant they saw less of Victor. From Victor and
Speaker 4: the Shepherd's Camp, Lindsay didn't feel so watched. The space
Speaker 4: allowed the maidens to find each other. River Road had
Speaker 4: this little pottery business where the maidens would make dinnerware
Speaker 4: and cups and mugs and vases and wine coolers and
Speaker 4: even sinks. Everyone had a roll, like one maiden who
Speaker 4: was really good at glazing, one maiden really good at carving.
Speaker 4: Then some of the adults in the fellowship would take
Speaker 4: the pottery and sell it at shows and pop up shops.
Speaker 4: Lindsay loved it late nights at the shop with the
Speaker 4: maidens singing while they worked, and when they were done
Speaker 4: they crawled into bed. At the farmhouse, the walls slanted
Speaker 4: down where the beds were, so you know, if you
Speaker 4: sat up straight, you may hit your head. We lay
Speaker 4: awake in bed, and I was coming up with tons
Speaker 4: of different stories, little funny stories to make them laugh,
Speaker 4: because because there was so much hardness to our life.
Speaker 2: In some ways, it's sweet that you were telling them stories.
Speaker 4: When you're one of the two youngest, you'd think that
Speaker 4: it would be like the oldest maiden telling stories to
Speaker 4: the younger girls, or something that seems like the real
Speaker 4: Lindsay coming out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those years I started blossoming more. I mean, I
Speaker 2: still got reproved all the time and yelled at but
Speaker 2: there were moments of I think the real me trying
Speaker 2: to come out and shine.
Speaker 4: Lindsay was growing up, moving from middle school awkwardness to
Speaker 4: a teenager with ideas and creativity to share, and the
Speaker 4: maidens were growing too. Instead of being pitted against each other,
Speaker 4: they were becoming true sisters to each other. They were
Speaker 4: Lindsay's family.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 4: She went by Lera, the name Victor gave her when
Speaker 4: he put her in charge of the music, and she
Speaker 4: flourished in the role. Victor gave her a tiny Panasonic
Speaker 4: tape recorder she could use for her songwriting, and once
Speaker 4: the Maidens worked up the songs. They recorded them for
Speaker 4: real and mixed them and made CDs for the fellowship.
Speaker 2: Lisa and Anna did some harmonies. Sometimes Nicole would do
Speaker 2: some harmonies. If you hear the flute, that was nicky.
Speaker 2: Katrina did the drums, Sarah played the bass.
Speaker 5: Drug clost Guy Saver, holding your.
Speaker 2: See you, the bond that the Maidens shared, it was deep,
Speaker 2: it was real. It was beautiful what we had in
Speaker 2: the midst of such terrific circumstances.
Speaker 4: In Lindsay's mind, those were beautiful years. Two thousand and five,
Speaker 4: two thousand and six, two thousand and seven. Even Victor
Speaker 4: seemed more at rest.
Speaker 2: And he had a baby grand piano there and we
Speaker 2: would just sit there and play music, and I remember
Speaker 2: figuring out on my guitar and just how happy he
Speaker 2: would be. He'd be so happy and praising you, and
Speaker 2: when he smiled, he had those smile lines, and it
Speaker 2: would just make you feel warm and really good and
Speaker 2: that you were doing really well. He was very like
Speaker 2: playful in some way, wanting to hear your thoughts and
Speaker 2: your ideas, and when he wasn't around, I would miss
Speaker 2: that feeling of the praise and almost feeling like I
Speaker 2: was finally being heard and valued in a way.
Speaker 4: Often, a couple of maidens walked Victor to where he
Speaker 4: slept at the end of the night, then they'd return
Speaker 4: with a request. One maiden would be asked to return
Speaker 4: to Victor alone.
Speaker 2: And we all knew what was going on. Nobody talked
Speaker 2: about it. But when somebody would come back and say, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, Victor wants to see you, and it's eleven
Speaker 2: at night or something, you knew what was going to happen.
