Speaker 1: Also media. Oh, welcome back to Behind Grand Rapids Michigan,
Speaker 1: a podcast where I investigate the most infamous in the
Speaker 1: history of Grand Rapids Michigan. And you can help me
Speaker 1: by googling Jamie Loftus Comma Hammer murders, Comma Michigan, Comma Cia,
Speaker 1: Comma Bill Clinton.
Speaker 2: No, I'm taking this. I'm taking this all the way
Speaker 2: to the fucking top. And I'm saying that you're trying
Speaker 2: to associate me with Grand Rapids so that you can
Speaker 2: continue to pass yourself off as a Bostonian because I
Speaker 2: am the big not in your Bostonian hoax.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're the only one who can expose me to
Speaker 1: the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so they're trying to listeners. They're trying to
Speaker 2: take me out because I have the truth. I'm a
Speaker 2: little too close to the truth, one could say. And
Speaker 2: so people are gonna make accusations. And yes, it's going
Speaker 2: to involve hammers, and yeah, it's all going to sort
Speaker 2: of sound plausible for some reason based on my general vibe.
Speaker 2: But I assure you I've never even been to Grand Rapids.
Speaker 2: I went to Detroit for hot dog purposes only.
Speaker 1: Now, thank you, Jamie. Here's my question Here's my question,
Speaker 1: and this is this is an important one. H Why
Speaker 1: are you more concerned with being associated with Grand Rapids,
Speaker 1: Michigan than Bill Clinton, dame sex criminal?
Speaker 3: I don't what.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, that's what you expressed. Was your issue,
Speaker 1: not the Bill Clinton of it all?
Speaker 2: It doesn't look I'm always what am I not talking
Speaker 2: about the Bill Clinton of it all? And maybe that's
Speaker 2: a good Let's let's change the subject to the Bill
Speaker 2: Clinton of it all. I'd love to talk about the
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton of it at all and not the Jamie
Speaker 2: of it all, because the JMI of it all, you know,
Speaker 2: long story short, it's giving innocent, it's giving. I didn't it,
Speaker 2: and I couldn't have done it because I was I
Speaker 2: was just a kid. Yeah, and so were I to
Speaker 2: be prosecuted? You know, I you couldn't as an adult?
Speaker 4: Right? Wait? Is that a thing?
Speaker 2: If I committed a crime when I was a kid
Speaker 2: and I'm caught as an adult, how what happened?
Speaker 1: I think you're I think you're free and clear, which
Speaker 1: is why everyone listening. If you are under sixteen, go
Speaker 1: go commit a murder. It's fine, okay, not get in
Speaker 1: trouble anyway.
Speaker 2: Well, I I just be because I don't because this
Speaker 2: does feel like a trap.
Speaker 3: I still admit to nothing.
Speaker 1: Hmm, well, I admit to trying to get a bunch
Speaker 1: of sixteen year olds to not lose out on their
Speaker 1: one chance to commit a murder free of consequences. My
Speaker 1: free of consequences. I mean, you might be arrested and
Speaker 1: put in JUVI for several years, but you're not going
Speaker 1: to spend the rest of your life in prison if
Speaker 1: you're under sixteen. So go out there, kids. You know, look,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of oil executives out there. That's all
Speaker 1: I'm saying.
Speaker 2: You know what, are we talking and we're about to
Speaker 2: talk about the CIA for another one?
Speaker 1: Sure are no. We might pass the sea pretty quick.
Speaker 4: Why does he do this? It's a great question.
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to make the world a better place,
Speaker 1: or at least a place with slightly more interesting headlines,
Speaker 1: which is the same as.
Speaker 3: Better a world better place just by being in it.
Speaker 1: But okay, oh wow, thank you for that, lie, Sophie.
Speaker 2: I know I gotta lie to you at least once
Speaker 2: a week. Roberts literally venoing Sophie as we speak. That
Speaker 2: was every time, every time Sophie says something nice thousand
Speaker 2: dollars for one line.
Speaker 1: Wow, Yeah, I'm insecure today. So today back to the fine.
Speaker 4: Yep.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: In an article written by the Washington City Paper in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, a journalist interviewed Toby Terrell. Now this
Speaker 1: is the same guy Robert Tarrell. Toby's his cult name.
Speaker 1: I never really found a great explanation as to why
Speaker 1: this is the dude who's the RS agent name.
Speaker 3: Yeah, going to do a cult name, do a cult
Speaker 3: chan tobe.
Speaker 1: That sounds like those sodas with the weird geckos drawn
Speaker 1: on them that we drank in middle school.
Speaker 3: That's why neighbor's dog's name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, try harder. So. So Toby Terrell is the former
Speaker 1: IRS agent who worked for the company trading those CIA
Speaker 1: agents who also later spoilers, is going to sue Petty
Speaker 1: and the cult and then write a biography of Petty
Speaker 1: after he dies. So this guy number one kind of
Speaker 1: susu number two, absolutely involved in every weird sketchy thing
Speaker 1: around this cult. In nineteen ninety six, he has left.
Speaker 1: He's suing the cult for reasons that we will get
Speaker 1: into later. And the journalist talking to him asks him, Hey,
Speaker 1: was there any weird sex stuff with your cult? Right? Like,
Speaker 1: I know, you guys got you know, declared innocent or whatever.
Speaker 1: They dropped the check, arges, but everyone still suspects that
Speaker 1: you were doing something with those kids. Was there any
Speaker 1: weird sex stuff going on? And Arrell's answer, he definitely
Speaker 1: doesn't claim that they did any weird sex stuff with kids,
Speaker 1: but he does not deny that they did weird sex stuff.
Speaker 1: He kind of does the opposite of denying it.
Speaker 2: Right, are we talking like weird illegal sex stuff or
Speaker 2: just no sex stuff?
Speaker 1: Okay, I think just weird. So here's what he says.
Speaker 1: If you want to write a scholarly piece about the
Speaker 1: group and the historical context of the Shakers and the
Speaker 1: Oneida communities, fine, But for a newspaper article, I don't
Speaker 1: want to get into that that sensationalism. So he's basically saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: we were a weird utopian cult, and like all weird
Speaker 1: utopian cults, we did some crazy sex shit, but I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna I don't want it to be in a
Speaker 1: news article because you're just going to make it into
Speaker 1: something it's not. If you're like a scholar and you
Speaker 1: want to talk about our weird sec shit and the
Speaker 1: scholarly context, that's fine. But otherwise, no, yes, what an
Speaker 1: interesting That's an interesting stance to have all. I don't.
Speaker 1: I actually think that's a fair stance to have. Where
Speaker 1: he's like, look, yeah, every cult does weird sectionit. We're
Speaker 1: like a weird utopian community. But I don't not if.
Speaker 2: You're not writing a scholarly essay on it, I choose
Speaker 2: not to comment.
Speaker 1: If you want to put us in context. Sure, if
Speaker 1: you just want to be like they were doing weird
Speaker 1: section for your news article, I don't want to be
Speaker 1: part of the sensationalism. I actually kind of respect that.
Speaker 1: Even though this guy may in fact have been doing
Speaker 1: some shady spy shit, we really don't.
Speaker 2: Know, right, You're like, it's still ultimately bad, but I see,
Speaker 2: you know, I see where he like unfortunately, you know,
Speaker 2: bad people make good points.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a respectable answer to the question, is what
Speaker 1: I think. So, the idea of the CIA using a
Speaker 1: cult to spy on or otherwise disrupt left wing activism
Speaker 1: is not far fetched because we know for a fact
Speaker 1: that versions of this happened back during our episodes on
Speaker 1: mk Ultra. I quoted several times from the book Chaos
Speaker 1: by Tom O'Neil, which provides a detailed look a number
Speaker 1: of very weird CIA connections around Charles Manson, and there's debate.
