Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: This show follows the investigation of serial murders and contains
Speaker 2: material that may be disturbing. Listener discretion ADVISEDZA.
Speaker 3: Found with it's August seventeenth, two thousand and seven. Krugersdorp,
Speaker 3: South Africa, a mining town outside at Johannesburg. A faded,
Speaker 3: green and yellow housing complex called Casana Flats sits just
Speaker 3: across from the local hospital, a building that has seen
Speaker 3: better days. Inside one of the modest one bedroom apartments,
Speaker 3: a group of ten faithful Christian worshippers has gathered in
Speaker 3: preparation for war. It is the home of Cecilia Stein,
Speaker 3: and the faithful have come to pray over her. You see,
Speaker 3: Cecilia is a witch, a forty second generation witch to
Speaker 3: be exact. She claims she was once married to Satan himself.
Speaker 3: She even has a marriage certificate to prove it. But
Speaker 3: these days, Cecilia says she's left Satanism behind. She now
Speaker 3: seeks salvation from God's love. The members of this congregation,
Speaker 3: which is devoted to fighting evil in all its forms,
Speaker 3: call their group overcomers, Sir Christ. Their leader is a kind, generous,
Speaker 3: fifty year old woman named Ria Gruneval. Tonight, she leads
Speaker 3: her followers in songs and fervent prayer to cast the
Speaker 3: devil out of this pale, thirty year old woman. They
Speaker 3: will attempt to divorce Cecilia from her marriage to Satan
Speaker 3: in hopes that these frequent possessions will cease. These believers
Speaker 3: call this gathering a high Knight. Rihea gives the group
Speaker 3: strict orders to keep a close watch on Cecilia, who
Speaker 3: sits on her bed, dead still, like a ticking time bomb.
Speaker 3: Without warning, Cecilia bolts upright in bed. She spasms, her face, contorts,
Speaker 3: her body jerks. She twists in her bed, convulsing violently.
Speaker 3: She's possessed by a demon, or perhaps the devil himself.
Speaker 3: What you're hearing now is a live recording of an
Speaker 3: actual high Night possession. As the young woman thrashes about,
Speaker 3: her body bends and gnarls, her voice screams, and her
Speaker 3: soul cries out from.
Speaker 4: Deep inside her.
Speaker 3: Rhea and her followers exchange glances. They are in a
Speaker 3: full on battle for this woman's soul. Cecilia's body whips
Speaker 3: and snaps around in bed. It looks as if she's
Speaker 3: being hit by invisible blows. The group understands these to
Speaker 3: be attacks via astral projection. Cecilia is like a living
Speaker 3: voodoo doll. The congregation fights even harder. They pray with conviction.
Speaker 3: Rhea and her congregation are up against a spiritual wall.
Speaker 3: They focus their energies on Cecilia, laying hands on her,
Speaker 3: and blood bubbles from Cecilia's mouth. This doesn't stop them.
Speaker 3: The believers implore the demons to release Cecilia from their grasp,
Speaker 3: and then, just as suddenly as the attack began, Cecilia's
Speaker 3: body goes limp. She collapses against the bed. She's zerily calm.
Speaker 3: The tiny apartment is now hot, stuffy, the air still agitated,
Speaker 3: the congregation size. They begin to whisper thanks pe to God.
Speaker 3: In the battle for Cecilia's soul, They've won. They beat
Speaker 3: the devil this time. My name is Kurt Kupachek. I'm
Speaker 3: a filmmaker and storyteller, and this is the true story
Speaker 3: behind the wrath of Cecilia Stein.
Speaker 5: She's actually an evil person.
Speaker 6: She was born and bred with the thought that she
Speaker 6: has the power to kill.
Speaker 3: In the world of murderous cults. If Charles Manson is King,
Speaker 3: Cecilia Stein is Queen.
Speaker 6: She conditioned them to be monsters.
Speaker 7: Why step someone sixty five times in the chaste?
Speaker 3: Motivated by power, greed, and revenge, Cecilia's cult, called Electus
Speaker 3: Perdeis killed eleven people in her name and left the
Speaker 3: lives of countless others in shambles. If you want to
Speaker 3: get out of this, we will kill you.
Speaker 8: This feels like everybody around you is giving murdered.
Speaker 6: She is absolutely evil.