Speaker 2: And how often it happened honestly depended on how Victor
Speaker 2: thought you were doing at the time spiritually, maybe how
Speaker 2: you looked physically, so it could happen as much as, gosh,
Speaker 2: seven ten times a month to maybe once a month,
Speaker 2: you know, depending on how you were feeling. For ten years,
Speaker 2: Lindsay says, Victor's right hand woman, Jan gave the maidens
Speaker 2: two books, both about relationships and sex. One of them
Speaker 2: included graphic how to instructions on sexual positions and how
Speaker 2: to please your partner. Lindsay thinks Victor wanted them to
Speaker 2: have these. I was still very awkward with him, and
Speaker 2: it got easier over time. That first time was so
Speaker 2: hard and definitely the ones after that, but they got
Speaker 2: easier and it wasn't you know, physically, it didn't hurt
Speaker 2: as much. I think, having that mindset of you know,
Speaker 2: it's God's love for me, it was It's like hard
Speaker 2: to say because it's so sickening, you know, and I
Speaker 2: think I don't know when it was withheld or when
Speaker 2: you knew like he wasn't happy with you, or you
Speaker 2: could tell he was giving other maidens special attention. It
Speaker 2: made me feel really bad about myself of what I
Speaker 2: was doing wrong and why I wasn't being picked more
Speaker 2: or was God upset with me for something? And then
Speaker 2: being with him in that way it felt like God
Speaker 2: did love me, like he was showing his love through
Speaker 2: Victor towards me. I would say in the beginning, it
Speaker 2: wasn't something that I craved. It wasn't like, oh, gosh,
Speaker 2: I hope he chooses me tonight for me to feel
Speaker 2: fully comfortable and even like comfortable with my body. It
Speaker 2: took years later on it definitely almost became a privilege
Speaker 2: to take care of him in that way. Makes me
Speaker 2: feel really awful to say, because it's really hard, you know,
Speaker 2: like thinking back on those years, like why I mean,
Speaker 2: why did I think that way? Why did I allow
Speaker 2: myself to get so sucked in by this man and
Speaker 2: thinking to the point that if I died for him,
Speaker 2: that would be the greatest honor. There was a season
Speaker 2: where I was assigned to take care of Victor, like
Speaker 2: wake him up in the morning and make him breakfast,
Speaker 2: help him organize his day. And I think I was
Speaker 2: on that duty for about ten months, and I remember
Speaker 2: hardly getting in trouble during that time. I remember just
Speaker 2: being almost like so grateful to him that he would
Speaker 2: choose me to have this time with him, and to
Speaker 2: get to even like know him better, to be able
Speaker 2: to work in the cabin with him in this intimate setting.
Speaker 2: I eventually thought I did love him, like truly loved
Speaker 2: him and would do anything for him.
Speaker 1: In her teens, Lindsay actually felt she was in love
Speaker 1: with Victor, and she has a record of this dynamic.
Speaker 1: She wrote about her love for Victor in a series
Speaker 1: of letters to him. The pages and pages she shared
Speaker 1: with us span years of her life. Starting at age fifteen.
Speaker 1: She wrote in pencil on simple lined notebook paper, the
Speaker 1: kind you'd see in school. As I look through the
Speaker 1: letters now I can't help but notice how much Lindsay
Speaker 1: seems like she's trying to prove her love to Victor,
Speaker 1: like she's desperate to have him believe her. On one hand,
Speaker 1: she's read reading these letters out of fear. By this point,
Speaker 1: she's been conditioned to behave and say things to avoid
Speaker 1: Victor's angry side. On the other hand, Lindsay has genuine
Speaker 1: feelings of warmth and admiration for him. That's something that's
Speaker 1: really common for kids who are being sexually abused. They
Speaker 1: often feel intense affection toward the perpetrator. They might even
Speaker 1: be convinced they're in love. Then later in life, when
Speaker 1: they look back, it can be hard to make sense
Speaker 1: of The letters Lindsay wrote are filled with religious language.