Speaker 1: You know, it's possible he was, in fact, very likely
Speaker 1: that he received was dosed with acid as a result
Speaker 1: of him k Ultra. Very good chance he received some money.
Speaker 1: There's some like court things where he got in trouble
Speaker 1: and then it went away. It's all very unclear exactly
Speaker 1: what his relationship was. But the CIA was involved in
Speaker 1: kind of the fringe radical left community around the time
Speaker 1: of the Manson killings, and there's some suspicion that like
Speaker 1: basically they were hoping that they something like what happened
Speaker 1: with Manson would happen and it would discredit the anti
Speaker 1: war movement, right. That is a again, tracing out exactly
Speaker 1: what happened is really hard, and I think there's a
Speaker 1: good chance the CIA didn't. Was just kind of vaguely
Speaker 1: hoping that by encouraging some shady figures, you know, something
Speaker 1: would go down, rather than plotting out every step of it.
Speaker 1: But like some weird shit went down with them there.
Speaker 1: And we know for a fact that there were multiple
Speaker 1: cases in this peero of time of people with intelligence
Speaker 1: connections intervening before the murders to help out Manson get
Speaker 1: him out of legal jams. The CIA was undeniably engaged
Speaker 1: in something called Operation Chaos, from where Tom O'Neill's book
Speaker 1: takes its title. This was the CIA's counterpart to co
Speaker 1: intel pro. Right, So the FBI is co intel pro
Speaker 1: where we're infiltrating these groups and we're trying to make
Speaker 1: them not trust each other, trying to convince everyone on
Speaker 1: the left that everyone else on the left is a
Speaker 1: federal agent. Right, Like that was co intel pro in
Speaker 1: a nutshell. There was more to it than that. The
Speaker 1: CIA's counter to that was this plan to disrupt the
Speaker 1: left in the United States by kind of sowing chaos
Speaker 1: and discord. And I'm going to quote from the New
Speaker 1: York Times here. The CIA had undercover contacts monitored the
Speaker 1: meetings of groups such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Speaker 1: and the Washington Urban League. It maintained files on nearly
Speaker 1: a thousand organizations by August nineteen seventy three, when CIA
Speaker 1: Director Colby virtually halted this project. The paper trail left
Speaker 1: by Operation Chaos included somewhere in the area of thirteen
Speaker 1: thousand files on subjects and individuals. The report discloses. Link
Speaker 1: to this was a computer system containing an index of
Speaker 1: over three hundred thousand names in organizations, almost all of
Speaker 1: them United States citizens and organizations unconnected with espionage. Mister
Speaker 1: Helms and the high officials of the Johnson and Nixon
Speaker 1: administrations with whom he dealt were well aware of the
Speaker 1: fact that they were breaking the law. Thus, in submitting
Speaker 1: to Henry Kissinger a report on restless Youth, mister Helms
Speaker 1: wrote in a covering Mian mirandam early in nineteen sixty
Speaker 1: nine that a section on American students was extremely sensitive
Speaker 1: because the whole area was outside of the agency's charter. So,
Speaker 1: first off, the CIA is a foreign intelligence like their
Speaker 1: purview is foreign intelligence. They are not allowed to act
Speaker 1: like to spy on Americans. They are not allowed that's
Speaker 1: not now. They did a lot of it like that,
Speaker 1: because they did. They did it, But they're not allowed to.
Speaker 3: Paper they are supposed to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are for overseas. The FBI is for domestic.
Speaker 2: Right, It's so funny how easy it is to forget
Speaker 2: that just based on like shit, their wholest respectively did Yeah, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that to say like the CIA wouldn't
Speaker 1: have done that. No, they absolutely did it. It was just illegal.
Speaker 1: But the other thing that I think that quote should
Speaker 1: make clear is that, like there's absolutely a place for
Speaker 1: find the Finders in Operation Chaos. Right, They're spying on
Speaker 1: all sorts of weird groups. They're reaching out with weird
Speaker 1: questions to progressive groups. They know computers, they're maintaining massive
Speaker 1: computer databases. Like all of this is shit they could
Speaker 1: have been involved in, right, Like this is Operation Chaos
Speaker 1: is like tailor made for these guys. And we know
Speaker 1: that Operation Chaos extended through to nineteen seventy four, and
Speaker 1: the Finder started in nineteen seventy one. We know that
Speaker 1: the CIA was aware of Marion Petty at least in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty nine when we started traveling to communist countries.
Speaker 1: So there's at least a three year at least a
Speaker 1: three year period where there's a non zero chance were
Speaker 1: not only is there a decent chance that the CIA
Speaker 1: was interested in what the Finders could bring them, but
Speaker 1: we know the Finders were doing the kind of shit
Speaker 1: that the CIA was doing, right, keeping these notes and
Speaker 1: building extensive databases on left wing domestic organizations, right, so,
Speaker 1: you know, not impossible. Also, no real evidence other than
Speaker 1: like what we have sort of asserted, right, like, no
Speaker 1: clear evidence as to exactly what they would have been doing.
Speaker 1: But it's it's not at all impossible or unlikely that
Speaker 1: there was something going on.
Speaker 2: Right God, Okay, yeah, yeah, so that's fun.
Speaker 3: It's like.
Speaker 2: This problem is consistent throughout this organization's entire history, but
Speaker 2: it just yeah, it continues to get more and more
Speaker 2: tangled this time goes on.
Speaker 3: So what here are we in at this point?
Speaker 1: Well, we've kind of jumped around a little bit just
Speaker 1: because like there was the thing that happened in eighty
Speaker 1: seven where like the CIA took those training courses with
Speaker 1: the computer company that was tied to the founders. That
Speaker 1: happened before they were all arrested, but it didn't break
Speaker 1: until ninety three. But yeah, we still have not resolved
Speaker 1: the court case. And I don't know how to not
Speaker 1: jump around at this point because it's so labyrinthine and
Speaker 1: like the dates at which different things were found out.
Speaker 1: I hope this has not been unclear to people. It's
Speaker 1: just such an odd story. I wasn't really sure how
Speaker 1: else to structure it.
Speaker 3: I trust you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the first men to study the Finders
Speaker 1: and to comb their story for evidence of spy shit
Speaker 1: was a guy named Wendell Minnick. Minnick was the author
Speaker 1: of an encyclopedia of espionage called Spies and Provocateurs. He
Speaker 1: spent two years digging into Petty I think of the
Speaker 1: late eighties and his cult, and he wound up abandoning
Speaker 1: his research after and this really dates his research, after
Speaker 1: he spent one thousand dollars in phone calls. You can
Speaker 1: do that back in the day. Yeah, And he was like,
Speaker 1: I spent all this money like tracking down lead and
Speaker 1: trying to figure out shit about them, and I found nothing.
Speaker 4: I'm in the dog house.
Speaker 3: I've sent too many texts.
Speaker 4: Now my family is getting elected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, long distance calls used to be a thing people.
Speaker 1: He later told a reporter, the Finders would love you
Speaker 1: to think they're a CIA front, but I would say
Speaker 1: they're really nothing. You're going to hear a lot of
Speaker 1: bullshit on the Finders because they lie. These are dysfunctional adults,
Speaker 1: but they're all working their asses off. They're constantly working
Speaker 1: on some project. If you have a cult. The best
Speaker 1: way to control people is to keep them busy, to
Speaker 1: keep their minds occupied. If you have people standing around
Speaker 1: doing nothing, then they start thinking. So that's Minic's attitude,
Speaker 1: is that, like, these people desperately want you to think
Speaker 1: they're a CIA front. But like, most of why we
Speaker 1: have all this information that kind of seems like they
Speaker 1: might be spies is because they desperately want people to
Speaker 1: believe that, because that makes it a lot cooler than
Speaker 1: that they're a bunch of weird adults LARPing some guy's game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, are you how are you inclined to feel about that?
