Speaker 1: How are you doing.
Speaker 2: I'm doing really good. It is the hottest day of
Speaker 2: the year today, so oh no, I'm sitting in a
Speaker 2: room where they can't have air conditioning.
Speaker 1: Oh no, we better make this quick then, should we
Speaker 1: just call it?
Speaker 2: It's okay? Nope, it's okay.
Speaker 1: From Rocco, Punch and Diheart Podcasts. This is the Turning
Speaker 1: River Road I America. Lance. I have to ask, as
Speaker 1: you are listening, how does it feel to have your
Speaker 1: story out there in this way? It feels liberating.
Speaker 2: That's the best way I can describe it is liberating,
Speaker 2: especially to have my voice and Lindsay's voice heard simultaneously
Speaker 2: and being able to hear the differences but also the
Speaker 2: similarities in our stories. It feels very validating, honestly, in
Speaker 2: what way. I think when you go through something like
Speaker 2: she and I went through, there can sometimes be a
Speaker 2: little bit of a sense of imposter syndrome or you've
Speaker 2: been gas lit for so long, like maybe this didn't
Speaker 2: actually happen this way, And so to hear her side,
Speaker 2: which is arguably very different than what I experienced, very validating.
Speaker 1: I can imagine, because I believe you and Lindsay hadn't
Speaker 1: really been in contact. So you're hearing a lot suddenly
Speaker 1: from her about many years that had passed, and she's
Speaker 1: hearing about you, but you had never really spoken about
Speaker 1: it with each other before.
Speaker 2: We had not, So, I mean, we knew each other,
Speaker 2: but we didn't run in the same circles at all. Yeah,
Speaker 2: never really talk to her at length ever in my life.
Speaker 2: And like I had said in the podcast, I knew
Speaker 2: Jess very very well, but I didn't really know Lindsay.
Speaker 1: At all, just the other youngest maiden, Lindsay's friends and
Speaker 1: your friend.
Speaker 2: Yes, my parents and Jess's parents were very close. In fact,
Speaker 2: her parents lived with my mom all the way up
Speaker 2: until twenty twenty three, from twenty twelve the end of
Speaker 2: twenty twelve till the end of twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: And I don't have contact with her parents anymore, and
Speaker 2: that's my choice. But you can understand that our families
Speaker 2: they were very intertwined. They kind of had a aunt
Speaker 2: and uncle feel to them more than even my own
Speaker 2: aunts and uncles. So I knew her well and her
Speaker 2: brother and sister I knew them well too, but Lindsay
Speaker 2: I didn't. So everything that I had heard from her,
Speaker 2: it was projected in a way that spun a narrative, right.
Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
Speaker 2: So when I would listen to interviews like the Hunt
Speaker 2: with John Walsh, there was a twenty twenty in an
Speaker 2: Instant or something like that that was put out about it,
Speaker 2: it was all very heavily on the sexual aspect of it,
Speaker 2: when there was so much more beneath the surface that
Speaker 2: led to that happening. That this wasn't just like a
Speaker 2: quote unquote sex cult. This was so much more and
Speaker 2: there was so much more abuse that was taking place,
Speaker 2: and it was very systemic.
Speaker 1: The abuse took many forms, and people experienced it differently
Speaker 1: or experienced different parts of the abuse. And that's something
Speaker 1: I've been reflecting a lot on lately, is how different
Speaker 1: people can have different experiences of the same person or
Speaker 1: the same group. And I wonder how you've seen that
Speaker 1: come up? Do you think that, Like, what are some
Speaker 1: of the different versions of experiencing River Road that existed
Speaker 1: for members?
Speaker 2: There's a few that I am aware of. For example,
Speaker 2: my mom, when she and I talk about this kind
Speaker 2: of stuff, she I have a hard time to talk
Speaker 2: with her about it at length anymore because she always
Speaker 2: kind of brings it back to herself, and she said,
Speaker 2: I just wanted to learn God's word, which is a
Speaker 2: beautiful thing, right, And I think she has a lot
Speaker 2: of guilt for what happened to me, And whenever I
Speaker 2: start talking about that, she kind of gets really uncomfortable
Speaker 2: because she just feels the consistent need to apologize. And
Speaker 2: what she sees is we came together to do a
Speaker 2: ministry and she was like, I didn't see the other
Speaker 2: things that were going on beneath the surface. The reality
Speaker 2: is I think she did. I think everybody did, but
Speaker 2: nobody wanted to pay attention. When I say everybody, I
Speaker 2: mean those who are old enough to cern. Obviously I
Speaker 2: was a child. I was just there for the ride.
Speaker 2: But I know that there are people who have said,
Speaker 2: you know, in hindsight, this is a very unsurprising thing
Speaker 2: that happened. So you know, there's that she just wants
Speaker 2: to remember the good things. I don't falter for it.
Speaker 2: But then again, she also has a whole life previous
Speaker 2: to that to fall back on, Right, she has a
Speaker 2: frame of reference for what life is outside of the cult,
Speaker 2: whereas I really didn't. So there's that I talked to
Speaker 2: a woman after she listened to several episodes of the podcast.
Speaker 2: She was very close to my parents and to the Bernards.
Speaker 1: She actually Bernard's being Victor Bernard and his wife, Victor
Speaker 1: being the leader of her best oon.
Speaker 2: Yes, and she had left in nineteen ninety three, so
Speaker 2: I was still a very young child. I was only
Speaker 2: about a year and a half when she left. But
Speaker 2: she was very dear to my parents, and even though
Speaker 2: they never saw her again, they talked about her quite
Speaker 2: a bit. So she reached out to me on social
Speaker 2: media and she talked about how she was listening to
Speaker 2: the podcast, and obviously a lot of the things that
Speaker 2: she heard happened after she left, and she was asking
Speaker 2: herself like, how did it get there? How did that happen?
Speaker 2: How could that have happened? And she said, but to
Speaker 2: be completely honest, I can see how it could have
Speaker 2: gotten there. So you know, there's that. And then even
Speaker 2: Lindsay and I have had disagreements, nothing like major, but
Speaker 2: there were things that I have said in the podcast
Speaker 2: that she didn't agree with and brought them to my attention. So,
Speaker 2: for example, I had said that they were moving these
Speaker 2: young people around to spy on us. And while I
Speaker 2: do believe that that, in a sense is true. She
Speaker 2: didn't see it that way, and I'll explain where she
Speaker 2: came from and where I came from and sort of
Speaker 2: the middle ground. That was probably the reality.
Speaker 1: And you're talking about how your one time a maiden
Speaker 1: was very quickly moved into your home and then very
Speaker 1: quickly moved out again, which happened sometimes people moving around
Speaker 1: all the time. You never know where you're going to live.
Speaker 1: Even if you own a house, it's not really yours.
Speaker 1: And you felt like that maiden maybe had been sent
Speaker 1: there to kind of spy on your family.
Speaker 2: And it wasn't just the maidens. There are quite a
Speaker 2: few young people that were moved around very randomly, very quickly,
Speaker 2: and it happened to us more than once.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Lindsey, when she heard that, she sent me a text
Speaker 2: and said that she didn't believe that that was the case.
Speaker 2: When the maidens were moved out from their home, it
Speaker 2: was usually because Victor believed that they weren't doing well spiritually.
Speaker 1: And kind as a punishment.
Speaker 2: Kind of as a punishment. Yeah, that having been said,
Speaker 2: I bounced this off of a couple of people who
Speaker 2: I grew up with and grew up around, and what
Speaker 2: I came to was maybe the intention that was told
Speaker 2: to them wasn't, you know, go in there and report
Speaker 2: back whatever you see. But these young people were so
Speaker 2: conditioned to basically tell the leadership or even tell Victor
Speaker 2: anything that they aw that could possibly be you know,
Speaker 2: darkness or sin.
Speaker 1: Everything has to be in the light. In other words,
Speaker 1: Victory has to know everything. So you feel like you're
Speaker 1: always being watched.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so even if Victor didn't say so, and so
Speaker 2: you're going to move in with the Lesterre family, which
Speaker 2: was my family, to report back to me what you
Speaker 2: see would happen was and this I know this, I
Speaker 2: know for a fact, and it wasn't any of the maidens.
Speaker 2: It was a couple other young women who lived with
Speaker 2: us who were around the same age as the maidens,
Speaker 2: but they weren't the maidens. They lived with us, and
Speaker 2: they would see things that happened in my home and
Speaker 2: then they would report those to the leadership or to Victor,
Speaker 2: and then my parents or even I would you know,
Speaker 2: get in trouble for whatever it was. So I felt
Speaker 2: the need to clarify that that there wasn't this network
Speaker 2: of like spies, but it was a conditioning. It was
Speaker 2: a manipulation to be foot soldiers to report back in
Speaker 2: what they saw, and they absolutely did do that.
Speaker 1: And it was a culture where it was really hard
Speaker 1: to have privacy exactly and live the life that you wanted.
Speaker 1: I mean, you had to live by certain rules and
Speaker 1: if you didn't, you would hear about it.
Speaker 2: What I was going to say was, did lindsay ever
Speaker 2: do that? I have no idea because she never lived
Speaker 2: with us, and that's not something that I feel is
Speaker 2: worth nitpicking about. What I do know is that it happened.
Speaker 2: So you know, there are definitely differing stories, differing opinions.
Speaker 2: There's still people who believe that they were there to
Speaker 2: live the word of God.
Speaker 1: Like my mom.
Speaker 2: She doesn't deny what happened happened, but she has a
Speaker 2: really hard time wrapping her head around that it could
Speaker 2: have been all bad, you know, and I don't think
Speaker 2: it was all bad, but she really doesn't want to
Speaker 2: address the things that were.
Speaker 1: She wants to hold on to the good things and
Speaker 1: say some bad things happened exactly in inner conversations with
Speaker 1: it exactly, And I think a lot of people can
Speaker 1: relate to that when they're talking to parents, you know,
Speaker 1: more extreme example, you're in a cult. Other examples, you
Speaker 1: have issues from the family dynamic or things that happened
Speaker 1: when you're a kid, and different people kind of focus
Speaker 1: on different parts of the memory. That can make it
Speaker 1: hard sometimes to talk about the past without feeling invalidated
Speaker 1: or without feeling like you're kind of talking past each other.
Speaker 2: Then my sister, she doesn't even want to listen to
Speaker 2: this podcast, which is fine with me. She's in a
Speaker 2: place that I know that a lot of people I
Speaker 2: grew up with are where she just wants to leave
Speaker 2: the past and the past and move forward. A couple
Speaker 2: days after the first episode aired, I brought up the
Speaker 2: podcast and was talking about some of the things in there,
Speaker 2: and she said, you know, I know a lot of
Speaker 2: bad things happened to you, and I'm really sorry about that,
Speaker 2: but it's I feel like I'm in a really good
Speaker 2: place in my life right now, and I think I
Speaker 2: just need to leave the past and the past, and
Speaker 2: I hope you can respect that, and of course I can't.
Speaker 2: Of course I can't. But something that Lindsay and I
Speaker 2: have talked about is how hard it is to have
Speaker 2: all of these people that you grew up with and
Speaker 2: who experienced the same life you experienced through the most part,
Speaker 2: and nobody wants to talk about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so.
Speaker 2: I'm thankful because Lindsay and I are now talking, and
Speaker 2: I'm very grateful to have somebody that I can talk
Speaker 2: to about things that come up for me, because sometimes
Speaker 2: I will have the most random memory and to have
Speaker 2: somebody like that I can just text and be like,
Speaker 2: you know, I just thought of this, and isn't this crazy?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really It's someone who actually gets there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a huge blessing, definitely very healing to have
Speaker 2: somebody like that.
Speaker 1: What are some of those memories that have been popping
Speaker 1: up lately.
Speaker 2: One of the things that popped up for me a
Speaker 2: few weeks ago was going to heaven. We used to
Speaker 2: say that we will be with Jesus Christ for all eternity.
Speaker 2: That's a wonderful thing. But then somebody was like, well,
Speaker 2: why would we want to be with somebody that we
Speaker 2: don't even know? And then somebody was like, basically spun
Speaker 2: together that because Victor was Jesus Christ in the flesh,
Speaker 2: that who we were going to be with wasn't going
Speaker 2: to be some stranger we had never seen before, but
Speaker 2: that it was going to be Victor, that Victor was
Speaker 2: going to take that personification of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: That's such a stark statement that Victor is Jesus. Even
Speaker 1: when you go to heaven, the Jesus you meet will
Speaker 1: be Victor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's not biblical at all. And to be
Speaker 2: quite frank, I feel as though I know Jesus and
Speaker 2: when I see his face, I will know him and
Speaker 2: it won't be Victor's face, and it won't be Victor's face,
Speaker 2: thank God. But yeah, that was a really fun one
Speaker 2: to like kind of remember remember and actually be able
Speaker 2: to chuckle about and be like, we were really that
Speaker 2: far gone.
Speaker 1: Hindsight.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In the series, we tell your story and we talk
Speaker 1: a lot about your early childhood. You were in the
Speaker 1: group since you were born, essentially your parents knew Victor
Speaker 1: for a long time, and we talk about kind of
Speaker 1: your middle school years that were so terrible for you
Speaker 1: because jan was insisting on these awful diets. And then
Speaker 1: we kind of fast forward to your early twenties when
Speaker 1: you're living in Washington State with other members of River
Speaker 1: Road Fellowship and the news is coming out about Lindsay
Speaker 1: and Jess going to the police about the sexual abuse.
Speaker 1: I'm really curious if you could tell us about the
Speaker 1: years in between, because there's probably about a decade in there.
Speaker 1: What was going on or what are some of the
Speaker 1: memories that are most vivid for you during that time
Speaker 1: of your life.
Speaker 2: During that time in my life, between the ages of
Speaker 2: twelve and seventeen, we had moved back home to the
Speaker 2: house that we owned on a satellite property. Originally it
Speaker 2: was known as Eagle's Nest, and then Victor changed the
Speaker 2: name to Melita, which is the biblical name for the
Speaker 2: island of Malta. Oh, so I lived there from the
Speaker 2: ages of twelve to seventeen without moving. Once my life
Speaker 2: definitely calmed down a lot. Melita was kind of the
Speaker 2: location where conforming nonconformists lived, if that makes any sense,
Speaker 2: people who were a part of the church, but maybe
Speaker 2: they didn't fit the idea or the mold of like
Speaker 2: the model cult member. So we were a bit more
Speaker 2: laid back. Melita was actually a really great nickname for
Speaker 2: our property because it was kind of like an island,
Speaker 2: the island of misfit toys, if you will. So we
Speaker 2: lived there. It was during that time that I had
Speaker 2: been sort of inadvertently looped in with a group of
Speaker 2: young people that I don't think we really talked in
Speaker 2: this series about, specifically known as the Shepherd's Core.
Speaker 1: Yes, and the Shepherd We did not get into that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is a whole probably a whole other podcast series,
Speaker 2: if we're being honest.
Speaker 1: Because there were a number of groups, especially for young people,
Speaker 1: like the Maidens, and Shepherd's Core was another way that
Speaker 1: you're kind of showing your commitment, You're getting more deeply
Speaker 1: involved with the church, so you kind of, it sounds like,
Speaker 1: became part of the Shepherd's Core.
Speaker 2: I did. Yes, the Shepherd's Core was originally I think
Speaker 2: like six or seven younger people, and then in two
Speaker 2: thousand and three, Victor opened it up to anyone over
Speaker 2: the age of twelve. I was eventually kind of brought
Speaker 2: in in two thousand and five.
Speaker 1: And my impression is that the Shepherd's Core was kind
Speaker 1: of like a very intense church youth group. Would you
Speaker 1: say that's one way to look at it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's a really funny thing to talk about because
Speaker 2: at the inception of the Shepherd's Core, Victor's idea of
Speaker 2: what it was going to be was going to be
Speaker 2: very similar to the Waycore of the Way International.
Speaker 1: Which is the group Victor was a part of before
Speaker 1: creating River Road Fellowship. And this was kind of a
Speaker 1: branch off of the Way, very influenced by the Way.
Speaker 1: A lot of former members of the Way joined River Road.
Speaker 2: Yes, so that was his kind of blueprint. What it
Speaker 2: became was not that at all. There were Shepherd's Core
Speaker 2: principles that we had to follow, there were verses that
Speaker 2: we had to memorize. It became a name, just a
Speaker 2: name only really you didn't really know. I never really
Speaker 2: knew what it meant to be Shepherd's Core. He would
Speaker 2: take us on like camping trips sometimes, or there would
Speaker 2: be classes, and I know that I talked about the classes.
Speaker 2: The original Shepherd's Core had been given, like these sweatshirts
Speaker 2: that had the Shepherd's Core written on them. But it
Speaker 2: was kind of like when Lindsay had to give back
Speaker 2: all of the things that she was given when she
Speaker 2: left the Maidens. If Victor didn't think that these young
Speaker 2: people were like spiritually well, or if he got mad
Speaker 2: at them, he made them turn in their sweats. I
Speaker 2: never had to do that because by the time I
Speaker 2: came around, nothing was being given to the Shepherd's Core.
Speaker 2: It was just sort of a name that Victor would
Speaker 2: throw around to make the young people feel good.
Speaker 1: It's interesting how he creates these status symbols that he
Speaker 1: gets to choose who has them, and so he can
Speaker 1: give you that status or take it away at any
Speaker 1: time for any reason, and you might not know why. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that just turned into such a mind game and
Speaker 1: so manipulative.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So within the Shepherd's Core there was the Maidens,
Speaker 2: which were kind of part of the Shepherd's corep but
Speaker 2: kind of not. And then there was another group known
Speaker 2: as Ariga's Band, which was seven young women who were
Speaker 2: around the same age as the Maidens. Some of them
Speaker 2: were younger sisters of the Maidens, and some of them
Speaker 2: were maybe young women who had joined the church after
Speaker 2: the Maidens were formed. And then there was a men's
Speaker 2: group that was eight young men and they were known
Speaker 2: as the Gilliad Gamblers. And from my understanding, these groups
Speaker 2: they'd lived together, they did all their stuff together. Ariga's Band,
Speaker 2: they had a commitment similar to the Maidens, to remain unmarried.
Speaker 2: The Gilliad Gamblers, from my understanding, It's funny because my
Speaker 2: brother in law's a former Gilliad gambler. They had a commitment.
Speaker 2: I believe it was for seven years to remain unmarried
Speaker 2: and then they could get married if they wanted to.
Speaker 1: So interesting, how the girls and the boys are treated differently.
Speaker 1: Where the girls groups you're never getting married, right? Could
Speaker 1: you talk about a little bit about how men and
Speaker 1: women or girls and boys were treated differently in the church.
Speaker 2: Women were absolutely expected to be quieter, more submissive. The
Speaker 2: way we dressed was more regulated, the way we talked
Speaker 2: was more regulated, where we went was regulated.
Speaker 1: Was the rule of walking into's only applied to women
Speaker 1: and girls?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Wow, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: Yes, men could go wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. It was a very that's so oppressive, Yeah,
Speaker 1: very oppressives. One thing I've been wondering about is I
Speaker 1: remember when you were living in Washington and you finally
Speaker 1: had that brave moment where you said I'm leaving. I know,
Speaker 1: right beforehand you were dating someone at the time who
Speaker 1: you had met through a coworker, and you finally told
Speaker 1: him at one point I'm in a cult and I
Speaker 1: need to get out and I don't know how. And
Speaker 1: it's really interesting to me that use the word cult.
Speaker 1: And I'm curious, when did that transition happen where you
Speaker 1: actually in your brain. I'm guessing that's the first time
Speaker 1: you said it out loud. And I'm wondering when in
Speaker 1: your brain you started thinking this is a cult that
Speaker 1: I'm in.
Speaker 2: That's a really great question, because it actually is a
Speaker 2: lot earlier than one might think. People always called us
Speaker 2: a cult, you know, and Victor would talk about people
Speaker 2: who called us a cult and how you know they
Speaker 2: were wrong and really yeah. And I remember the mother
Speaker 2: of one of the grown women in our church coming
Speaker 2: to visit at one point and she was telling her daughter.
Speaker 2: She's like, you were in a cult. And the daughter
Speaker 2: was like, no, one'm not. And she said, you guys
Speaker 2: live together, you eat together, you work together, you buy
Speaker 2: food together. She's like, for all intents and purposes, this
Speaker 2: is a cult. And the daughter, the woman in the church,
Speaker 2: she said, oh, I guess I guess it is. Well,
Speaker 2: that's great, and she just kind of like moved on.
Speaker 2: So I kind of always just had it in the
Speaker 2: back of my head that like, yes, we were a cult,
Speaker 2: but we were like the good kind of cult and
Speaker 2: that it was fine. It wasn't like Jonestown where we
Speaker 2: were all gonna drink something and die like we would
Speaker 2: never do that. So that was sort of when the
Speaker 2: seed was planted. But when it was like solidified was
Speaker 2: when I originally watched the story with Jess and Lindsay
Speaker 2: and they talked about it as being a cult. That
Speaker 2: was when it solidified for me that yes, it was
Speaker 2: indeed a cult, and yes it was not the quote
Speaker 2: unquote good kind of cult. That it was very very dark.
Speaker 1: What do you think made it a cult? You know,
Speaker 1: beyond the obvious terrible abuses that were happening. If someone
Speaker 1: is joining a new group, joining a new religion, a
Speaker 1: new community, what should people watch out for or what
Speaker 1: did you see?
Speaker 2: I mean, the list goes on, but a big one
Speaker 2: is isolation. If they are telling you that you can't
Speaker 2: talk to your family or your friends, that you have
Speaker 2: to cut those ties, that is cult red flag one
Speaker 2: oh one. In my opinion, I think that there is
Speaker 2: definitely the opportunity and the availability for people to come
Speaker 2: together and work together and live in a communal environment,
Speaker 2: and I think that there is the availability for it
Speaker 2: to be good but when there is somebody, when there
Speaker 2: is a figurehead in the middle, that is everything's trickling
Speaker 2: down from you cease to have free will because everything
Speaker 2: revolves around this one person. And if you look at
Speaker 2: cults throughout time, that's really the determining factors that there
Speaker 2: is this one figurehead that is not God, not Jesus.
Speaker 2: It's a person who has put themselves in a position
Speaker 2: of authority and has started making these rules and began
Speaker 2: to isolate you into this community. I think that that
Speaker 2: is the main thing that people need to look out for.
Speaker 2: But also it's not lost on me that a lot
Speaker 2: of people realize that too late, they're too far emeshed.
Speaker 1: It can feel like a fine line at first, especially
Speaker 1: because we all want someone who has all the answers
Speaker 1: or who can guide us. We all want to mentor
Speaker 1: we all want someone to help us figure out what
Speaker 1: to do in life. And once you find someone you trust,
Speaker 1: it very quickly can veer into an unhealthy balance of
Speaker 1: how much they're influencing you. And yeah, that can be
Speaker 1: hard to identify sometimes, and it does seem to me
Speaker 1: that it can come in different forms. I mean, sometimes
Speaker 1: it's religion, sometimes it's not religion based, but it is
Speaker 1: a controlling situation. Yeah, I'm curious, as you listened back
Speaker 1: to the series, you're hearing yourself, you're hearing Lin's story,
Speaker 1: did anything surprise you or did anything kind of make
Speaker 1: you see things differently?
Speaker 2: You know, I can't say that there was necessarily like
Speaker 2: an aha moment for me. There were definitely things that
Speaker 2: Lindsay said in general that I was like, Oh, thank
Speaker 2: god she remembers it that way too, because sometimes you
Speaker 2: wonder if you're remembering it correctly, like I said at
Speaker 2: the beginning, and you want to make sure that you
Speaker 2: are speaking the truth because if you're not, then the
Speaker 2: credibility of all of our stories goes out the window
Speaker 2: in my opinion. So I guess that that was a
Speaker 2: really really big deal for me, is like hearing actually
Speaker 2: hearing her speak and tell her story her way. Like
Speaker 2: I said earlier on the podcast, how her story was
Speaker 2: so spun to fit a narrative of that this was
Speaker 2: a sex cult and that gave their young daughters over
Speaker 2: to this man.
Speaker 1: You're talking about in some of the media contry, because
Speaker 1: the media convergation outside of interviews, we've talked about this,
Speaker 1: How yes, you felt like a lot of the media
Speaker 1: coverage it didn't feel right to you, right, or how
Speaker 1: would you?
Speaker 2: It didn't go It felt very inaccurate. And then there
Speaker 2: were like a lot of third party tellings of whatever
Speaker 2: these podcasters heard on the media, and I was like,
Speaker 2: none of this is accurate, Like this is such a
Speaker 2: skewed telling of my life, and it made me so mad.
Speaker 2: And I actually reached out to a podcaster that was
Speaker 2: like a third party narrator of the story who just
Speaker 2: basically gathered all the information that they had from the
Speaker 2: media and talked about River read Fellowship on their podcast,
Speaker 2: and Oh, I was furious, and I was like, they
Speaker 2: don't have the story there this none of what they're
Speaker 2: saying is even like factually accurate. And I actually reached
Speaker 2: out to them on Instead Graham and was like, Hey,
Speaker 2: I grew up in this cult. If you want to
Speaker 2: know what really happened, go ahead and reach out. They
Speaker 2: never did, which is fine, but that was really what
Speaker 2: made me want to start talking about my story and
Speaker 2: really like talk about the nuance of what was going
Speaker 2: on behind the scenes of this big blow up that happened,
Speaker 2: because there's just it was, it went so much deeper,
Speaker 2: and there was so much more going on that led
Speaker 2: to this terrible thing that happened with these young girls.
Speaker 1: So hearing Lindsay now tell her story, that felt yeah,
Speaker 1: what did that?
Speaker 2: It felt full It kind of felt full circle in
Speaker 2: a way, I guess, and realizing that that wasn't her, like,
Speaker 2: oh my god. They took soundbites, spits and pieces to
Speaker 2: make it sound a certain way and get the story across.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're saying that the other coverage when sometimes it
Speaker 1: felt inaccurate. It wasn't Lindsay's doing it. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It wasn't your doing.
Speaker 2: It wasn't Lindsay's doing. It was people piecemealing things together
Speaker 2: to make a story, and which is fine. The end
Speaker 2: result was Victor Bernard was put in jail. That was
Speaker 2: what needed to happen. But also Lindsay deserved to be heard.
Speaker 2: She deserved to share her truth, and so listening to
Speaker 2: her share her story on this podcast, I was just
Speaker 2: so happy for her. I'm so happy that she's gotten
Speaker 2: so much healing and that she is living a wonderful,
Speaker 2: good life with her child, and that she seems happy
Speaker 2: and that she still is willing to speak about this
Speaker 2: and that her intention is very similar to mine, and
Speaker 2: that this story, our experiences can help people, can help
Speaker 2: other survivors, can help people trying to figure their way
Speaker 2: out of these situations. Our stories can help with that.
Speaker 1: I know that once you left River Road Fellowship, it
Speaker 1: was a really dark time for you. You talked about
Speaker 1: what do I do with my life now? I'm leaving
Speaker 1: behind everything and everyone I know. And I wonder if
Speaker 1: you could talk about some of the turning points or
Speaker 1: the stages you went through to get to your life now.
Speaker 2: How much time do we have? So I left in
Speaker 2: March of twenty fifteen, right after Victor Bernard was arrested
Speaker 2: in Brazil. He hadn't even been extradited to the United
Speaker 2: States yet, he was still in prison in Brazil, and
Speaker 2: there was a lot surrounding that. A big turning point
Speaker 2: for me, Like maybe the first turning point was when
Speaker 2: I got in touch with one of the former clergy
Speaker 2: in River Road. He had actually left the previous year
Speaker 2: after he was kind of pushed out because he had
Speaker 2: called out some of the stuff that was going on
Speaker 2: in Spokane very bluntly, very frankly, and there was a
Speaker 2: lot of dishonesty going on about why he left. So
Speaker 2: when I left, I got in touch with his son
Speaker 2: and I said, get me in touch with your dad,
Speaker 2: because this is a man that I trusted. I knew
Speaker 2: that something had to have happened that caused him to
Speaker 2: walk out.
Speaker 1: This is you want to know. You want to know
Speaker 1: what happened.
Speaker 2: This is a man that Victor called his true son
Speaker 2: in the faith. Like, if he left, something had to
Speaker 2: have happened. That was a really big deal. Okay. So
Speaker 2: his son got me in touch with him and I
Speaker 2: ended up going over to their house for dinner, and
Speaker 2: after dinner, he and I sat out on the porch
Speaker 2: and he's like, so, you said, you wanted to talk
Speaker 2: to me, what can I help you with? And I said,
Speaker 2: I want to know what happened. I want to know
Speaker 2: why we're sitting here today and not back there still.
Speaker 2: And he basically told me that the church had gotten
Speaker 2: so far from the standard of the Word of God
Speaker 2: that he just couldn't watch it anymore. And he had
Speaker 2: shown the leaders in Spokane in the Bible where things
Speaker 2: were going wrong, and they sent him away. So that
Speaker 2: was a big turning point for me to have some
Speaker 2: like validation that what I experienced was being seen by
Speaker 2: other people. Other people were being abused by this abuse
Speaker 2: of power.
Speaker 1: It seems that when you first left was really the hardest,
Speaker 1: hardest period.
Speaker 2: I didn't know how to be a person. It was
Speaker 2: literally like that I did not know how to function
Speaker 2: in a world where my life wasn't regulated. I didn't
Speaker 2: know what to eat, I knew nothing. I didn't know
Speaker 2: how to manage my emotions because everything had just been
Speaker 2: pushed down, so I didn't know how to manage and
Speaker 2: regulate my emotions at all. It was just like I
Speaker 2: was a teenager, I was a child.
Speaker 1: How did that come up in your life?
Speaker 2: Relationships? Relationships? You know. I had been casually seeing this
Speaker 2: guy and that ended very poorly. I had been raised
Speaker 2: to just let people walk all over me, and he
Speaker 2: sometimes would be like, you're acting like you're twelve, Like
Speaker 2: grow up. I'm like, I that's because I was emotionally
Speaker 2: stunted at twelve, Like I don't know how to be
Speaker 2: a person. And that was actually like, actually a real
Speaker 2: concept to me. That was like, I think that all
Speaker 2: of these things are coming to the surface because they
Speaker 2: couldn't for so long.
Speaker 1: These things being like kind of emotional.
Speaker 2: Emotions experiences like suddenly I'm going through some sort of
Speaker 2: like psychological puberty of sorts, Like it's all just coming
Speaker 2: to this, you know, rushing in and my whole world
Speaker 2: is new, and it's overwhelmingly new, and it's not that great.
Speaker 2: And I didn't know what to do with myself, and
Speaker 2: so I drank a lot to non whatever I was feeling,
Speaker 2: put myself in a lot of dangerous situations with men,
Speaker 2: which I know that Lindsay talked about as well. And
Speaker 2: it is a miracle that I am alive. Let's just
Speaker 2: put it that way. Yeah. I poisoned myself with alcohol
Speaker 2: on more than one occasion, ended up in the psych word.
Speaker 2: It was just really, really, really bad. Moved home to
Speaker 2: help take care of my dad, got away from the
Speaker 2: pain of like the environment of Spokane, but the pain
Speaker 2: was still very much within me. I didn't know how
Speaker 2: to deal. I got involved with another really unhealthy young
Speaker 2: man that ended very badly. After he broke up with
Speaker 2: me in September of twenty sixteen, I reached a point
Speaker 2: of I was so broken. I just didn't want to exist.
Speaker 2: I did not want to exist. I didn't want to die.
Speaker 2: But I also didn't want to live. And I was
Speaker 2: in the shower and I asked God. I said, God,
Speaker 2: I don't know if this is even possible, but I
Speaker 2: need you to heal me. And immediately the thought popped
Speaker 2: into my head that I needed to get sober, I
Speaker 2: needed to quit drinking, and so I did. That day,
Speaker 2: I reached out to a person I barely knew to
Speaker 2: take me to a recovery meeting and I started building
Speaker 2: a bit of a community there and that was a
Speaker 2: big growth, time of growth for me. I started going
Speaker 2: to therapy during that time, I started learning how to heal.
Speaker 2: So I got into another relationship and then broke up
Speaker 2: with him middle of COVID while my dad was dying.
Speaker 2: After that, met my husband. One thing I wanted in
Speaker 2: a partner was somebody who wanted to better themselves, wanted
Speaker 2: to grow, somebody that I could grow with and build
Speaker 2: off of and they could build off me. And I
Speaker 2: found that in my husband. I lost my dad in
Speaker 2: October of twenty twenty, twenty twenty one had my son.
Speaker 2: These are all like turning points things, you know, growth,
Speaker 2: times of growth. My husband is a recovering addict, and
Speaker 2: thirteen days after my son was born, he overdosed.
Speaker 1: And I'm so sorry, Krista.
Speaker 2: And he was revived, and there is no reason logically,
Speaker 2: scientifically that he should be alive today because he was
Speaker 2: on some very quiet side street, in a very quiet neighborhood,
Speaker 2: in his truck when it happened. So it wasn't like
Speaker 2: he was out in public. He was just alone and
Speaker 2: somebody found him and revived him. And my therapist had
Speaker 2: said to me, because I couldn't make sense of it,
Speaker 2: I was like, I don't understand why this, how this happened.
Speaker 2: Like I'm happy he's alive, but I don't understand why
Speaker 2: or how. And she said, Krista, sometimes miracles just happen
Speaker 2: and you just have to be okay with that. It
Speaker 2: was really just like blood. And it was in those
Speaker 2: moments following that I started to actually believe in God again.
Speaker 2: I started realizing that my God was a God.
Speaker 1: Of love.
Speaker 2: And a god of healing and forgiveness and patience and goodness,
Speaker 2: and that God never wanted to hurt me, that he
Speaker 2: only wanted to see me thrive, and that the people
Speaker 2: who said that they were acting in God's name were
Speaker 2: false prophets essentially, and that they were liars earlier this year,
Speaker 2: I finally had the courage to walk into a church again,
Speaker 2: which is something I never swore i'd do. And God
Speaker 2: met me there, and I don't know what you believe, Erica,
Speaker 2: but that's what I believe in my heart.
Speaker 1: It's so powerful to hear how you've built a life
Speaker 1: that focuses on being loving and focuses on the love
Speaker 1: part and not the punishment and the blame and all
Speaker 1: of the self criticism you had to live in for
Speaker 1: so long and to find something that can lead to
Speaker 1: just this happy life that you have. I'm sure they're
Speaker 1: not happy parts too.
Speaker 2: There are definitely not happy parts. There's definitely still stuff
Speaker 2: I struggle with. I'm still very traumatized when it comes
Speaker 2: to eating and diet, which is something that I am
Speaker 2: in therapy for now. That is a big I actually
Speaker 2: should bring that up that that was a big aha
Speaker 2: moment I did have when I was listening to myself
Speaker 2: and I realized that my eating patterns were disordered, and
Speaker 2: they've been disordered since I was a teenager. So that
Speaker 2: coming to light was a big deal for me. And
Speaker 2: I was able to get back into therapy with my
Speaker 2: old therapist, so I get to address that Nowjince, she's wonderful.
Speaker 1: You realize that you are still carrying some of those
Speaker 1: ordered behavior as a way of thinking.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, and I will probably always, you know, to
Speaker 2: some extent, carry some part of it with me. It
Speaker 2: was my entire childhood, so it's not like I can
Speaker 2: erase it. But I think even if I still have
Speaker 2: things that I need to heal from, which I know
Speaker 2: I do, I can address it in a healthy way
Speaker 2: where it doesn't take me out emotionally physically, because I
Speaker 2: have such a beautiful life.
Speaker 1: Now, what is your life like now?
Speaker 2: It's very simple, which is what I wanted. I wanted
Speaker 2: a simple life. I live in a three bedroom apartment
Speaker 2: in a college neighborhood. I have two dogs that are
Speaker 2: very crazy. I have a wonderful husband that I've been
Speaker 2: married to for almost three years. Our third anniversary is
Speaker 2: coming up. I have a son and a daughter who
Speaker 2: are the loves of my life. And I know that
Speaker 2: I've talked about my son in this podcast, but since then,
Speaker 2: I've had a daughter. And she is wild, and I
Speaker 2: say that in the best sense of the word. She
Speaker 2: is wild, and she is joyful, and she is fierce,
Speaker 2: and she is fearless, and I kind of said tongue
Speaker 2: in cheek a couple of weeks ago to somebody, I said,
Speaker 2: I think Maddie is everything that I would have been
Speaker 2: had I not had my entire personality beat out of
Speaker 2: me at a young age. And I'm just so happy
Speaker 2: for her that nobody's ever gonna take that from her,
Speaker 2: That she gets to grow up and shine and be
Speaker 2: bright and be loud and people are gonna love her
Speaker 2: for it, and that is so amazing to me. I
Speaker 2: don't need that. I have built my life around whatever
Speaker 2: happened to me and have integrated that into who I
Speaker 2: am now, and it's, you know, maybe not who I
Speaker 2: would have been had I not had those experiences, but
Speaker 2: I love myself. I love who I've become. But to
Speaker 2: see people just light up when they see my daughter's
Speaker 2: face because she has so much joy and she's so fearless,
Speaker 2: it's healing. It's so healing to watch.
Speaker 1: Is there anything that comes to mind that you want
Speaker 1: to share or you want people to hear before we close?
Speaker 2: I looked up a recent mug shot of Victor Bernard
Speaker 2: a few weeks ago. When the podcast first started airing,
Speaker 2: I hadn't seen his face in years, many years, but
Speaker 2: I was curious, and so I looked up a recent
Speaker 2: mugshot of him. And he looked weak. He looked thin
Speaker 2: and sickly. He was missing a tooth. He looked small.
Speaker 2: And I looked at him and I said, that's who
Speaker 2: he is. That's who he always was, underneath the guys
Speaker 2: of what he tried to portray to us. He's small
Speaker 2: and weak and ugly. And man, that felt good, Oh
Speaker 2: my god, that felt good. I want people to know
Speaker 2: that healing is available. It is hard and it's messy,
Speaker 2: but it can happen. You don't have to hurt forever.
Speaker 2: It's available to have a happy life.
Speaker 1: So true. Thank you so much for talking with me,
Speaker 1: for all the interviews we did before, for this one today.
Speaker 1: It has meant so much to both Aileen and me,
Speaker 1: and I know it's meant a lot to people who
Speaker 1: have listened. So it's not easy to talk about this stuff,
Speaker 1: and I think we all just really appreciate it.
Speaker 2: Well. I appreciate you giving both Lindsay and me a
Speaker 2: platform to tell our stories in the way that we
Speaker 2: wanted to tell them. So thank you.
Speaker 1: The Turning is a production of Rococo Punch and iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: It's written and produced by Alan Lance, Lesser and Me.
Speaker 1: Our story editor is Emily Foreman. Mixing and sound designed
Speaker 1: by James Trout. Grace Doe is our production assistant. Fact
Speaker 1: checking by Andrea Lopez Crusado. Our executive producers are John
Speaker 1: Parratti and Jessica Alpert at Rococo Punch and Katrina Norvel
Speaker 1: and Nikki Etour at iHeart Podcasts. You can follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Rococo Punch, and you can reach out
Speaker 1: via email The Turning at Rococo Punch dot com I
Speaker 1: America Lance thanks for listening.