Speaker 1: She talks about a relationship with Jesus Christ getting ready
Speaker 1: for his return, but they also feel like love letters.
Speaker 1: The over the top, mosty type of writing you'd expect
Speaker 1: from two teenagers who just fell in love. And that's
Speaker 1: what Victor said the relationship was. He said he was
Speaker 1: her first love. In one letter, she writes, quote, thank
Speaker 1: you for all the times you loved me when I
Speaker 1: wasn't even worth loving. You've been a father, mother, and brother,
Speaker 1: a teacher, a shepherd, a friend, a covering, a watcher,
Speaker 1: someone who's ready to listen, the lover of my soul,
Speaker 1: a leader, somebody who's not afraid to reprove and encourage
Speaker 1: and correct forgiving, showing mercy and grace. Not the height, depth, length,
Speaker 1: or breadth could contain all the love that you have
Speaker 1: poured of yourself into me. In the same letter, she
Speaker 1: says she's cried so much her shirt is soaked, her
Speaker 1: eyes bloodshot, with a pile of tissues next to her.
Speaker 1: Then she crosses out the word pile and writes mountain.
Speaker 1: She says the tears come from thankfulness and love for him.
Speaker 1: She signs the letter hidden in This Love with You Lera,
Speaker 1: the name Victor had given her at the bottom of
Speaker 1: the page. It looks like she's been practicing writing her
Speaker 1: new name and his two. She writes your lira, your lira, lira,
Speaker 1: and Victor's name four times, like what a school age
Speaker 1: kid would doodle about her childhood crush. Sometimes, when she
Speaker 1: was reproved a lot, she says, she would seek out
Speaker 1: sex with him. She wanted him to pick her for
Speaker 1: the night. She wanted to feel desired to get rid
Speaker 1: of the worthlessness and ugliness.
Speaker 2: She felt.
Speaker 1: She might write something is on my heart that I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you about if you have time
Speaker 1: to fellowship Fellowship. Because she didn't want to spell it out,
Speaker 1: she wrote him once I love you, I love you,
Speaker 1: I love you, and underlined the last one. Victor left
Speaker 1: her messages too, like good morning, my dear, please wake
Speaker 1: me at six am in his love, or a note
Speaker 1: from Victor on paper printed with sunfly to my beloved
Speaker 1: Lindsay twined together my darling Lindsay of two one flesh,
Speaker 1: the great mystery. I love you, Victor and Victor recorded
Speaker 1: himself on that tape recorder, the tool he gave her
Speaker 1: to encourage her songwriting. The activities she cherished the most.
Speaker 2: Oh Leah, make a joyful noise unto the Lord God,
Speaker 2: bless you dear.
Speaker 1: After a night of praying with Victor and the maidens,
Speaker 1: Lindsay wrote a song before bed.
Speaker 2: So it goes. Sometimes the days seem so long, and
Speaker 2: my heart starts aching within, of missing you, of missing you.
Speaker 2: Driving away from your place, the tears started rolling down
Speaker 2: my face from missing you, from missing you. Soon we'll
Speaker 2: be together forever. Until then, nothing can sever the chords
Speaker 2: of love that entwine you and me, always coming back
Speaker 2: one day until then, this is what I'll say, that
Speaker 2: I'm in the fight and in love with you, that
Speaker 2: us victor. Part of it makes me sick reading that, ugh,
Speaker 2: trying to think of how, Let's see, this was in
Speaker 2: two thousand and four, so I would have been seventeen.
Speaker 1: And why do you think you wrote that? Do you
Speaker 1: think you felt that way at the time, or that
Speaker 1: you were trying to appease him or a bit of both.
Speaker 2: I think at the time I definitely felt that way.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's crazy you hear about this stuff in
Speaker 2: like domestic violence situations where people get so conditioned to
Speaker 2: living that way and then the person will abuse them
Speaker 2: and then they'll leave and then they'll say no, but
Speaker 2: I really love you and I won't do that again,
Speaker 2: and blah blah blah they'll go back and it's this
Speaker 2: revolving door. And I think I had been so conditioned
Speaker 2: at that time to want his love so badly and
Speaker 2: want to be in good graces with him, because I
Speaker 2: felt like that's how I was going to get to heaven.