Speaker 5: She is the devil.
Speaker 6: She would do anything to get her way.
Speaker 3: Foul of humans and iHeart podcasts. This is Queen Havoc
Speaker 3: and her murder Cult Episode one Queen in the making.
Speaker 3: After a couple of years researching, I was eager to
Speaker 3: be on the ground to understand more about this devastating
Speaker 3: case that gryptination and to investigate some of the gaps
Speaker 3: in the story I'd read so much about. I wanted
Speaker 3: to talk with people, look into the eyes of those
Speaker 3: who lived through it, to hear first hand accounts from
Speaker 3: both the survivors and the killers, who, in this bizarre instance,
Speaker 3: are sometimes one and the same. What really hooked me
Speaker 3: about this story was the detectives, the lengths to which
Speaker 3: they had to go in order to end Cecilia Stein's
Speaker 3: reign of murder in Mayhem eve at least a sense
Speaker 3: of justice for the victims and their families. The detectives
Speaker 3: were everyday heroes, but not in some way that's easy
Speaker 3: to define. In fact, some of them were dirty, which
Speaker 3: is another part of this story. This is why we
Speaker 3: wanted to speak with them and with everyone we could,
Speaker 3: anyone who could tell us about this case and all
Speaker 3: the horrors that were carried out in a holy name.
Speaker 3: So producer Jennifer Tolkeeney and I traveled from Los Angeles
Speaker 3: to South Africa, where this whole saga began.
Speaker 9: Tomboy International Airport in Jahannesburg local time twenty eight minutes
Speaker 9: by six o'clock, South Africa's standard time, and we'll be
Speaker 9: talking you for the next few minutes.
Speaker 3: Of Captain's halfway around the world. We traveled to meet
Speaker 3: with detectives, journalists, psychologists, and we even got to speak
Speaker 3: with some of the cult members themselves, the ones who
Speaker 3: managed to stay alive, all of whom were forever changed
Speaker 3: by Cecilia Stein. On the trail in South Africa, what
Speaker 3: we encountered was much more tragic than what we'd imagined
Speaker 3: at the start. In short, The story changed us too.
Speaker 3: He told me about how he killed with that act.
Speaker 3: In speaking with locals and investigating this story, we actually
Speaker 3: shook things up a bit. We ended up unearthing things
Speaker 3: that were meant to remain buried. We were even nearly
Speaker 3: entangled in a police corruption investigation. This story is still
Speaker 3: alive and it's still seeking justice. The Kruger's doorf cult killings,
Speaker 3: as they're known in South Africa, were a grizzly chain
Speaker 3: of events. To make sense of the near senseless brutality,
Speaker 3: Let's get to know Kruger's Door, the small suburb about
Speaker 3: forty minutes west the Johannesburg where the murders occurred, one
Speaker 3: that is still tormented by these dark events. Eleven different
Speaker 3: languages are spoken across South Africa. Most people in Krugersdorp
Speaker 3: speak Afrikaans as their first language. To understand some of
Speaker 3: the cultural context of South Africa, will turn to academics
Speaker 3: and scholars, ones who were there at the time, like
Speaker 3: doctor Nicki Falkoff.
Speaker 4: These towns on the outskirts of Jannisburg, they feel like
Speaker 4: places that time forgot.
Speaker 3: Almost Nikki has spent her life studying South African culture
Speaker 3: post apartheid, and has written extensively on the topic. Driving
Speaker 3: through the Greater Johannes Bergeria and Kruger Store, you see
Speaker 3: these high walls and imposing iron gates. They're everywhere. Nearly
Speaker 3: every community is gated, sealed, closed off. It is a
Speaker 3: rather perfect metaphor for the themes that emerge while we
Speaker 3: reported on this story. For instance, when we choose walls
Speaker 3: to protect ourselves, we must also consider who we choose
Speaker 3: to let in and why these walls, the very things
Speaker 3: we think are protecting us, can actually leave us vulnerable.
Speaker 3: Do they provide protection or imprisonment? On the surface, the
Speaker 3: confines of a cult make you feel like you belong,
Speaker 3: That's why they're appealing. But after a while they begin
Speaker 3: to serve as a reminder that once you're in, there's
Speaker 3: no getting out. And finally, the biggest question in my mind,
Speaker 3: what drives our inherent human need to belong to something?