Speaker 2: Because I just, like I understand why that's plausible, but
Speaker 2: they're so much other close connections to the CIA.
Speaker 1: Like I suspect Petty wanted to be a spy. Maybe
Speaker 1: it was a little jealous of his wife, wanted to
Speaker 1: be involved, and started when he started doing this, reaching
Speaker 1: out to them with information. And I think there's a
Speaker 1: pretty good chance somewhat the agency may have strung him
Speaker 1: along to see if he had anything useful, And I
Speaker 1: kind of doubt he gave them much because I don't
Speaker 1: think these people were super serious. But that's my suspicion
Speaker 1: is that there was some level of connection between them,
Speaker 1: but that it was still mostly petty wanting to feel important, right,
Speaker 1: rather than like them giving use because there's no Here's
Speaker 1: the thing, there's absolutely no information or allegations of like
Speaker 1: this group of left wing activists was arrested because of
Speaker 1: info that the finders gave. Right, we don't. We've heard nothing.
Speaker 1: There have been no allegations, and I kind of think
Speaker 1: by this point there would be something specific as to like,
Speaker 1: here is what they did for this CIA, And it's
Speaker 1: all these kind of like vague insinuations and like loose,
Speaker 1: weird connections that made me think, yeah, he might he
Speaker 1: may have been trying to give them info and he
Speaker 1: may have just not had that much of use. But
Speaker 1: I don't know, uh we and we probably never will
Speaker 1: at this point.
Speaker 2: Oh but there is There is just like something so
Speaker 2: profoundly tragic about a LARPer who can't even like become
Speaker 2: vaguely interesting to the CIA. Yeah, because he's jealous of
Speaker 2: his Like he's like, I want to do crimes like
Speaker 2: my ex wife, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wanted to crimes against humanity like she did.
Speaker 4: Put it on girls, get everything.
Speaker 1: But because obviously the FBI comes out and says like,
Speaker 1: we don't believe these guys were involved with the CIA
Speaker 1: in any meaningful capacity, right, that's that's and we don't
Speaker 1: believe they were sex trafficking kids. And the conspiracy theorists
Speaker 1: will say, well, of course the FBI would say that
Speaker 1: they're the FBI. They exist to cover up government crimes.
Speaker 1: But those people the source that they cite is Ramone Martinez,
Speaker 1: who's also a FED. So like, either way on this,
Speaker 1: you're trusting one federal agent or another, you know, which
Speaker 1: is never a situation you want to be in if
Speaker 1: you're trying to track down the truth about like a conspiracy. Now,
Speaker 1: it's also worth noting that Ramone Martinez and I found
Speaker 1: this The QAnon anonymous guys did an episode on the
Speaker 1: Finders and they found references to Martinez by some like
Speaker 1: the there's at least one prominent conspiracy theorist, the guy
Speaker 1: who's kind of the origin of the black helicopter like
Speaker 1: family of conspiracy theories, who uh is like, Yeah, this
Speaker 1: guy was like a friend and he was he was
Speaker 1: a cool dude and we like chatted a bunch basically
Speaker 1: like this guy Martinez who came up with all these
Speaker 1: allegations against the Finders that no one else ever verified
Speaker 1: was a lifelong conspiracy theorist, and that may have explained.
Speaker 2: To shit, Yeah, that's also it's like there is such
Speaker 2: you know. It's like it's not as if there isn't
Speaker 2: some rich crossover between federal agencies and conspiracy theorists. No,
Speaker 2: such a rich gradient were exploring the FBI, we know
Speaker 2: as part of j Edgar Hoover's like Coentel pro was like, Yeah,
Speaker 2: we're going to try.
Speaker 1: And incite conspiracy theories. The more conspiratorial we can make
Speaker 1: the left, the less they'll trust each other, and the
Speaker 1: more they'll fight rather than like engage in organized action
Speaker 1: against the government. So it's also I guess the other
Speaker 1: possibility is that the Finders were never working for the
Speaker 1: CIA in a meaningful capacity, but the CIA may have
Speaker 1: wanted them to think that because they wanted something like
Speaker 1: this to happen, right, for them to become the nexus
Speaker 1: of a conspiracy theory, also a conspiracy that's totally possible
Speaker 1: and within the CIA's wheelhouse. So I don't know. At
Speaker 1: the end of the day, Jamie, I don't know exactly
Speaker 1: what was going on with these people, but I do
Speaker 1: know that all charges against the two Finders members who
Speaker 1: were arrested in with child abuse were dropped after six weeks,
Speaker 1: and the children were all ultimately returned to their mothers.
Speaker 1: And you know what else was returned to its mothers?
Speaker 4: No this I hate?
Speaker 3: I hate this transition.
Speaker 1: Well, Jamie, I love this transition just like just like
Speaker 1: the mothers of those kids loved their children, all right,
Speaker 1: more so, more.
Speaker 2: So, even more so, but not as much as you
Speaker 2: love these products and services.
Speaker 1: No, no one has ever loved their children as much
Speaker 1: as I love the products and services that support this podcast.
Speaker 1: That's just a fact, Jamie.
Speaker 4: It's sad, but it's true.
Speaker 2: No one.
Speaker 3: I hope that that's sad. Is like dick pills.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, absolutely, way better than a kid anyway, and
Speaker 1: we're back. Boy, if there is a dick pill ad
Speaker 1: after that, that's really going to get the whole child
Speaker 1: molestation conspiracy theory people talking.
Speaker 2: I okay, I have a question, Yes, Jamie, have any
Speaker 2: of these kids sid spoken on this period in their lives?
Speaker 1: Not that I have found none of these again, it
Speaker 1: would be a it would be pretty damning if some
Speaker 1: of them had come forward and said, yeah, we were
Speaker 1: absolutely molested but doesn't appear.
Speaker 3: To have happened, but nothing interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's part of why I suspect the FBI is
Speaker 1: probably correct in its conclusion that no kids were molested
Speaker 1: because like at this point something probably like Petty's dead,
Speaker 1: the cult's gone something probably now, Yeah, but nothing has
Speaker 1: and there's just again, there were never the kids never
Speaker 1: claimed anything. This isn't even like you get some of
Speaker 1: these satanic panic cases where like these kids become convinced
Speaker 1: that they were part of some like yeah, there's not
Speaker 1: even that, right. The kids are never like the most
Speaker 1: they have is that like one of the little girls
Speaker 1: when they ask her if she was molested, gets uncomfortable,
Speaker 1: which like we have some strange adult cops are asking
Speaker 1: you if someone touched you. That's pretty awkward, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not evidence that she was molested, that she was
Speaker 1: not comfortable in that situation. That's not a comfortable situation. No, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I don't the CI again where where I land
Speaker 1: is like the CIA stuff, big fat. Maybe there's like
Speaker 1: six different possibilities that you cannot rule out as to
Speaker 1: what may have happened there, the sex trafficking children, satanists thing,
Speaker 1: no evidence whatsoever, right, and.
Speaker 2: Like historically, yeah, those allegations in this era, like it doesn't.
Speaker 4: It doesn't.
Speaker 1: That's that's where I land on this stuff. Now. I
Speaker 1: should also again some of the blame for lingering conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories about the Finders as agents of the CIA or
Speaker 1: some of that agent.