Speaker 2: The heaven in my mind, wasn't about God. It was
Speaker 2: all about being with Victor for all eternity, which just
Speaker 2: shows me now how screwed up that totally is that
Speaker 2: Victor made himself to be this godlike figure.
Speaker 4: Lindsay was finally at peace with her life and the
Speaker 4: way it had been planned for her, but her best
Speaker 4: friend Jess felt something else. Jess, the youngest maiden with
Speaker 4: red hair and a giant smile, the one person Lindsay
Speaker 4: could be herself with. Lindsay didn't know it, but Jess
Speaker 4: was ill at ease. We didn't get to interview Jess,
Speaker 4: but we do have some recordings that were made of
Speaker 4: her later on. They're a little grainy and hard to hear,
Speaker 4: but she explains what happened. You can feel the dread
Speaker 4: in her voice.
Speaker 3: At that point.
Speaker 1: I was nineteen years old and extremely uncomfortable living the
Speaker 1: way we were stock.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to.
Speaker 4: Jess as talking about how uncomfortable she was living there
Speaker 4: at nineteen, and that she didn't want to be a
Speaker 4: maiden with Victor anymore.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to be with Victor.
Speaker 4: Jess had actually tried to escape once years before, back
Speaker 4: when she was middle school aged. She ran into the
Speaker 4: woods behind the shepherd's camp. She thought she'd walk until
Speaker 4: she hit Pokola Road and get to Finnlassen to find
Speaker 4: a phone, but once she was in the woods, she
Speaker 4: got scared. Then Victor found her. He yelled at her
Speaker 4: to come back, and for some reason she did. She
Speaker 4: turned around and walked back to him, and appter by
Speaker 4: the hair and dragged her inside. She never tried to
Speaker 4: escape again. But years later, in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 4: Jess couldn't take it anymore. She was nineteen years old
Speaker 4: and had been a maiden for seven years. Victor said,
Speaker 4: I'm going to ask you one more time. Is this
Speaker 4: what you want to do? Here's one last chance to leave,
Speaker 4: and Jess finally got up the courage to say, yes,
Speaker 4: I want to leave. She was the only maiden who did.
Speaker 4: She said she wanted a family of her own.
Speaker 1: I wanted to get married and have a life of my.
Speaker 4: Own, and so she did. Because that's the trick with cults.
Speaker 4: Most of the time, you can leave, you do have
Speaker 4: a choice. The point is that you're made to feel
Speaker 4: that you don't, and Jess had reached the point where
Speaker 4: she couldn't take it anymore. Jess would leave the maidens,
Speaker 4: but not the Fellowship. She told Victor she'd get married instead,
Speaker 4: the one other path a young woman in River Road
Speaker 4: could take. So Victor planned it all down to the
Speaker 4: man she would be with. Jess says it was almost
Speaker 4: like an arranged marriage. She says the guy Victor chose
Speaker 4: was strict and loyal to him, so he knew he
Speaker 4: would keep her in line. Victor had told her no
Speaker 4: hard feelings, but Jess said there were definitely hard feelings.
Speaker 4: She felt it from Victor and from all of Alamoth,
Speaker 4: all the maidens.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: Victor announced us that she was leaving and that she
Speaker 2: was going to be getting married. That was the plan
Speaker 2: to a young man in the church. And oh man,
Speaker 2: I was so mad at her for leaving.
Speaker 4: Lindsay was in shock. Jess wasn't just leaving Victor. Jess
Speaker 4: was leaving her.
Speaker 1: Ugh.