Speaker 3: And how do our relationships serve our efforts towards satiating
Speaker 3: this primal desire.
Speaker 10: We have some hijacking hotspots we used to avoid. Yeah,
Speaker 10: so see traffic light at night? I wait like this
Speaker 10: because if someone approaches my window right now, I've got
Speaker 10: that much space to head forward and they have to run.
Speaker 10: That's really good and you put your hand on the hooter.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's me and my producing partner Jennifer Tikini driving
Speaker 3: with Jermaine Kreher, who helped us now the Gate around
Speaker 3: South Africa during our time there.
Speaker 10: I'm a South African journalist working across a variety of
Speaker 10: beats and mediums.
Speaker 3: Jermaine quickly became an integral part of our team as
Speaker 3: she grew up very close to Kruger's door.
Speaker 10: I am a west Rand baby, born and bridge raised
Speaker 10: on the Westrand, which is just a stone throwaway from Krugersdorp.
Speaker 3: The west Rand is a district that implies west of
Speaker 3: Johannesburg or Joeburg as the locals call it. Krugersdorp is
Speaker 3: in this district as well.
Speaker 9: We have very high levels of poverty across South Africa.
Speaker 9: Krugelzorb specifically has very high levels of white poverty, which
Speaker 9: makes it quite different from a lot of the other
Speaker 9: regions in the same breath. Though it also has incredibly
Speaker 9: rich and affluent areas, so it's got this absolute disparity
Speaker 9: this contrast, and I think that probably had a big
Speaker 9: influence in the case, specifically if you look at the
Speaker 9: economic crime elements of it.
Speaker 3: We were very fortunate to have Jermaine's guidance, insight, and
Speaker 3: logistical support. We also learned from the many people we
Speaker 3: spoke to that South Africa is a fervently religious place.
Speaker 3: Close to eighty percent of people identify as Christians nationwide,
Speaker 3: many of them in Pentecostal or evangelical traditions. There are,
Speaker 3: of course, and sexral traditions as well, but only five
Speaker 3: percent identified with these belief systems in the general household survey.
Speaker 3: And just to be clear, we are dealing with white
Speaker 3: communities here, both the criminals and the victims in the US.
Speaker 3: This was many people's first question when hearing about this case.
Speaker 3: That being said, we can't talk about post apartheid South
Speaker 3: Africa without acknowledging the racial dynamics underlying every aspect of
Speaker 3: life there. The segregation of apartheid. It trained white South
Speaker 3: Africans to live in a perpetual state of fear. They
Speaker 3: feared to imagine black violence due to the centuries of
Speaker 3: violent oppression, which led to these modern terrified white people
Speaker 3: hiding by towering white walls. Here's Niki fealkoff again.
Speaker 4: There was this manifestation of a kind of really hysterical
Speaker 4: Christian paranoia, particularly among white South Africa.
Speaker 3: And there was a measurable uptick in communities of faith
Speaker 3: leading up to South Africa's own version of Satanic panic
Speaker 3: in the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 4: Without a doubt, I think that structural conditions that are
Speaker 4: one hundred percent related to apartheid but have been exacerbated
Speaker 4: ever since, are the main driver of these kinds of behaviors.
Speaker 4: It's not that Satan has an extra special foothold in
Speaker 4: South Africa.
Speaker 3: There are a number of theories as to what drove
Speaker 3: the fervor, but it grew became ingrained within South African culture,
Speaker 3: while the impending end of apartheid sowed the seeds of
Speaker 3: a broader moral panic in fast sections of the white population,
Speaker 3: and over time, these small, tight knit congregations like the
Speaker 3: Overcomers through Christ became commonplace. There's someone else I'd like
Speaker 3: you to meet, someone that is very important to this
Speaker 3: story and a person I have come to respect and
Speaker 3: admire greatly.
Speaker 6: Suzeit knitze I started with the police in nineteen ninety
Speaker 6: started at the Detective Service at our head office detectives.
Speaker 3: Whosec. Canotse is a third generation detective, mother of two,
Speaker 3: and served in the South African Police Service as a
Speaker 3: satanic panic gain steam in the nineties. She was also
Speaker 3: one of the detectives who worked on the Kruger's Dor
Speaker 3: of Colt killings, and she's the person who first introduced
Speaker 3: me to this case when I met her in Los
Speaker 3: Angeles in twenty nineteen.
Speaker 6: From there, in ninety two, I started with a unit
Speaker 6: called the Occult Related Crimes.
Speaker 3: Yep, you heard that right, that's the Occult Related Crimes
Speaker 3: Unit or ORKUP, an entire unit of the police force
Speaker 3: dedicated to investigating criminal activity with potential links to occult
Speaker 3: rituals and practices, witchcraft, the supernatural matters of the spirit.
Speaker 3: It was the only unit of its kind in the world,
Speaker 3: formed in response to the sheer number of gruesome murders
Speaker 3: and misdeeds being reported. Pretty wild, right.
Speaker 6: We dealt with all kinds of occult related crimes, being Satanism,
Speaker 6: being well, anything that had to do with the ocults.
Speaker 6: Those kind of crimes I handled well myself and pinol Yonka.
Speaker 3: She mentions doctor Colonel Cobis Jonker. He was the founder
Speaker 3: and head of Orku, an author of a book called
Speaker 3: Satanism in South Africa that outlines what kinds of crimes
Speaker 3: they handled, those deemed occult in nature. He told us
Speaker 3: about a couple of particularly macob cases he handled. Some
Speaker 3: of these Satanic groups had some dreadful rituals. They often
Speaker 3: involved exhumed corpses, severed body parts, and jewelry made from
Speaker 3: human vertebrae.
Speaker 11: And then I went up and opened the cupboard next
Speaker 11: to him, and there I found that woman's head in
Speaker 11: the cupboard.
Speaker 3: Spine chilling. Crimes like this were happening regularly, and the
Speaker 3: judicial system, also majority Christian, took satan very seriously. Demonic
Speaker 3: possession was even taken into consideration and courts of law.
Speaker 4: The judge basically said, occult and satanic possession would be
Speaker 4: a viable reason in my courtroom for not being prosecuted
Speaker 4: for a murder.
Speaker 3: These stories of panic and ritual murder are meant to
Speaker 3: emphasize the gravity of this movement.
Speaker 12: The Satanic panic of the nineties was literally a panic
Speaker 12: about the devil, the literal physical presence of the devil.
Speaker 3: This fear of the devil is still very real for
Speaker 3: South Africa and the people of Kruger's door. This frenzy
Speaker 3: affected every level of society, courts, household, school, and people
Speaker 3: like Ria Grunavald, Queen Havoc's first victim, or at least
Speaker 3: the first that we know of. Ria Grunivald. She was
Speaker 3: known as a pillar in her community, a devout Christian
Speaker 3: and a mother then in her mid fifties. The members
Speaker 3: of her small congregation saw her as a sort of
Speaker 3: warrior fighting to protect the innocent.
Speaker 12: Do you say to white South Africans at a certain age,
Speaker 12: the Satanists are coming for me and they know what
Speaker 12: you mean.
Speaker 3: Rhea knew what it meant, and she often won her battles,
Speaker 3: saving ex Satanists from the devil's grasp. But the enemy
Speaker 3: was still everywhere.
Speaker 12: This means there's an evil cultic conspiracy that is capable
Speaker 12: of extreme violence and lurks unseen and all sorts of
Speaker 12: doors in South Africa.
Speaker 3: Ria was determined to keep those doors bolted shut in
Speaker 3: the name of God.
Speaker 7: Years back, Ria Krunevald, which were bought obviously of the
Speaker 7: Krugersdorp murders, came to us for training.
Speaker 3: Psychologist Fhavinga was a mentor to Rea. His organization facilitates
Speaker 3: training for community leaders. I met with FH at his
Speaker 3: practice and sat down with him to learn more.
Speaker 7: She went through a course in our training modules, which
Speaker 7: is helping potential victims of a cult related trauma.
Speaker 3: The influence of Satanism was strong enough to require cult
Speaker 3: intervention and recovery programs. After her training, Rhea started a
Speaker 3: group she called Overcomers through Christ. Will refer to them
Speaker 3: as otc here is Colonel Kobas Yanker again.
Speaker 11: They were the group that dealt with Satanists, getting them
Speaker 11: out of the movement.
Speaker 3: The devil was in fact encircling them, only she was
Speaker 3: in disguise. It was Queen Havoc herself, Cecilia Stein.
Speaker 6: The day when Celia joined this Overcomers through Christ, this
Speaker 6: ministry that Rhea created. Celia came in as she broke
Speaker 6: away from Satanism and needs help and needs protection because
Speaker 6: the witches wants to kill her and they have to
Speaker 6: hide her, and Rhea gave all to Celia.
Speaker 3: Everyone who knew Ria speaks to her altruistic nature and
Speaker 3: ability to see the good in people despite their past. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: her welcoming spirit and unwavering faith made her vulnerable to
Speaker 3: someone like.
Speaker 10: Cecilia, religion can be abused to me beul like people
Speaker 10: to get whatever from them.
Speaker 3: That's journalist Jana Marx. She's well known in South Africa
Speaker 3: and wrote the definitive book on this case after being
Speaker 3: present for all of the court proceedings. It's called The
Speaker 3: Kruger Store of Cult Killings. Inside Cecilia Stein's Reign of Terror.
Speaker 3: We sat down with her in her home to discuss
Speaker 3: the case.
Speaker 1: It's happening much more than we think, especially in a
Speaker 1: more conservative, more religious country like South Africa.
Speaker 3: Whether or not it was Cecilia's original intention to gain power,
Speaker 3: we will never know. What we do know is that
Speaker 3: she wove an intricate and seductive web that a select
Speaker 3: few got seriously tangled in. Here's detective suse canoes again.
Speaker 6: Celia just saw the loophole in getting close to Riha,
Speaker 6: and she just grabbed it. She took Rhea's sensitive personality
Speaker 6: and kind personality for granted.
Speaker 3: Ria's mentor breaks down some of her manipulation tactics for us.
Speaker 7: Usually, when we talk about Goulds, we use a byte
Speaker 7: system bie.
Speaker 3: Behavior, information, thoughts, and emotions to elaborate a cult leader
Speaker 3: exerts control by in influencing their potential followers. Using this methodology,
Speaker 3: the model proposes that these constitute the four components of
Speaker 3: mind control. Behavior is usually the first a good way
Speaker 3: to test the waters.
Speaker 7: When a cult leader starts influencing people, they first start
Speaker 7: controlling their behavior. They do something. The cult leader does
Speaker 7: something and see how people respond.
Speaker 3: Cecilia made fast friends with Rhea, whose whole heart was
Speaker 3: focused on Cecilia's salvation and ultimate deliverance from Satan himself.
Speaker 11: She was an Excitanist, according to her, that was married
Speaker 11: to the devil. She even got a marriage certificate that
Speaker 11: she and the devil signed. I don't know exactly where
Speaker 11: she made him to sign the contract, but yeah.
Speaker 3: That's Detective Ben Boysen think of Chuck Norris with the
Speaker 3: tenacity of svu's Elliott Stabler. I mean, this guy lives
Speaker 3: to serve, protect and to take down the bad guys.
Speaker 3: We'll spend a lot of time with Ben throughout this podcast.
Speaker 3: It is in large part his determination that eventually broke
Speaker 3: the case, and given the pace of the killings, likely
Speaker 3: saved many lives. Detective Susette Canotz says Cecilia's claims of
Speaker 3: diabolical origins drew Ria in and soon other members of
Speaker 3: the OTC were spellbound.
Speaker 5: Two.
Speaker 6: She had a witch mother that gives birth to it.
Speaker 3: Cecilia told Ria that she had a witch mother who
Speaker 3: had been sacrificed by the Satanic Church, leaving Cecilia vulnerable
Speaker 3: and alone. She was plagued by Satanic possessions that could
Speaker 3: overtake her at any moment.
Speaker 11: The devil will come and you will Ripecilia to get
Speaker 11: her back into Satanism.
Speaker 3: Both women agreed that Ria should hold maternal rights over Cecilia.
Speaker 3: She assured Ria that by maintaining this role, she would
Speaker 3: gain more favor in the spirit world and pose a
Speaker 3: greater threat to the Satanists. Cecilia began calling Ria Mamma.
Speaker 6: Celia could never leave krugez or no. A certain perimeter
Speaker 6: of her house was then the witch's attack and she
Speaker 6: gets six and whatever.
Speaker 3: Rea commissioned OTC members to aid her in what became
Speaker 3: a twenty four to seven vigil to protect Cecilia from
Speaker 3: these supernatural threats. Cecilia also claimed to suffer from dissociative
Speaker 3: identity disorder or DID, meaning she had multiple personalities that
Speaker 3: she would slip in and out of a result of
Speaker 3: some early traumatic experiences, so Cecilia truly could never be
Speaker 3: left alone.
Speaker 2: Cecilia would become a little girl or Anya three year old,
Speaker 2: and Rio would just play with her.
Speaker 1: They will go to the park and she would lie
Speaker 1: in Rio's arm like I don't go with.
Speaker 2: You when you go out of a picnic.
Speaker 1: They would just really, you know, nurture this little gal.
Speaker 3: They would even feed her formula from a bottle when
Speaker 3: she was hungry. I know it sounds outlandish to think
Speaker 3: about a woman in her fifties feeding this thirty year
Speaker 3: old from a baby bottle, but it's true. Ria was
Speaker 3: that committed to Cecilia. By two thousand and eight, Ria
Speaker 3: deepened her commitment by moving into an apartment down the
Speaker 3: street from Cecilia's home at Casana Flats. To protect her
Speaker 3: spiritual daughter, Mama Rihea and the other members began to
Speaker 3: work in shifts. They took care of all of Cecilia's
Speaker 3: earthly needs. This also meant that Cecilia, now subtly and slyly,
Speaker 3: began to control their work schedules. She expected certain people
Speaker 3: to tend to her at certain times. She also exerted
Speaker 3: control over when they ate when they slept, what music
Speaker 3: they listened to, and what they watched on TV, including
Speaker 3: violent serial killer movies. By twenty ten, after three years
Speaker 3: of influence, Cecilia's agenda had all but taken over the group.
Speaker 3: The payoff for the OTC members was fulfilling their mission
Speaker 3: and saving souls from Satan's grip.
Speaker 7: And that's the sad thing. Because Ria gave the platform
Speaker 7: for Cecilia to write the information which all her volunteers,
Speaker 7: Rhea's volunteers in Overcomers in Christ would follow.
Speaker 3: Cecilia convinced Rhea that our congregation was too focused on
Speaker 3: believe it or not Jesus that in order to fight
Speaker 3: the devil, to help people escape from him, they must
Speaker 3: get to know the Prince of darkness. They must study
Speaker 3: him and familiarize themselves with his deceitful ways and clever tricks.
Speaker 3: And Cecilia she knew the devil intimately, so she was
Speaker 3: the only one who could tell them everything they needed
Speaker 3: to know to successfully combat this spiritual battle against evil. Together,
Speaker 3: Ria and Cecilia set out to write a pamphlet that
Speaker 3: laid out just that everything Cecilia knew about Satan from
Speaker 3: her past and how to fight him. They called it
Speaker 3: Know your Enemy.
Speaker 7: That was their manual. That is a perfect platform for
Speaker 7: a cult leader. All the volunteers started admiring Cecilia. Cecilia
Speaker 7: became the leader. Cecilia became the voice. Cecilia became the knowledge.
Speaker 7: Cecilia became the expert.
Speaker 3: All the while, Rhea's mentor saw the red flags and
Speaker 3: did his best to guide.
Speaker 7: Her as it real. Please, we worried about you. You
Speaker 7: are isolating, you don't have mentorship. The only people you
Speaker 7: are associating with the people in your group.
Speaker 3: One of the classic signs of a group that has
Speaker 3: gotten lost inside itself is when the members believe they
Speaker 3: have enough moral high ground to reject the ideas of
Speaker 3: anyone who questions them.
Speaker 7: We couldn't find any neutral ground. I just said no,
Speaker 7: But God said, and I'm going to look after this lady.
Speaker 7: And God put it on my life. And the only
Speaker 7: spirit says I said, real, whoa whoa whoa.
Speaker 3: Butria would not heed his words. The OTC's level of
Speaker 3: involvement in Cecilia's life was far from ethical in the
Speaker 3: Isahawinga and his training organization, so he withdrew her credentials.
Speaker 7: The training that we did with you and all your
Speaker 7: certificates and everything. We are now canceling that. We are
Speaker 7: suspending all that from today and requesting that you will
Speaker 7: not in any form associate your name with any of
Speaker 7: our affiliates.
Speaker 3: Despite her insisting otherwise. Ria had over committed with maternal
Speaker 3: rights to Cecilia's myriad of personalities. There was some next
Speaker 3: level caretaking going on for Rea. After years of playing handman, though,
Speaker 3: Rhea did begin to question Cecilia's motives, and by the
Speaker 3: fall of twenty eleven, her mentor's warnings echoed in her mind.
Speaker 7: I remember my words, I say to Arihea. If you
Speaker 7: continue with this, people can lose their lives. You're playing
Speaker 7: with life and death principleshit.
Speaker 3: And unfortunately Havingo was right. It's twenty eleven and Ria
Speaker 3: Grunival's life was falling to pieces a result of dedicating
Speaker 3: all of her time to Cecilia Stein. Without official mentorship,
Speaker 3: and overcome by her looming doubts, Rhea sought out advice
Speaker 3: from her old pastor, Reginald ben Dixon. He pointed out
Speaker 3: to her that their focus on Satan and protecting themselves
Speaker 3: from evil was so robust that they had forgotten about
Speaker 3: living for others and the power of the Lord. Cecilia
Speaker 3: could sense Rhea's withdrawal. She became enraged at the thought
Speaker 3: that Ria would give up on her, so she started
Speaker 3: asserting power however she could. We are about to hear
Speaker 3: is a piece of written testimony by Rhea. We tried
Speaker 3: to contact her for an interview, but she has since
Speaker 3: changed her name and moved far away from Kruger's store,
Speaker 3: so we asked an actor to read it for us.
Speaker 3: The statement is sparse, with this particular memory she felt
Speaker 3: moved to share.
Speaker 1: After she put me at Jews one morning, I fell
Speaker 1: asleep and I woke up ten hours later. She told
Speaker 1: me that an astral spirit came in and put a
Speaker 1: sedative in my Jews.
Speaker 3: Cecilia had bruises all over her body. She said that
Speaker 3: Satanists had attacked her while Rhea slept.
Speaker 1: From that day on, she knew everything about me, even
Speaker 1: my character flaws. She assured me that the Satanic Church
Speaker 1: had all my information. They knew my every conversation, every move,
Speaker 1: even my thoughts. I was always surrounded by them, and
Speaker 1: I couldn't do anything without them knowing. I believed her.
Speaker 3: It was later revealed in court that while Ria was sleeping,
Speaker 3: Cecilia had in fact gone through Rhea's phone and computer,
Speaker 3: seeking information she could later use to control her. After
Speaker 3: this incident, Ria's suspicion of Cecilia's motives only grew, and
Speaker 3: so came the great divide.
Speaker 7: As we see, you're going to start forming camps within
Speaker 7: overcomers in Christ and people need to start making decisions,
Speaker 7: and you need to now choose you're going to be
Speaker 7: for or against.
Speaker 3: Many of the members of OTC remained devoted to Rhea,
Speaker 3: some followed Cecilia, and still others were caught in the middle,
Speaker 3: unsure how to navigate this awkward separation. Cecilia still demanded
Speaker 3: round the clock care, and members would continue to rotate
Speaker 3: to be with her, including one OTC member, Natasha Berger,
Speaker 3: who will meet again later. A select few, however, swore
Speaker 3: off both Rhea and Cecilia, a decision that may very
Speaker 3: well have saved their lives. Cecilia managed to pull five
Speaker 3: loyal members into her camp. They called themselves Electus perdeis
Speaker 3: Latin for Chosen by God, and the people in this group,
Speaker 3: which we refer to as EPD, would eventually become known
Speaker 3: as the Krueger's stor of killers.
Speaker 8: Cecilia Stein had this group around which involved Mikhaela Valentin,
Speaker 8: Zach Valentin, Marindo Stein, and Turquits Leroux and Marcel. They
Speaker 8: actually could do you need meeting in private at Cicilo's house.
Speaker 3: That's Captain Johann van Vick, a critical player in the
Speaker 3: murder investigations. He's a tall, stately man, well dressed in
Speaker 3: a sharp suit. He's soft spoken and seemed a little
Speaker 3: nervous when we sat down with him. Keep in mind,
Speaker 3: this is a winding spiral stairs kind of case with
Speaker 3: many phases of escalation. It became, for obvious reasons, a
Speaker 3: national issue and for other reasons that you'll come to know.
Speaker 3: There were several stages of investigation. A variety of professionals
Speaker 3: were brought in to lend their insight, including child psychologists,
Speaker 3: an advocate, Roselyind.
Speaker 5: McNabb, Marcel, her mother, brother, Zach Valentini. Is what they
Speaker 5: decided to side with Cecilia, and then they decided to
Speaker 5: call themselves Electus pideis just chosen about God.
Speaker 3: The members of Electus Perdeis consisted of Merinda Stein, no
Speaker 3: relation to Secilia, and her two children, LaRue and Marcel
Speaker 3: along with married couple Zach and Michaeleb Valentine. Marcel Stein
Speaker 3: was only ten years old and her brother LaRue was
Speaker 3: just twelve when their mother folded their family into Electus
Speaker 3: per DAAs. Cecilia ran Electus per DAAs like a real ministry.
Speaker 3: Members had to make their regular contributions to finance the
Speaker 3: group's activities. She adopted a symbolic new identity and insisted
Speaker 3: her tiny flock call her by her first initial see.
Speaker 3: She pulled from the Byte method playbook, declaring OTC the
Speaker 3: enemy and making herself the center of their universe. Cecilia
Speaker 3: now had an army of her own, and Rhea was
Speaker 3: trying hard to distance herself to leave the battlefield altogether.
Speaker 6: Rea told Celia, listen, I don't want to have anything
Speaker 6: to do with you anymore. And now Celia sees it
Speaker 6: as being rejected. Now she's not happy with that, and
Speaker 6: she needs revenge.
Speaker 3: Cecilia was furious that Ria deserted her. How could her
Speaker 3: own mother do this to her? She would have to pay.
Speaker 3: Cecilia told Ria vi Attacks that she had a meeting
Speaker 3: with Satan and he had given her a message for
Speaker 3: Rhea playtime is over. This is war.
Speaker 6: Just before the murder started, there was car bombings happening
Speaker 6: to scare Ria.
Speaker 8: Petrol bombs were used to intimidate people attending these meetings.
Speaker 3: This season on Queen Havoc and her Murder Cult that.
Speaker 6: She kills Ria. Ria Khan returned to her, but she
Speaker 6: was telling people the Bible say she must go and killed,
Speaker 6: But actually she was taking revenge the beating.
Speaker 11: They bought, the wall and the roof was full of blood.
Speaker 4: It could have been me and you.
Speaker 1: They were doing regular jobs, showing up her appointment and
Speaker 1: they were killed.
Speaker 10: Every time you think you understand what's happening, you realize
Speaker 10: that you're.
Speaker 3: Queen Havoc and Her Murder Cult is a production of
Speaker 3: Schooly Humans and iHeart Podcasts. Queen Havoc is hosted and
Speaker 3: created by me Kurt Kupachick, produced and written by Jennifer Tacchini,
Speaker 3: Julia Chriscau, and Kirk Kupachick. Lead producer is Julia Chriskau.
Speaker 3: Story editor is Saren Burnett. Senior producer is Amelia Brock.
Speaker 3: Production manager is Daisy Church. Original music composed by Claire Campbell, editing,
Speaker 3: sound design and scoring by Jesse Niswanger. Associated producers are
Speaker 3: DaShan Moodley and Jamaine Kriher. Additional producing by Ben Melman,
Speaker 3: fact checking by Dennis Webster. Recording engineers are Graham Gibson,
Speaker 3: Clay Hillenberg and Josh hook. Ria Grunovald's testimony is read
Speaker 3: by Madeline Page. Executive producers are Ginia Prescott, L. C. Crowley,
Speaker 3: Brandon Barr, Jennifer Tukeiny and Kurt Kupachak. We want to
Speaker 3: thank all of those who so generously welcomed us in
Speaker 3: South Africa and shared their stories. We're incredibly grateful to
Speaker 3: you all. We also want to acknowledge how traumatic these
Speaker 3: events are for the victims and their families. Please respect
Speaker 3: their privacy. If you or someone you know has been
Speaker 3: affected by cold behaviors, there are resources available, including Voices
Speaker 3: for Dignity at Christine Murray dot com