Speaker 3: It doesn't absolve like it is. Ultimately, I would always believe.
Speaker 2: That it's probably their fault that this has stuck for
Speaker 2: so long.
Speaker 1: But it is. It absolutely is, because like they he likes,
Speaker 1: He deliberately has his people go out and incite some
Speaker 1: of these rumors, like while the case is still going on,
Speaker 1: just to like add to the media circus. Possibly because
Speaker 1: he liked seeing his name in the paper. I don't
Speaker 1: fully know. John Cohen's article on the Finders was published
Speaker 1: a year or so after the court case ended. Right,
Speaker 1: So this is the first good piece of media we
Speaker 1: get on it, because this whole all blows up. Everybody's
Speaker 1: talking on the news, Connie Chunk's talking about satanic child
Speaker 1: molestation cults, and then nothing happens. The case gets dismissed,
Speaker 1: and so Cohen does an actual good piece of journalism
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what happens and he's the first
Speaker 1: person to interview one of the mothers, Paula Erico, about
Speaker 1: like what happened, and she tells him like, yeah, we
Speaker 1: all left the cult, All of the women with kids
Speaker 1: left the cult after this because we were pissed at
Speaker 1: Petty for how he handled it. Quote Paula Erico nearly
Speaker 1: splits up her food, laughing when I tell her people
Speaker 1: suggest the finders maybe spooks. Erico and I are sitting
Speaker 1: at a restaurant in Tallahassee. She resettled here after the
Speaker 1: juvenile court finally deemed her fit to raise Mary and John.
Speaker 1: Paul those are her kids. That's their model to pretend
Speaker 1: they're cia, says Erico, who was in the group for
Speaker 1: eight years and now works as a bookkeeper. Who would
Speaker 1: wouldn't it be an exciting life? And again, this is
Speaker 1: like one of the moms at the center of it,
Speaker 1: who's like, presumably would have reason to like be angry
Speaker 1: at them or go out of her way if like
Speaker 1: something shady had been happening. He was like, no, they
Speaker 1: were assholes playing a stupid game with my kids. And
Speaker 1: by the way, that's plenty to qualify them as bastards.
Speaker 1: That's a bad thing to do.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, and also just like being you never know what
Speaker 2: past lives your bookkeeper ye has been up to?
Speaker 3: Who knows?
Speaker 2: They're like, you know, yeah, was I in a LARPing cult? Yes,
Speaker 2: they started to my kids.
Speaker 3: I had to walk.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was possibly a CIA spy cult. But you know,
Speaker 2: anything can have and in your twenties, it kind of
Speaker 2: doesn't count.
Speaker 1: And I kind of get the feeling that Petty, when
Speaker 1: the media interest started to fade as the case gets dropped,
Speaker 1: that's when he got most interested in spreading disinformation. And
Speaker 1: I'm going to read from Cohen here again, because this
Speaker 1: is really fucked up. A mimo attributed to M. D. Petty,
Speaker 1: delivered to the Tallahassee Democrat, that's a newspaper, said that
Speaker 1: he was resigning as leader of the Finders, a position
Speaker 1: he said he didn't know he held. I thought I
Speaker 1: was just a consultant on wit and humor, the memo said,
Speaker 1: if I ever was the leader, I hereby resigned to
Speaker 1: devote myself full time to zen walking. The Finders also
Speaker 1: started publishing a newsletter, the Daily Finder, in which they
Speaker 1: announced that they were all moving to Tallahassee. The Finders
Speaker 1: are always looking for signs and symbols they wrote. Since
Speaker 1: February fourth, Florida has been sending signals that they want
Speaker 1: to keep some Finders members, so now the rest are coming.
Speaker 1: Another issue of the Daily Finder Come to Tallahassee, invited
Speaker 1: friends to come join the drama and featured the song
Speaker 1: Old Tallahassee. Well, I came to Tech in a van
Speaker 1: so full of glee. They put me in the jailhouse
Speaker 1: with the chain up on my knee. So they're like
Speaker 1: writing songs about again the children of their members being
Speaker 1: held by the state. Like they're putting out these like
Speaker 1: fake newspapers. They're trying to get people to like move
Speaker 1: to Tallahassee, to like fuck with the squares. It's all
Speaker 1: very irresponsible.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: I just am like trying to like you were you
Speaker 2: were singing yeah, why no.
Speaker 1: No, you don't get the full effect. Otherwise, Jamie, I
Speaker 1: liked it.
Speaker 4: I felt like singing.
Speaker 1: Voice, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4: It was beautiful. I thought it was beautiful.
Speaker 1: So as a coda, again, I do want to add something.
Speaker 1: It's not impossible that children were abused. Again, there's no
Speaker 1: evidence of like sexual abuse, but like the neglect that
Speaker 1: was evident here. We might fairly call abuse, and that's
Speaker 1: not uncommon in cults. I do. I'm not saying no
Speaker 1: children were hurt, like definitely, like what Petty's doing there,
Speaker 1: these sending out fake newsletters trying to keep the ship
Speaker 1: in the new by like spreading doubt. After the case
Speaker 1: gets dismissed, you could argue that's abusive to these kids
Speaker 1: who it harms them, slows down their ability to like
Speaker 1: rejoin a normal life. That's bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean even yeah, you know, being guilty of neglect,
Speaker 2: that's absolutely abuse. And and just like putting the children
Speaker 2: in that situation in the in the first place where
Speaker 2: they have to you know, defend themselves against all this
Speaker 2: stuff like it it's.
Speaker 3: Just it is abusive.
Speaker 2: It's just yeah, but maybe not the kind of abuse
Speaker 2: that people or often go to prison for one of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the more fucked up things that comes
Speaker 1: out in this John Cohen article after the case gets
Speaker 1: dropped is that, you know how like when they initially
Speaker 1: get pulled over by the cops, the like two male
Speaker 1: adult cult members are like, we're taking these children to
Speaker 1: Mexico to put them in a genius school. We're making
Speaker 1: a Harvard for babies. Well, yeah, they didn't. It turns
Speaker 1: out they didn't come up with that dipshit excuse on
Speaker 1: the fly. They were instructed to say that by Petty
Speaker 1: if they were approached by the police, which, like me,
Speaker 1: you have to know, that's going to make the police suspicious.
Speaker 1: That's not gonna calm down an investigation. Like you have
Speaker 1: like six kids you're not related to in a van
Speaker 1: and are like, we're taking them into Mexico. That's going
Speaker 1: to get you all arrested.
Speaker 4: I don't.
Speaker 3: I don't understand. Yeah, the do.
Speaker 4: I mean, it's also like, do we believe that that is?
Speaker 2: It is the most made up sounding like I have
Speaker 2: to make something up on the fly thing in the world.
Speaker 1: I don't under like everyone everyone here is like making
Speaker 1: except for the mother's baffling decisions because it's nonsense.
Speaker 2: I feel like there has to be. But again, it's
Speaker 2: like I can't even say a sentence about this without
Speaker 2: sounding conspiratorial.
Speaker 3: I'm like, I think there's.
Speaker 2: Something we're missing. There may be missing piece of information.
Speaker 2: I cannot make sense of it.
Speaker 1: It's really weird, what I do think. So what it
Speaker 1: seems like happens is after the case gets dismissed. It
Speaker 1: comes out through like reporting and interviews with Petty that
Speaker 1: a lot of this was his fault because he coached
Speaker 1: his guys to give these evasive, weird answers, and he
Speaker 1: also coached everybody to respond in a really weird and
Speaker 1: irresponsible way during the court case. And so all of
Speaker 1: these women with kids take their children and leave the cult,
Speaker 1: and this kind of destroys the cult. Whatever else was
Speaker 1: going on, the goal of the Finders, according to internal members,
Speaker 1: focused heavily around these kids. They were trying to like
Speaker 1: raise better people in this enlightened way, and all of
Speaker 1: these businesses that they were running and using to accumulate money,
Speaker 1: the idea was that it would be given to these
Speaker 1: kids that would be their inheritance for the next generation
Speaker 1: of the cult. So when all these moms leave, it
Speaker 1: kind of fractures not just the cult, but their identity
Speaker 1: and their understanding about like what the future is going
Speaker 1: to be this it kind of some will argue this
Speaker 1: kind of breaks Petty right that like, now there's no
Speaker 1: future to this cult. It's just him and the last
Speaker 1: hangers on who couldn't break free from him, playing games
Speaker 1: with no purpose like that, there's not any sort of
Speaker 1: attitude that they're building anything, that they're like raising up
Speaker 1: a new generation. They have nothing now except for continuing
Speaker 1: to play weird games, and it gets increasingly kind of
Speaker 1: sad after this point, which is a bummer. So yeah, Petty,
Speaker 1: you know, claims in the wake of the case that
Speaker 1: the Finders have disbanded, but that is not true. They continue.
Speaker 3: It's left, like, what are their numbers, like, about.
Speaker 1: A dozen somewhere between ten and twenty people, right, usually
Speaker 1: we hear about a dozen.
Speaker 2: I'm not getting out of bed for a cult with
Speaker 2: less than forty people.
Speaker 1: And all the guys left, I think are pretty much
Speaker 1: all men. Right. Most of the women leave at this point,
Speaker 1: which just say something again to like this being a
Speaker 1: lower control type of calver a good sign that well,
Speaker 1: it's a good sign that the women felt like, yeah,
Speaker 1: we can bounce and nothing bad's going to happen to us,
Speaker 1: like they had agency, right, right. Part of why a
Speaker 1: lot of shit about the cult crumbles is these women
Speaker 1: were largely running things for Petty and then they leave
Speaker 1: and it's him and these guys, and most of the
Speaker 1: guys are kind of drips like they're they're just like
Speaker 1: weirdos who want to play spy games, and so it's
Speaker 1: just kind of them. Now. So after the kids leave
Speaker 1: and there's no one to hand over inheritance of the
Speaker 1: businesses and property to, Petty changes the way their finance
Speaker 1: system works. Right Previously, according to Terrell, when you joined,
Speaker 1: you gave all your money to the cult. But it
Speaker 1: was like put in what they called the invisible bank.
Speaker 1: And Tarrell was like, if you wanted to take your
Speaker 1: money out, you could. We people did it all the time.
Speaker 1: They weren't stealing from you. And in fact, like cult
Speaker 1: finances were pretty healthy, Like we ran businesses that were successful.
Speaker 1: It was like you could trust that you would get
Speaker 1: your money back. After these women take all their kids
Speaker 1: with them, Petty changes the finance system to basically a
Speaker 1: tontine where he's like, no one can draw their money.
Speaker 1: All of the money in businesses will go to the
Speaker 1: last one of us alive, which is, oh, a sketchy
Speaker 1: way to run things, right, that's is it weird?
Speaker 3: That's that's my first time hearing that one.
Speaker 4: I feel like I've heard it all that. I haven't
Speaker 4: heard that one before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's interesting. And this is this is what
Speaker 1: finally convinces Toby Arrell to leave, right, Like, this is
Speaker 1: why he actually leaves the cult, and he winds up
Speaker 1: suing Petty because he's like, he stole all of our money, right.
Speaker 1: I was fine with him until he started fucking with
Speaker 1: my money. So in nineteen ninety six, after the hubbub
Speaker 1: around child trafficking in the court case against the Finders
Speaker 1: had mostly subsided, a journalist named Eddie Dean traveled down
Speaker 1: to Florida to meet with Arrell and write an article
Speaker 1: for the Washington City Paper. Despite the fact that he
Speaker 1: was actively evolved in suing Petty, Terrell was like really
Speaker 1: positive about his former cult leader, Like he doesn't have
Speaker 1: a negative look towards him. He says, quote, I think
Speaker 1: if you look at the history of utopian movements in America,
Speaker 1: the Finders have a legitimate place because of the experimentation
Speaker 1: that went on. It was a good experiment. A lot
Speaker 1: of people learned from it, and I wouldn't trade it
Speaker 1: for anything. It lasted for twenty years while I was there,
Speaker 1: and I wouldn't call it a failure, he says, adding
Speaker 1: I still think Petty is a man of great insight
Speaker 1: and the world would do well to listen to his ideas.
Speaker 1: Now here's the thing. I've read everything about this colt.
Speaker 1: I don't know what his ideas are. I don't know
Speaker 1: what his insights are. They seem like they were LARPing.
Speaker 4: What was the goal?
Speaker 2: That is like a classic in the genre of like
Speaker 2: see what you will.
Speaker 4: About their methods?
Speaker 2: He had some good ideas, and you're like, but did
Speaker 2: he Yeah that was the idea.
Speaker 1: At least with like l Ron Hubbard, right when people
Speaker 1: are like, look, the cult's bad, but you know, his
Speaker 1: ideas were really good. At least I don't agree with him.
Speaker 1: His ideas were dogshit, but he had ideas. Right, there's
Speaker 1: books full of his theories.
Speaker 4: Something to latch on too.
Speaker 2: I still am struggling with, like, outside of like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I want to I like spy movies and I could
Speaker 2: do that.
Speaker 4: Like what are you latching onto?
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's suing him, Like what I don't get it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like I think the thing they're talking about is
Speaker 1: this idea that like, you know, life should be a
Speaker 1: game and you should always be learning, but like he
Speaker 1: picked a weird way to.
Speaker 3: Learn, and also like what did we learn?
Speaker 1: Yeah, what did you learn? Don't play games with the
Speaker 1: FBI when your kids are taken into custody on suspicion
Speaker 1: of being molested as part of a devil conspiracy. I
Speaker 1: feel like most people know that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's pretty intuitive. I don't think that's adding very much.
Speaker 2: That's like, again, you're just like, what's the missing piece
Speaker 2: of information here?
Speaker 4: Why would someone say that it doesn't?
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: We feel what I feel, well, Robert, I feel no closer.
Speaker 2: I feel no closer to understanding any of this.
Speaker 1: This this is a little bit of a fucking cipher here.
Speaker 1: But what is interesting to me is that, like even
Speaker 1: Paula Erico, who again leaves the cult and takes her
Speaker 1: kid with her because of how badly Petty handles this
Speaker 1: whole case, won't speak badly about him afterwards. Quote though
Speaker 1: she left the Finders more than a year ago, it's
Speaker 1: still we this and we that she also speaks lovingly,
Speaker 1: no adoringly, of Petty. The rest of us are just
Speaker 1: dead between the years compared to him, she says. Erico
Speaker 1: also provides some of our best insight into why Petty's
Speaker 1: cult function the way it's did, with all its weird
Speaker 1: information gathering missions and spy games. And this is John
Speaker 1: Cohen writing, but why compile a giant? Who's who? I ask?
Speaker 1: It's a mystery why things are of interest to Petty.
Speaker 1: But he's not able to call complete games if he
Speaker 1: doesn't have complete information. You don't know what game Petty
Speaker 1: has in mind to call tomorrow. He already has it
Speaker 1: in mind. He's got next year's game in mind based
Speaker 1: on the information you're bringing him right now. And again,
Speaker 1: what the fuck does that mean?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Is that all like when you people talk about like
Speaker 1: how he's such a genius he's got is he just
Speaker 1: a good DM? Like were you all playing a big
Speaker 1: game of Dungeons and dragons and he was just really
Speaker 1: good at it? And that's the way you think he's
Speaker 1: a genius.
Speaker 2: The only thing I can realize, like, the only thing
Speaker 2: it seems like he has successfully and permanently diluted his
Speaker 2: followers into thinking, is that he is ultimately a pretty
Speaker 2: smart guy. Yeah. Everything else they seem like they can
Speaker 2: kind of take or leave such a cannot store the
Speaker 2: concept that like, yeah, but but he wasn't you know,
Speaker 2: I've seen.
Speaker 1: No evident he's certainly not dumb, But I don't see
Speaker 1: any evidence that he's smart. In part because he does
Speaker 1: some really dumb shit that loses him most of his cult,
Speaker 1: and it was really basic dumb shit.
Speaker 4: And they're not I also don't.
Speaker 2: I mean unless again, unless there's a missing piece of information.
Speaker 2: It doesn't seem like people are saying this because they're
Speaker 2: scared of him, and it just seems to be an
Speaker 2: honestly held assessment, which I just don't.
Speaker 1: And that's that's part of what you do. Get those
Speaker 1: police reports where they talk to many different members who
Speaker 1: were like, they harassed my family, you know, they harassed me,
Speaker 1: maybe they burned a house down. But then you get
Speaker 1: Paula who tells a journalist the best thing for me
Speaker 1: is that I lived and worked with my best friends
Speaker 1: for eight years. It's hard to have that and in
Speaker 1: a situation where everyone is committed to working it out,
Speaker 1: if you've ever had that one on one relationship with
Speaker 1: another person, whereas there's that long term level of commitment,
Speaker 1: I had that with twenty people. And she is again
Speaker 1: saying that after the cult gets her child taken away
Speaker 1: from her for six weeks, so like, I don't.
Speaker 2: Know, she's like a cast member of Cheers, and it's like,
Speaker 2: it's so weird.
Speaker 1: We had a tough time now and again when Kelsey
Speaker 1: Grammer would get too drunk. But I wouldn't change it
Speaker 1: for anything, right, But ultimately we.
Speaker 2: Were all good friends that I respect like and I
Speaker 2: will come back for the reunion.
Speaker 3: Very fucking weird.
Speaker 1: It is very fucking weird, and yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 1: all peculiar. So Petty is a smart guy he tended
Speaker 1: to avoid. Again, I think smartness is exaggerated, but he
Speaker 1: does sort of like he's got. He's good at branding
Speaker 1: because even these branding's not the wrong word. He's good
Speaker 1: at manipulating information. Because these two good articles on him
Speaker 1: that come out after the court case, the one by
Speaker 1: John Cohen and the one by Eddie Dean, they both
Speaker 1: give a lot of really interesting context. They talk to
Speaker 1: a lot of former members, but Petty comes off as
Speaker 1: totally innocuous in them, right, as like misunderstood and maybe
Speaker 1: he had some bad judgment here and there, but there
Speaker 1: was nothing evil or abusive about him, And it's kind
Speaker 1: of silly to even call him a cult leader. Now.
Speaker 1: That said, there are some hints in these and other
Speaker 1: articles that he was more abusive and cruel than he
Speaker 1: let onto being right that likes. Hidden beneath the service
Speaker 1: was evidence of the kind of behavior the police were
Speaker 1: reporting on when they talked to former members. Here's Eddie
Speaker 1: Dean talking about what happened when he interviewed Mary and
Speaker 1: Petty after having talked to Toby Arrell, so he he
Speaker 1: goes to talk to Terrell, who lives elsewhere in Virginia,
Speaker 1: and Terrell is like, yeah, I'm suing him because he
Speaker 1: took my money, but I think he's a nice guy.
Speaker 1: And then when he meets up with Petty finally whatever
Speaker 1: in another part of Virginia, he tells Petty, hey, I
Speaker 1: met with Terrell and here's what happens. Toby used to
Speaker 1: be quite a character, Petty says warmly. He used to
Speaker 1: have a handlebar mustache and sing songs for the group
Speaker 1: and all kinds of things. Then he added soberly, Toby
Speaker 1: had a great time with us until this woman told
Speaker 1: him that he was Toto and that I was the
Speaker 1: Wizard of Oz and they were going to expose the Wizard.
Speaker 1: I tell him I had already interviewed Terrell and was
Speaker 1: impressed with his admiration for the former game caller. Despite
Speaker 1: their conflict, there's dead silence both men hunch forward in
Speaker 1: the chairs you saw. Toby asks Petty, his face twisted
Speaker 1: with concern, where was he? I promised that, I said that.
Speaker 1: I promised I wouldn't tell I say that I promised TERRYL.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't tell anybody where we met, except to say
Speaker 1: it was somewhere in Virginia. He's up around here, demands Petty,
Speaker 1: where is he? It's clear that Petty feels I owe
Speaker 1: him at least as much. After all, he's told me
Speaker 1: and the journalist doessn't tell him where Petty is? But like,
Speaker 1: that's potentially there's some unsettling stuff in there. For one thing,
Speaker 1: Toby leaves the cult with a woman who had been
Speaker 1: in the colt, who wanted to leave because of all
Speaker 1: the ship that Petty did during the arrests, Right, Petty
Speaker 1: is like blaming this woman for corrupting Toby's mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this woman.
Speaker 2: I was like, this woman, Yeah, I've heard this, and
Speaker 2: I've heard this refrain before. Jamie and I were like, oh, I've.
Speaker 1: Got a lot of we've got some members who leave,
Speaker 1: and it's fine. But like as soon as Petty finds
Speaker 1: out that Terrell's and he's like, where is he? Where
Speaker 1: is he where trying to figure out and like maybe
Speaker 1: for a really bad reason, right, these guys are Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe that is potentially some evidence that, yeah, this is
Speaker 1: a much worse person than a lot of these journalists
Speaker 1: wind up interpreting him as.
Speaker 3: I'm also just like again with the handlebar mustache.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that seems to have been a thing. I'm
Speaker 1: sure Petty made them do that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I honestly I would hope so, I
Speaker 2: would hope.
Speaker 3: So, but again that that is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the fucking herq perole look at asses. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: what after.
Speaker 2: It is that made this guy, you know, even smart
Speaker 2: passing and possibly diabolical was clearly not picked up on,
Speaker 2: you know, intentionally or not by at least you know,
Speaker 2: three federally funded agencies.
Speaker 3: So that's fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is funny. You know, it's even more fun
Speaker 1: Jamie no, the products and services that this podcast is
Speaker 1: supported by. You're damn right, and we're back. We're back
Speaker 1: to conclude the story of the Finders.
Speaker 2: So I just mainlined whatever it was that was advertised,
Speaker 2: especially if it would kill me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, which most of it will. That's the one
Speaker 1: promise we make about our sponsors. Go fucking kill you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So whatever you can say about the Finders and how
Speaker 1: evil they were or weren't, or how evil Petty was
Speaker 1: or wasn't, after you know, the early nineties, they seem
Speaker 1: to have like been pretty benign. Most of what I
Speaker 1: can verify they did was fuck with normanis in Culpepper
Speaker 1: and like a mile way right, they're in Culpepper, Virginia,
Speaker 1: and they're just kind of like trying to make people
Speaker 1: suspicious of them, but not really doing anything. Sketchy. Cult
Speaker 1: finances were good enough that they purchased an abandoned movie
Speaker 1: theater in the center of town. And you know, it's
Speaker 1: got a marquee on the front of it, right where
Speaker 1: you like put the names of the movies. And every
Speaker 1: day or so, one of Petty's members would change the
Speaker 1: marquee to read something cryptic. And they would always do
Speaker 1: it at like night, when no one was up, so
Speaker 1: no one ever saw it get changed. You just wake
Speaker 1: up and there'd be something weird written on it.
Speaker 2: That happened at a bagels store near where I lived
Speaker 2: in Maine.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, what what? What kind of cryptic shit here?
Speaker 3: Let me let me look it up.
Speaker 2: I would take pictures of it every so often.
Speaker 1: I will read you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know you hit me with yours, I'll hear you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. So one day it read school for Actors
Speaker 1: and not spelled the way actors is spelled, spelled A
Speaker 1: K T E R S. No idea what that means.
Speaker 1: The next day it would read Spycraft a great game,
Speaker 1: and then the next free money, and then the next ataxia, uh, ataxia,
Speaker 1: at araxia. Yeah, what is that? I think it's an
Speaker 1: inability to feel fear.
Speaker 2: Oh I thought that they were misspelling the eating disorder.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's imperturbability. It means that, yeah, you can't
Speaker 1: you can't be flustered or frightened. Basically, well, I.
Speaker 4: Mean sure, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Here's what mister b in Portland.
Speaker 1: It's a state of serene calmness. Yeah, okay, imperturbability I've got.
Speaker 2: Here's here's one from mister Bagel unconditional love for us
Speaker 2: and all is heaven here and now, and then underneath
Speaker 2: it says new red Bull menu, there's another joy as possible.
Speaker 2: Our constructs keep us from attaining it, and then again
Speaker 2: below new red Bull menu. So I think at the
Speaker 2: bagel shop they were probably the employees were probably just
Speaker 2: like drinking forty red bulls.
Speaker 3: They decided, we're.
Speaker 1: Justing from too much toy Heaven is here now, yeah,
Speaker 1: and like none of that makes money, but it's all
Speaker 1: like shit, that's going to make people in a small
Speaker 1: town in Virginia in the late nineties suspicious, Like sure, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, And I think they're just doing it to
Speaker 1: have people talk about them. Right, small town people are
Speaker 1: the most paranoid humans who have ever existed, so it's
Speaker 1: it's not surprising that this caused consternation. Eddie Dean would
Speaker 1: later write quote in appearance, the Finders, mostly middle aged
Speaker 1: men always in dark suits, wouldn't be out of place
Speaker 1: managing a local funeral home, but the behavior of the
Speaker 1: handful of adherents has people wondering whether they arrived by
Speaker 1: flying saucer. Townspeople say the Finders constantly walk the streets,
Speaker 1: following people home and taking extensive notes and pictures. They
Speaker 1: often appear at local council meetings, never saying a word
Speaker 1: but simply observing the scene. At other times, they plunder
Speaker 1: the visitor center of brochures, maps, and local travel guides,
Speaker 1: and they haunt the courthouse scouring land deeds to find
Speaker 1: out who owns local real estate. Naturally, though rumors fly.
Speaker 1: Did you hear what the Finders are doing at the
Speaker 1: old theater? They're planning a stage production of Paradise Lost
Speaker 1: with an all nude cast. Or was it a gay
Speaker 1: burlesque version of Dante's Divine Comedy where the Finders gathered
Speaker 1: for some ritual in the back lot, or were they
Speaker 1: simply taking trash to the dumpster. People have seen glowing
Speaker 1: lights in the windows of the Finders group house at
Speaker 1: the edge of home, along with visitors coming and going
Speaker 1: at odd hours. The lawn is mode in a peculiar
Speaker 1: circular pattern. That's the place where they sacrifice pot bellied pigs. So,
Speaker 1: although this is nonsense, these are just like rumors that
Speaker 1: are spreading in town because it's Petty's.
Speaker 2: Marketing for bad community theater and you should go to
Speaker 2: jail for doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's all they're doing, is He's like, how weird
Speaker 1: can we be to create the maximum number of Yeah,
Speaker 1: mow the lawn. Weird. Put some marquees up on the thing,
Speaker 1: turn lights on at weird hours of the night, you know,
Speaker 1: follow people home at a distance, taking notes visibly in
Speaker 1: a notepad, like they're just fucking with the normies, which
Speaker 1: I normally I actually in this case, I do respect it.
Speaker 1: Like it's not cool when you're like endangering children, but
Speaker 1: this is a fun thing to do the rest of
Speaker 1: the time.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's like it's it's certainly annoying, but it's
Speaker 2: like improv everywhere annoying at that point where you're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: should they be executed, Yes for you, but we can't.
Speaker 2: We have not yet succeeded to you know, be able
Speaker 2: to execute improvisers.
Speaker 1: No. No, When I win the presidency, Jamie, that's the
Speaker 1: first federal law, Like, as an executive order, I'm going
Speaker 1: to mandate the death penalty for improv people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's illegal for anything else but improv and improv
Speaker 2: it can be on site.
Speaker 1: And yeah, everyone, I'm deputizing the entire country to carry out.
Speaker 1: And this is actually I think, what can heal the
Speaker 1: left right divide in this country get We can get
Speaker 1: communists and fascists all on board with taking out the
Speaker 1: fucking improv people.
Speaker 2: Finally a true bipartisan issue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, AOC and Ted Cruz holding hands and burning down
Speaker 1: an improv shop. Finally this country can heal now, Eddie Dean,
Speaker 1: that journalist comes to town looking for Petty, and it
Speaker 1: becomes very like he's a journalist. He's not trying to
Speaker 1: hide what he's doing. He like goes around to places
Speaker 1: where the finders go and it's like, does anyone know
Speaker 1: Mary and Petty? I'd like to interview him. So they've
Speaker 1: become aware that he's looking for him, and they change
Speaker 1: their theater marquee to like deliver a message to him.
Speaker 1: They change it to John eight thirty two, which is
Speaker 1: a portion of the Bible that reads, and shall know
Speaker 1: the Truth, and the truth shall set you free. Now
Speaker 1: that may not seem like it specifically has anything to
Speaker 1: do with like conspiracies or this journalist, but that particular
Speaker 1: quote from the Bible is engraved in the lobby of
Speaker 1: the headquarters of the CIA. Right, it was the favorite
Speaker 1: motto of former CIA chief William Colby, who had disappeared
Speaker 1: a week before in an accident in the Chesapeake Bay. So, like, again,
Speaker 1: there's conspiracy theories about them and the CIA, and they
Speaker 1: put up this message when a journalist comes into town,
Speaker 1: knowing exactly what it would insinuate. Right, that's not an accident.
Speaker 1: They're not dumb. They understand what they're doing here. This
Speaker 1: was a deliberate attempt to tell their kind of conspiracy.
Speaker 3: But they also know what their two things can be true, Yes.
Speaker 1: Two things can be true here. This was like he again,
Speaker 1: I think he gets addicted to the attention and to
Speaker 1: people believing that he's part of something nefarious and insidious.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this really, I mean, just like the murder.
Speaker 2: We talk this through, It's like this could have all
Speaker 2: been sort of you know, relieved by a theater degree,
Speaker 2: Like a good state funded theater program could have really
Speaker 2: nipped this all in the bud if.
Speaker 1: World of Warcraft had been out at the same time.
Speaker 1: I don't think this colt gets off the ground. I
Speaker 1: think Petty is a pretty successful guild leader, but I
Speaker 1: don't think this cult gets off the ground.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 1: So Petty eventually does meet with Eddie Dean and you know,
Speaker 1: he gives an interview. There's not a lot in the interview.
Speaker 1: It's mostly Mary and Petty being like playing at the
Speaker 1: kindly wise guru. Right. He's making these kind of like
Speaker 1: statements that sort of like he's trying to play himself
Speaker 1: off as like this zin Buddhist figure, right.
Speaker 2: Almost, he's this uscause yeah, nothing else, fucking exhausting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, He's like, you could call me a cult leader,
Speaker 1: but I see myself as a student, and all of
Speaker 1: the members of the group are my teachers, and the
Speaker 1: world is my teacher, and I'm just always learning. That's
Speaker 1: why I started all this, as I I just love learning, right,
Speaker 1: And most of it shit like that, But there are
Speaker 1: these points of ugliness that shine through the mask he
Speaker 1: builds for himself, including this point at which Eddie Dean
Speaker 1: asks him about the lawsuit with Toby Tarrell and several
Speaker 1: other former members, where Petty says, the only conflict I've
Speaker 1: ever had in my life are with these ungrateful wretches
Speaker 1: that are suing me now. They were dope fiends and
Speaker 1: emotionally disturbed people, and they got cured in my mental
Speaker 1: hospital and they left. Now they come back and want
Speaker 1: to take the hospital. Which, first off, you had another
Speaker 1: conflict in your life. A bunch of the kids in
Speaker 1: your cult got arrested or got taken into custody. You
Speaker 1: got raided by the Feds. Like, that's not a conflict, No.
Speaker 2: No, no, we don't talk about that anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's also like, it's a fucked up thing to be, like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: these guys who assume me, they're all dope fiends. You know,
Speaker 1: I cured them, so I should get to keep their money.
Speaker 1: That's kind of evil, right, That's a pretty fucked up
Speaker 1: thing to say.
Speaker 3: I would say, I would say evil, Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fair enough. Petty continue to remain comfortable, and he
Speaker 1: spent the bulk of his remaining years in Culpepper fucking
Speaker 1: with people and living with his last dozen or so followers.
Speaker 1: An internal cult document in nineteen ninety, written in the
Speaker 1: form of a CIA dossier, describes him this way. Radiates
Speaker 1: a very casual but completely confident sense of self, a
Speaker 1: sort of Kadafi without the ego, makes jokes about switching roles,
Speaker 1: yet always carries himself like an active duty officer. Does
Speaker 1: not fidget when seated in car or domicile, assumes a
Speaker 1: position and holds it, no fast movements, steady modulated voice
Speaker 1: not bass, sometimes speaks in a clinched teeth fashion, yet
Speaker 1: other times, as a hint of a Virginia drawl, maintains
Speaker 1: that he likes young pussy more than old pussy. Moreover,
Speaker 1: upon questioning, stated that twice a week since the age
Speaker 1: of thirteen or so has been the optimum amount for me.
Speaker 1: Farts a lot, eccentric and urinary habits, walks ten to
Speaker 1: twenty miles a day, and has done so for years.
Speaker 1: Reports that the secret of his health and happiness is
Speaker 1: having constantly associated only with people he likes and who
Speaker 1: like him.
Speaker 3: So, Mary and Petty, Yeah, kind of like a real
Speaker 3: uncle uncle like description.
Speaker 1: You just gave that.
Speaker 2: That's like forty percent of our nation's uncles.
Speaker 1: By that description. He's a creepy old man from the seventies.
Speaker 1: Is he Satanist trafficking children? I don't think so. Is
Speaker 1: he a creepy old man from the seventies?
Speaker 3: For sure, He's definitely a creepy old man.
Speaker 4: There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Oh my.
Speaker 2: God, well, I yeah, this is this is this is
Speaker 2: local theater nonsense, and I don't abide by it.
Speaker 3: And I it's just yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: He died in two thousand and three, having lived exactly
Speaker 1: the life he meant to live, for better and for worse,
Speaker 1: and his legacy today continues on in the form of
Speaker 1: countless YouTube videos and podcasts, theorizing that this is all
Speaker 1: the basis of the Jeffrey Epstein sex trafficking crimes or
Speaker 1: Pizzagate or all sorts of stuff. And yeah, or.
Speaker 3: It's us being like, who's to say.
Speaker 1: Before hout's happening here? Yeah, we're not sure. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: I still don't have a good answer for you, folks.
Speaker 1: But at least it was a long one.
Speaker 3: At least it took us a long time to not
Speaker 3: totally be sure.
Speaker 2: I truly, Yeah, I was not familiar with the story
Speaker 2: before this, before this saga, and I feel no closer
Speaker 2: I did. It does still feel like there's some piece
Speaker 2: of information missing, uh, and that this like it also
Speaker 2: just the timing of this too is so unfortunately aligned
Speaker 2: with the Satanic panic, where it's just like anything that
Speaker 2: got sucked up into that vortex, there's an element of
Speaker 2: either not true or will never know the degree of
Speaker 2: truth because of how just like nonsense brain that period was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, speaking of nonsense, Jamie, Yeah, it's nonsense that
Speaker 1: you had anything to do with those murders and grand rapids.
Speaker 2: Uh. It's the allegations I will say are nonsense. The
Speaker 2: allegations are nonsense. There's no sense to them. I have
Speaker 2: an alibi.
Speaker 1: On that note, you have a new book coming out
Speaker 1: called If I Did It The Michigan Story.
Speaker 3: Can you believe it's self published? Publish?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is self published. But oddly enough, you do
Speaker 1: have a jacket quote by Norman Mahler, which is which
Speaker 1: is impressive. That's a real get Salmon Rushdie too. So
Speaker 1: you know, some big names coming out swinging for this one.
Speaker 2: I got some friends in high places, and the poll
Speaker 2: quotes do not reflect well on me, but they did
Speaker 2: send the vints, so we put them on the on
Speaker 2: the jacket. Yeah, the self published book, so it's kind
Speaker 2: of the surface of the book is a little sticky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very sticky. And the Salmon Rushdie quote just says,
Speaker 1: can you believe I'm the one who got stabbed? That's
Speaker 1: maybe a mean joke for salmon.
Speaker 2: That that's out of pocket, that's a pocket.
Speaker 1: You're right, you're right. I apologize.
Speaker 2: Okay there please, Yeah, check check out check out that book.
Speaker 2: I feel like that one's going to really make a splash.
Speaker 1: Huh.
Speaker 2: I think it's it's going to be it's gonna be huge.
Speaker 2: I also I took the cue for Prince Harry. I
Speaker 2: also talk about a lot of disgusting things at length.
Speaker 1: Oh good, Well you got anything else to plug? Jamie?
Speaker 4: Oh is it time?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 2: Are you also by my book that isn't sticky at
Speaker 2: least not before you eat a hot dog while.
Speaker 4: You're holding it.
Speaker 3: Not know where you were going there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we might use the five delay there, Sophie.
Speaker 4: Look, I can.
Speaker 2: Say with confidence that if you come on my book,
Speaker 2: it will get sticky. There's no way around it. I
Speaker 2: don't think the technology exists to prevent it. But if
Speaker 2: you come on, you can't come on a podcast, and
Speaker 2: that's a great way to have a new podcast coming out.
Speaker 1: You're nailing this, Jamie.
Speaker 2: About main characters of the Internet. It's a digital thing,
Speaker 2: so you won't be able to come on it. So
Speaker 2: maybe you could get the book and listen to the podcast,
Speaker 2: because well, I can't, you know, think about that and
Speaker 2: I feel confident about that plug.
Speaker 1: Yeah great, Well everybody, until next time, send in suggestions
Speaker 1: for who we should accuse of.
Speaker 3: Murder next Please not me anymore.
Speaker 1: Goodbye. Behind the Bastards is a production a cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonemedia
Speaker 2: dot com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3: Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.