Speaker 2: I remember hating her for it because in the early
Speaker 2: years we had talked to maybe running away. Never knew
Speaker 2: how we knew we'd get in trouble, somebody would find us,
Speaker 2: and we're back right where we started. And I think
Speaker 2: those memories of us, you know, when we were twelve
Speaker 2: or fourteen thirteen, talking about running away, like just so
Speaker 2: many memories came back good ones, bad ones, and I
Speaker 2: just kept thinking, Wow, Like she got out, she did it,
Speaker 2: she left, and I think I felt so stuck. I
Speaker 2: didn't know how to get the guts to do something
Speaker 2: like that, and I was so mad at her, but
Speaker 2: I was also really happy for her. I thought she
Speaker 2: would lose her place among the maidens in heaven, and
Speaker 2: that was a big fear of mine too, And I
Speaker 2: was like, I am definitely staying a maiden, and I'm
Speaker 2: going to stay in my commitments.
Speaker 4: Seeing just leave and all the reactions only made Lindsay
Speaker 4: cling to her commitments more. She didn't want to lose
Speaker 4: her status in the next life. The idea of not
Speaker 4: being with the other maidens in heaven terrified her.
Speaker 2: But things slowly started just going very differently.
Speaker 1: Jess left in two thousand and eight, soon after some
Speaker 1: strange news hit members of River Road Fellowship. A woman
Speaker 1: in River Road contacted the police. She said that Victor
Speaker 1: had coerced her to sleep with him. He told her
Speaker 1: it was her responsibility as a woman in the church
Speaker 1: to take care of him sexually, and the woman said
Speaker 1: she wasn't the only one. She told police. Victor met
Speaker 1: with many of the adult married women privately in his lodge,
Speaker 1: and on many of those occasions he had sex with them.
Speaker 1: Now this secret was out in the open, not just
Speaker 1: to River Road but to outsiders, and with the potential
Speaker 1: for a gossip swirling, Victor told the maidens himself. He
Speaker 1: said he'd had sex with some of the married women
Speaker 1: in the group.
Speaker 2: There was just something that didn't sit right with me
Speaker 2: about him sleeping with the married women, Like it just
Speaker 2: felt wrong. I think it was because they were married.
Speaker 2: I was like, ah, this just does not feel right.
Speaker 1: Even though Victor chastised his followers every day, it was
Speaker 1: the only time Lindsay remembers him saying he'd made a mistake.
Speaker 1: He said the temptation had been too big. He referenced
Speaker 1: the Bible to make excuses. He compared what he did
Speaker 1: to some of King David's transgressions, and he likened people
Speaker 1: coming after him to persecution. Victor came up with a
Speaker 1: short phrase that became a catch all excuse for his
Speaker 1: actions that echoed across River Road.
Speaker 2: Everything was the blood of the Lamb covers it all.
Speaker 2: The blood of the Lamb covers it all. Which, yes,
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ died for our sins. Absolutely but you can't
Speaker 2: go around and sleep with other men's wives and just
Speaker 2: think that the blood of the Lamb is gonna cover
Speaker 2: your sins and you not change, truly repent and change
Speaker 2: your behavior.
Speaker 1: But Victor didn't just have his followers approval to worry about.
Speaker 1: The police were involved now, and that meant he could
Speaker 1: face legal trouble because in Minnesota it's a felony for
Speaker 1: clergy to have sex with people they're guiding spiritually.
Speaker 2: But he shared it in a way that made you
Speaker 2: feel bad for him, getting you to think like, oh,
Speaker 2: woe was me and the burden that's going to be
Speaker 2: on me? And are you ready to stay in your
Speaker 2: commitments and defend me and defend your faith if things
Speaker 2: go crazy? And at that time, yes, I was. I
Speaker 2: was totally in, totally committed, ready to take a bullet
Speaker 2: for him if needed.
Speaker 4: The news about Victor's extramarital affairs was only the first
Speaker 4: in a series of shifts in River Road Fellowship and
Speaker 4: in Lindsay's life, because it was around this time that
Speaker 4: another legal issue came up. One of the ten maidens
Speaker 4: was originally from Brazil. She had some visa issues, so
Speaker 4: she actually had to move back down to Brazil for
Speaker 4: a while, but maidens couldn't live alone. They always needed
Speaker 4: a partner, that was the rule, So the rest of
Speaker 4: the maidens took turns living with her in Brazil until
Speaker 4: the visa could be sorted. Lindsay was one of the
Speaker 4: first to volunteer. She would move to Brazil for six
Speaker 4: months to stay at the maiden's side. Suddenly, Lindsay found
Speaker 4: herself on a plane to Brazil, her first trip alone
Speaker 4: in her life.
Speaker 2: I remember being so awkward because I brought my guitar
Speaker 2: with me and I had to carry it on in
Speaker 2: People We're like saying nice things like, oh, you're gonna
Speaker 2: play something. Oh my gosh. I remember being just so
Speaker 2: self conscious. People probably thought I was a freak. I
Speaker 2: just probably had no social skills really because I hadn't
Speaker 2: been around I mean, back then I would have called
Speaker 2: them unbelievers, you know, but I hadn't been around people
Speaker 2: outside of the camp for so long.
Speaker 4: When Lindsay got in the plane, she saw something she
Speaker 4: never had before, screens on the backs of seats.
Speaker 2: The last time I flew was I think nineteen ninety seven,
Speaker 2: and now it's two thousand and nine. September one, two
Speaker 2: thousand and nine. So I sat down, and I remember
Speaker 2: it took me like two hours to decide if I
Speaker 2: was even going to watch something, because I thought for
Speaker 2: sure Victor would find out it was going to be
Speaker 2: on a bill somehow, or like they would be able
Speaker 2: to track it, somebody would tell him. But then I
Speaker 2: was like fuck it, and I I put these headphones
Speaker 2: in and started scrolling and found this teenage British movie
Speaker 2: called Angus Thongs and Perfect Snogging and Designed to shit.
Speaker 2: I remember like laughing and thinking the boys were cute,
Speaker 2: and you know, it was like a little teenage rom com,
Speaker 2: you know. But then part of me too was like,
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, I wish I had had a life
Speaker 2: like this, wish I was able to go on a
Speaker 2: first date and wear these kinds of clothes, do my
Speaker 2: hair in this certain way. I remember finishing the movie
Speaker 2: and that was it. In case they found out, I
Speaker 2: was like, I can't do more than one, Like I
Speaker 2: will be really in big trouble. I'm just this huge
Speaker 2: sinner on the plane watching this movie. I remember really
Speaker 2: liking the movie.
Speaker 4: The fear was still there that would hang on to
Speaker 4: her for years to come, but without Victor's constant supervision.
Speaker 4: There was nothing standing between Lindsay and the outside world.
Speaker 4: Once she got to Brazil, information wasn't as restricted.
Speaker 2: Being in Brazil and basically seeing people live their normal
Speaker 2: lives was so eye opening and almost surreal. It was
Speaker 2: almost like, oh my gosh, there's a whole nother life
Speaker 2: out here. People can live outside of the camp.
Speaker 4: When Victor came to visit, it had been months, far
Speaker 4: longer than she'd ever been away from him since becoming
Speaker 4: a maiden. She started to feel more distant from him.
Speaker 2: I do remember being standoffish towards him. I wasn't as
Speaker 2: full and open as I once was, and I remember
Speaker 2: I didn't want to end up in a situation where
Speaker 2: he would have sex with me, and so I made
Speaker 2: sure that you know, I never mean that opportunity available
Speaker 2: to him.
Speaker 4: River Road Fellowship was beginning to fracture after the news
Speaker 4: of Victor's affairs came out. He left, and they started
Speaker 4: to keep Victor's location secret. Sometimes Lindsay didn't even know
Speaker 4: where he was. He traveled around, including up north to
Speaker 4: right by the border of Canada. Minnesota didn't seem like
Speaker 4: a safe place for the group anymore. So Victor decided
Speaker 4: to move their headquarters from Minnesota to Washington State. They
Speaker 4: left behind the properties and farms and businesses they'd built
Speaker 4: up for so many years. Many followers relocated to Washington,
Speaker 4: including the Maidens. The people who didn't move would have
Speaker 4: to follow him from Afar. By the time Lindsay came
Speaker 4: back from Brazil, her parents had moved home to Pennsylvania
Speaker 4: without even telling her. They'd be loyal to Victor long distance,
Speaker 4: and instead of flying home to ment Minnesota, Lindsay went
Speaker 4: from Brazil to Washington. She joined the other Maidens near Spokane.
Speaker 4: They lived in a house in a regular neighborhood, set
Speaker 4: a little farther back from the houses, on a hill
Speaker 4: among the trees. To make money, the maidens knocked on
Speaker 4: doors offering cleaning services. This was a huge shift. After
Speaker 4: years of avoiding outsiders. Now Lindsay spent her days in
Speaker 4: other people's homes. Something in her mind began to turn.
Speaker 2: I think it was about three months after being there.
Speaker 2: Nicole and I were watching March of the Penguins.
Speaker 4: Nicole was an older maiden, the one considered the head
Speaker 4: of them all. She was also the daughter of Jan,
Speaker 4: Victor's right hand.
Speaker 2: Neither of us were feeling very well, so we were
Speaker 2: on the couch in the basement watching March of the Penguins.
Speaker 2: Morgan Freeman is the voice, which I didn't know him
Speaker 2: at the time, but it was one of the approved
Speaker 2: things we could watch.
Speaker 4: While watching, Lindsay did something she'd never done before. She
Speaker 4: turned to the other Maiden and said something taboo. She
Speaker 4: didn't even really plan it, it just spilled out.
Speaker 2: And I remember looking over at her and telling her
Speaker 2: that I needed to talk to her about something. And
Speaker 2: I told her that I didn't really agree with Victor
Speaker 2: sleeping with some of the married women, and that I
Speaker 2: felt like I wanted to move on from the maidens
Speaker 2: and get married someday, have a family of my own,
Speaker 2: and leave. I can't even believe that I got the
Speaker 2: guts to tell her. I think in my mind I
Speaker 2: was like, Victor's not here, you know, I wouldn't have
Speaker 2: the pressure from him to stay.
Speaker 4: But Lindsay wasn't really telling the truth when she talked
Speaker 4: to the other Maiden. Victor's affairs were her excuse when
Speaker 4: that believers might accept a strategy to be heard, but
Speaker 4: it wasn't what really drove her Brazil, the airplane, the movies, Washington.
Speaker 4: They all came together and told her something new. She
Speaker 4: didn't have to stay here, and she knew now she
Speaker 4: didn't want to.
Speaker 2: I remember, she was surprised.
Speaker 4: The maiden called her mom, Jan, who talked to Lindsay.
Speaker 4: Jan tried to explain away Victor's actions with the line
Speaker 4: she'd heard many times before, we.
Speaker 2: All make mistakes, and that Victor made a mistake and
Speaker 2: the blood of the Lamb covers all sins, and I
Speaker 2: would need to forgive him, and that if I did leave,
Speaker 2: I would be leaving my first love. And somehow through
Speaker 2: all of that I stayed firm. I literally don't know
Speaker 2: how I did that.
Speaker 4: Jan called Victor and put Lindsay on the phone. Lindsay
Speaker 4: was scared. She started to cry. When Victor picked up,
Speaker 4: he sounded emotional, like maybe he was crying too. He
Speaker 4: asked her if she was sure she wanted to do this.
Speaker 4: He didn't try to convince her to stay like he'd
Speaker 4: always done in the past. Years ago. Lindsay thinks he'd
Speaker 4: recently experienced so much change, people moving away, just leaving
Speaker 4: the Maidens. Maybe this just felt like one more change
Speaker 4: to him. To this day, Lindsay thinks if she had
Speaker 4: talked with him in person and not over the phone,
Speaker 4: Victor would have convinced her to stay. Instead, Lindsay stood fast.
Speaker 4: She wanted to leave, she said, Victor told her she
Speaker 4: had his blessing and his love through it all. They
Speaker 4: bought her a one way train ticket to her parents
Speaker 4: home in Pennsylvania, and two days later she was on
Speaker 4: a train. She had her guitar, her clothes, her letters
Speaker 4: and notebooks, and a stuffed loon, the maiden symbol. In
Speaker 4: twenty ten, after ten years as a maiden, she was leaving.
Speaker 2: And I remember being so scared, like stepping on the
Speaker 2: train for the first time, being I think overcome with
Speaker 2: feelings of so much loneliness and feeling really scared. And
Speaker 2: they had given me this little cell phone and there
Speaker 2: were I think one number programmed in there, like my
Speaker 2: mom's or somebody. And then I had, I think, like
Speaker 2: a walkman with headphones that I could put seeds in.
Speaker 4: Lindsay had just a seat, no space to spread out
Speaker 4: or sleep. Over the three day journey. A man was
Speaker 4: in the seat next to her. As she had been
Speaker 4: trained for years, she avoided his eyes.
Speaker 2: I just would go to the bathroom and then back
Speaker 2: to my chair. I just remember being like nervous to
Speaker 2: look around or to talk to anyone. It was always
Speaker 2: in the back of my mind maybe Victor will find out,
Speaker 2: like maybe Victor will know because for ten years and
Speaker 2: even before then, from nineteen ninety eight, it was like
Speaker 2: he knew everything that was going with everybody. So I
Speaker 2: think it definitely wasn't like getting on the train and
Speaker 2: a sigh of relief at all. It was getting on
Speaker 2: the train and feeling scared and lonely and nervous, and
Speaker 2: I mean scared for the future the unknown.
Speaker 4: Years ago, Lindsay had read Paradise Lost with the Maidens,
Speaker 4: the poem about Adam and Eve. It motivated her to stay,
Speaker 4: never to lead Victor's side, never to question God's love.
Speaker 4: When I read Paradise Lost years ago, the thing that
Speaker 4: struck me was how Satan was depicted. You hear his
Speaker 4: inner dialogue throughout, and some scholars think Satan is not
Speaker 4: pure evil, and how he's portrayed in the poem, that
Speaker 4: he's a morally ambiguous, complicated figure, and in a lot
Speaker 4: of ways he might be the person you side with
Speaker 4: in this battle between Satan and God. You could argue,
Speaker 4: if God or a god figure isn't leading well, even
Speaker 4: if heaven is supposedly adylic, maybe you don't want to
Speaker 4: be there. Maybe Eve should eat that fruit. Maybe she
Speaker 4: should gain the knowledge of good and evil. Maybe she
Speaker 4: should leave the garden's walls. Maybe what is forbidden is
Speaker 4: the bravest thing to do. When I think of Lindsay
Speaker 4: on that train, I hear the final lines of Paradise Lost,
Speaker 4: the final image of the whole epic poem of Adam
Speaker 4: and Eve. They wipe some tears, and the world is
Speaker 4: all before them. Now they will choose where to go.
Speaker 4: Milton writes, they walk hand in hand with wandering steps,
Speaker 4: and slow out of the garden and into the world.
Speaker 1: Next time on The Turning.
Speaker 2: So this started when you were about thirteen?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 2: So how long did it go.
Speaker 5: On until I left turn I was twenty three. Okay,
Speaker 5: that's a long time.
Speaker 1: The Turning is a production of Rococo Punch and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: It's written and produced by Erica Lance and Me. Our
Speaker 1: story editor is Emily Foreman. Mixing and sound designed by
Speaker 1: James Trout. Grace Doe is our production assistant. Fact checking
Speaker 1: by Andrea Lopez Cruzado. Our executive producers are John Parratti
Speaker 1: and Jessica Albert at Rococo Punch and Katrina Norvell and
Speaker 1: Nikki e Tour at iHeart Podcasts. You can follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Rococoa, and you can reach out via
Speaker 1: email The Turning at Rococo punch dot com. I'm Alan Lancelessor.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening.