Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: This show follows the investigation of serial murders and contains
Speaker 2: material that may be disturbing.
Speaker 3: Listener discretion advised.
Speaker 1: In June of twenty sixteen, while Mirinda and her two
Speaker 1: children were locked up in custody in krueger'stor the South
Speaker 1: African Police Service hastened its investigation. They had LaRue and
Speaker 1: Marcel on solid charges, including photographic evidence that showed them
Speaker 1: taking money out of accounts belonging to two of the
Speaker 1: murder victims, Anthony Schofield and Hanley Lattigan. Initially, Marinda coached
Speaker 1: them to keep feeding the cops the story that they
Speaker 1: had been working for drug dealers. The kids knew that
Speaker 1: not doing as they were instructed was a matter of
Speaker 1: life day. Eventually, Marinda and Cecilia decided that LaRue should
Speaker 1: take the fall.
Speaker 4: Le Rustain made a confession that he's the only person
Speaker 4: that killed the Appointment murders.
Speaker 1: LaRue and Marcel's statements were taken on June twenty fifth,
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, two days after the arrest. Detective Ben Boysen
Speaker 1: was briefed on this interview and read LaRue's statement. The
Speaker 1: seasoned investigator wasn't buying his story for a second.
Speaker 4: With him being about sixty five sciety kilograms, it's impossible
Speaker 4: that they would have been able to kill The two
Speaker 4: men picked him up, loaded him in a vehicle, drove
Speaker 4: away with that vehicle is not strong enough to do that.
Speaker 4: It's totally not possible.
Speaker 1: Both Marcel and LaRue remained in custody, but the police
Speaker 1: needed more serious charges to keep Mirinda behind bars when
Speaker 1: there was no new evidence to report. After a few
Speaker 1: days in jail, Marinda had her day in court. The
Speaker 1: case involving the pot plant was delayed, making way for
Speaker 1: the larger claims against her like insurance fraud and murder.
Speaker 1: When she got out, Marinda immediately filed her third lawsuit
Speaker 1: against the police for wrongful arrest. This time she promised
Speaker 1: LaRue that she would push for resolution and use any
Speaker 1: award from the claim to bail him out. It was
Speaker 1: starting to look like the Kruger's door of killers would
Speaker 1: once again walk free, but detective Ben Boysen worked overtime
Speaker 1: to make sure that didn't happen. The case quickly took
Speaker 1: over his life.
Speaker 4: I took on one off my rooms in my house
Speaker 4: and I made that to wardroom and I start working
Speaker 4: day at night. I neverted it. You know, sometimes my
Speaker 4: wife will wake up two o'clock in the morning and
Speaker 4: I'm not in baten, so she comes in there and
Speaker 4: take me on my ear and take me back to
Speaker 4: bath and said, listen, need to go and freaking sleep.
Speaker 1: It didn't take long for Ben and Manny Victor's task
Speaker 1: team to connect the dots between LaRue, Marcel, Marinda, and
Speaker 1: Cecilia and recognized the mayhem that EPD had been adjacent
Speaker 1: to for the past four years. Digging a little deeper,
Speaker 1: they discovered the open claim with Discovery Life. Cecilia was
Speaker 1: waiting to collect Zach Valentine's insurance payout.
Speaker 4: And at that state, Zach Valentine was still missing because
Speaker 4: I told he was. They burned out in Pietre Steit.
Speaker 1: Which then led them to look into Jared Jackson's murder.
Speaker 1: The details surrounding his death also appeared immediately suspicious in
Speaker 1: Ben's eyes.
Speaker 4: His arms was full of cutting marks, he only had
Speaker 4: socks on, no shoes. It cannot be suicide. Something happened
Speaker 4: before this.
Speaker 1: Soon enough, there was a warrant out for Zach's arrest,
Speaker 1: and on June twenty sixth, just one day after LaRue's confession,
Speaker 1: the task team received in a non tip. Someone matching
Speaker 1: Zach Valentine's description had been spotted from School of Humans
Speaker 1: and iHeart podcasts This is Queen Havoc and her murder
Speaker 1: Cult I'm Your Host Kurt Kubachek episode nine, Only Hope.
Speaker 1: For the six months following Jared Jackson's murder, Zach Valentine
Speaker 1: had been in hiding when hotels got too expensive, especially
Speaker 1: without the insurance payout they'd been expecting. He sought shelter
Speaker 1: from a religious charity organization. Here's journalist and author Janna.
Speaker 5: Marx Zak has been lying low at kia Kaya, a
Speaker 5: Christian ministry.
Speaker 1: Since his arrival. Zach had been using an alias Michael
Speaker 1: de Villers. When law enforcement arrived at the ministry, they
Speaker 1: didn't find Zach right away, but they found his.
Speaker 5: Roommate, and at the time of his erased, he was
Speaker 5: busy camping at Kiakaya's camping grounds. It was on a
Speaker 5: farm near Machalisberg.
Speaker 1: Upon viewing a photo of the suspect, the roommate insisted
Speaker 1: that the man they were looking for was named Michael
Speaker 1: de Villers and that he was currently away camping. Two
Speaker 1: officers from Manny's war room headed to the location. Detective
Speaker 1: Herd Krueger was one of them.
Speaker 6: On the place where he was rased, he first gave
Speaker 6: up a name that not.
Speaker 1: He's the only nine the task team was prepared.
Speaker 6: He had just a lot of tattoos on his back.
Speaker 6: Now I had a photo of that and asked him
Speaker 6: to turn around. They checked the tattoos and then the
Speaker 6: game was over.
Speaker 5: They managed to id him as Zach Valentine. That's also
Speaker 5: when he then admitted that he was indeed Zach Valentine.
Speaker 1: He was arrested on charges of fraud for faking his
Speaker 1: own death. Then, in another suspicious twist, when Ben went
Speaker 1: searching for information on the suspects, the case files from
Speaker 1: the first four murders had mysteriously gone missing.
Speaker 4: The twenty twelve murdered casis that I eventually started investigation,
Speaker 4: all those dockets is missing. Built today it's missing. Nobody
Speaker 4: knows where it is. All the evidence that was taken
Speaker 4: into that twenty twelve investigations, everything's gone. So I had
Speaker 4: to restore that in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: So, after all that had happened in twenty twelve, Ben
Speaker 1: had only three case files one on the Jared Jackson murder,
Speaker 1: another on Joan and Peter Meyer being robbed and killed
Speaker 1: in their home, and after Zac's arrest, a clear attempt
Speaker 1: at an insurance scam.
Speaker 4: So I opened a throat case against Zach for trying
Speaker 4: to defraud Discovery, and then I started in mistigations all
Speaker 4: on those three docades.
Speaker 1: This fraud case was Ben's only real inroad, the only
Speaker 1: thing unquestionably linking all the perpetrators Zach, Cecilia, and Mirinda
Speaker 1: and eventually LaRue and Marcel too.
Speaker 4: Maranda Stein went to Pietre Stein saying that she's the
Speaker 4: sister of Zack Valentine, and she gave a false address,
Speaker 4: false information for the people at the mortuary, and Cecilia Stein,
Speaker 4: who was the sole beneficiary of that Discovery thing, and
Speaker 4: knowingly that Zach is now alive, they all were cursed
Speaker 4: to commit this fraud.
Speaker 1: On July twenty ninth, twenty sixteen, Cecilia Stein and Mirenda
Speaker 1: Stein were arrested for insurance fraud linked to the killing
Speaker 1: of Jared Jackson.
Speaker 4: So I luckily arrested them when I opened the fraud case,
Speaker 4: so nobody were on the street anymore except for John Barnard.
Speaker 1: Cecilia Stein was finally behind bars, and so was Mirinda.
Speaker 1: This time, as it turned out, for good. Ben wanted
Speaker 1: to interview them right away.
Speaker 4: They thought when I arrested them, I arrested him for
Speaker 4: the murders, but I never arrested him for the mergers.
Speaker 4: And then as soon as I started reading why I
Speaker 4: arrested them, you know, they changed. I couldn't believe that
Speaker 4: I now arrested in them for fraud because I didn't
Speaker 4: approve at that stage about the murders.
Speaker 1: They were being held in the precincts in Kruger's door.
Speaker 1: He brought Christelle with him, as he often did.
Speaker 4: On weekends and after hours when I arrested or I
Speaker 4: interview women, I always take my wife with because he's
Speaker 4: a police officer, and there's always stories when you interview
Speaker 4: women alone, your sexual harassment, or you know, you put
Speaker 4: praiser on him to say stuff.
Speaker 1: Cristelle and Ben very quickly got a taste of Cecilia's
Speaker 1: manipulation tactics. First, she went for pity.
Speaker 4: Cecilia Steins was a freaking clown. She came in with
Speaker 4: a bottle oxygen bottle, and she sat down and was
Speaker 4: a ute oxygen bottle, and as soon as I told
Speaker 4: her why I'm resting her, she suddenly start breathing difficult
Speaker 4: and I look at the bottle and I saw that
Speaker 4: the pipe from the mass to the bottle was not
Speaker 4: even connected.
Speaker 1: Then she went for ridicule. Ben and Cristelle got a
Speaker 1: front row seat to the way Cecilia gnashed her teeth
Speaker 1: when she felt vulnerable. At one point, Ben was taking
Speaker 1: a note trying to spell the word conspiracy, and he
Speaker 1: casually asked his wife for help.
Speaker 4: She said, how do you spell conspiracy? And she started
Speaker 4: laughing in my face and said, you're a fucking idiot.
Speaker 4: You can't even spell conspiracy, but you want to send
Speaker 4: me to jail. And I just told her, you know
Speaker 4: the person who laughed last laugh the loudest.
Speaker 1: Then they pressed Cecilia about Zach and his relationship to
Speaker 1: his wife, Michaela. They had learned about Zach and Cecilia's
Speaker 1: intimate relationship.
Speaker 7: Being tested her by saying that you found evidence that
Speaker 7: Zack and Michaela had intercourse the night she was killed
Speaker 7: or the night before she was killed, and Cecilia went like,
Speaker 7: it's fucking impossible. From this silly clown what she turned
Speaker 7: into a vicious person. She physically transformed in front of
Speaker 7: us from this you know, can't breathe and poor person.
Speaker 7: She said, it's fucking impossible. It won't happen.
Speaker 2: It sound.
Speaker 7: And then said, but why wouldn't they happened? They were
Speaker 7: happily married, and she said, and then she came forward
Speaker 7: to him and she says, I'm telling you it wouldn't
Speaker 7: have happened.
Speaker 1: Christelle chimed in, pushing Cecilia further.
Speaker 7: On this, and I said to her, but how would
Speaker 7: you have insight into what's happening in this marriage? And
Speaker 7: she turned to me again and she said, I'm telling
Speaker 7: you it fucking didn't happen. And then all of a sudden,
Speaker 7: someone else walked in. She went like this.
Speaker 1: Christelle shook her shoulders as she spoke, like a duck
Speaker 1: shaking water off its back.
Speaker 7: She you know, she like this, and next question, please,
Speaker 7: so we saw that.
Speaker 4: I saw it changed the transformation.
Speaker 1: Meanwhile, Zach was desperately trying to get out of jail.
Speaker 1: All three of them were. Actually they had the right
Speaker 1: to apply for bail since their only charge was odd,
Speaker 1: which is not a capital offense. But Ben kept fighting
Speaker 1: to keep them off the streets.
Speaker 4: And luckily I thought all of their bio application Zach
Speaker 4: brought about eight of them.
Speaker 1: Bail would mean Zach could walk free. Once released, he'd
Speaker 1: be a likely flight risk and the police might never
Speaker 1: see him again. They gotten lucky to find him the
Speaker 1: first time. Now, prosecutors were considering letting Zach walk.
Speaker 4: But because he was the clared date, it's impossible to
Speaker 4: give him battle because I'm going to blacklist him on
Speaker 4: the airports and stuff like that. So that was a fight,
Speaker 4: you know, between me and the prosecutor of the regional court,
Speaker 4: trying to keep him in jail.
Speaker 1: During this fight, this back and forth with the state,
Speaker 1: fate finally played a hand in Ben's favor. Ben and
Speaker 1: Cristelle are known as trusted cops in the community and
Speaker 1: got a number of tips from citizens of Kruger's were
Speaker 1: anxious to end the murders. One in particular, though, led
Speaker 1: to a windfall.
Speaker 4: So one of the people that found my wife's said,
Speaker 4: I must go to Arundos classroom to see what's happening
Speaker 4: in a classroom.
Speaker 1: On August ninth, twenty sixteen, Ben Christelle and a fellow
Speaker 1: officer from the Krugery store. Police headed over to the
Speaker 1: high school where Mirinda taught English. Turns out we were
Speaker 1: there interviewing Ben exactly five years to the day that
Speaker 1: this happened.
Speaker 4: I actually arranged it for today. That's Women's Day in
Speaker 4: South Africa today, exactly today, because there will be no
Speaker 4: children and at school.
Speaker 1: The headmaster was resistant at first, explaining that Mirinda was
Speaker 1: one of the best teachers at the school. The kids
Speaker 1: all loved her. Detective Ben boys and casually threatened the
Speaker 1: headmaster that if he didn't comply, Ben could return with
Speaker 1: a proper search warrant on a school day and conduct
Speaker 1: his search in front of all the kids. The principal
Speaker 1: didn't have to think long. He led them down the
Speaker 1: empty hallways toward Merinda's classroom. It's a large room with
Speaker 1: multiple sections and storage closets with stoves in them.
Speaker 4: I said, to the old place, but I didn't know
Speaker 4: what to look for. I look for laptops and I
Speaker 4: look for papers, I look for photos. I look for
Speaker 4: anything that I can link to what they were doing.
Speaker 1: Ben almost gave up. The headmaster was skeptical of the cops,
Speaker 1: and Ben certainly didn't want to waste anyone's time.
Speaker 4: I couldn't find anything, and eventual I went to sit
Speaker 4: down with the eight most of them, I said, it's Souri.
Speaker 4: It seems to meet. It's false information.
Speaker 1: But something was still nagging at Ben, so before he left,
Speaker 1: he decided to take one last look around.
Speaker 4: We all stood up and on the way out told
Speaker 4: another lady from Cruiser Detective Unit.
Speaker 1: It was with me.
Speaker 4: I just want to go through all the rooms again.
Speaker 4: And I went into the rooms and I checked and
Speaker 4: I checked, and eventually I went to the left front room.
Speaker 4: There was a lot of stuff laying around there, but
Speaker 4: there was these two stoves standing in the middle of
Speaker 4: the premises, and something just told me go and open
Speaker 4: the ovens.
Speaker 1: Merenda's room was a repurposed home economics classroom.
Speaker 4: And as soon as I opened the ovens, I found
Speaker 4: all this ammunition and machine to reload. Then they ate
Speaker 4: master also turned and was on outside there because it
Speaker 4: was not on the police side from the beginning.
Speaker 1: He continued his search and discovered a bullet reloading kit,
Speaker 1: shotgun shells, nine millimeter bullets and then red tipped rubber
Speaker 1: bullets only used by specially trained police officers, and sold
Speaker 1: what was Marnda doing with guns and AMMO, some of
Speaker 1: which was from the heyday of South Africa's violent apartheid
Speaker 1: passed and in a high school, no less, How did
Speaker 1: a school teacher wind up with military grade weaponry? When
Speaker 1: he was done, he lined up all the AMMO on
Speaker 1: a school desk. The principal was shocked to silence as
Speaker 1: the veteran cops stared at the amateur arsenal. He had
Speaker 1: a new concern. Were there cops helping these killers? The
Speaker 1: only people who have access to this kind of ordinance
Speaker 1: are people with a badge. The next domino fell that
Speaker 1: same day after he called the task team in to
Speaker 1: gather evidence from Mirenda's classroom.
Speaker 4: Packed it out and we took photos and stuff, And
Speaker 4: eventually I think it was his wife. She's working in
Speaker 4: the offices day. She came to me and she said,
Speaker 4: did I know that Maranda changed their will? I knew
Speaker 4: nothing about it.
Speaker 1: Mirinda had just recently changed her will. Things had unfolded
Speaker 1: so fast since Marinda's arrest, Plus the twenty twelve case
Speaker 1: files were all missing, so Ben was doing his best
Speaker 1: to catch up.
Speaker 4: Osta will you give me the will? Otherwise I must
Speaker 4: make a two or five application and force them to
Speaker 4: give me the will through the right channels. And luckily
Speaker 4: you said them, and I'll give you the will.
Speaker 1: Ben took a statement from the headmaster and his wife
Speaker 1: confirming that they were handing over this document of their
Speaker 1: own free will. As they signed the paperwork, Ben read
Speaker 1: over the will.
Speaker 4: While reading this will, I knew of good now something
Speaker 4: to approach LaRue, because in that will she just owned
Speaker 4: the children and she gave everything that is part of
Speaker 4: her life to Cecilia Stein.
Speaker 1: But before he had a chance to meet with LaRue,
Speaker 1: the task team made yet another breakthrough. They found the
Speaker 1: sort of hard evidence that would make prosecutors finally believe
Speaker 1: everything Ben had already suspected.
Speaker 4: Luckily, in the twenty fifteen sixteen murders, John Barnard took
Speaker 4: his cell phone to all the crime scenes.
Speaker 1: Detectives Krueger and Violent had been busy tracing the suspects
Speaker 1: and discovered that pings from John Barnard's cell phone matched
Speaker 1: the murder map to a t This was the smoking
Speaker 1: gun the cops needed. On August eighteenth, twenty sixteen, John
Speaker 1: Barnard was taken into custody in connection with the insurance
Speaker 1: fraud and his involvement in the murder of Glenn McGregor.
Speaker 1: Here's Commander Hert Krueger.
Speaker 6: We erased John Barnard at his work, the Mayers Printing Company,
Speaker 6: and while we were driving back like coldn SEMs, we
Speaker 6: stopped and John just started confacing.
Speaker 1: Barnard confessed to being part of all of the appointment Murners.
Speaker 6: I didn't got an officer to take his confession. It
Speaker 6: was his first confession that he might after debt the
Speaker 6: invasity guiding officer Captain Boisin's didn't just that he repeat
Speaker 6: the dead confession in front of him magistrate, just to
Speaker 6: give it more power. And John was the first one
Speaker 6: that was convicted and the first one who went to prison.
Speaker 1: Finally, on August nineteenth, the day after John Barnard's confession,
Speaker 1: Ben sat down with LaRue. He baited LaRue telling him
Speaker 1: that his mother, Marinda's claim against the police wasn't going
Speaker 1: to pay out. There was no way she'd be able
Speaker 1: to save him from a life behind bars. He let
Speaker 1: that sink in. Then he told LaRue that Barnard had
Speaker 1: made a full confession at his arraignment hearing, implicating everyone.
Speaker 1: It was a smart move. Ben told LaRue the confession
Speaker 1: would increase his chances of getting a reasonable plea deal. Still,
Speaker 1: LaRue stuck to his story and took to blame for
Speaker 1: all the murders. Then was still not buying it.
Speaker 4: For a young boy like that picking up a date
Speaker 4: person and llowed him into a vehicle, It's slutally not possible.
Speaker 1: Not only did Ben immediately recognize the improbability of this claim,
Speaker 1: but he could see through Laru, see the boy in him,
Speaker 1: a boy who was in way over his head.
Speaker 4: While I was speaking to him in prison. I've got
Speaker 4: the scenes that he is predicting the people around him.
Speaker 1: At first, Larux was agitated, tense, pacing like a cage tiger.
Speaker 1: Detective Ben Boyce and his a father. He thought of
Speaker 1: his own son and how he could reach him when
Speaker 1: he was combative. Here's Gristelle recalling his approach. She refers
Speaker 1: to LaRue by his nickname. Lex.
Speaker 2: Paine was friendly to next time, and he was kind
Speaker 2: to Lex, and he was talking, you know, to Lex
Speaker 2: with respect, and that turned ultimately turned Lex eventually to say,
Speaker 2: but listen, yeah, you are giving me more kindness and
Speaker 2: love than I ever experienced from my mother.
Speaker 1: Ben knew that if he was calm with the wayward
Speaker 1: son and asked him why he'd done what he'd done,
Speaker 1: rather than scream at him, he was more likely to
Speaker 1: hear the truth from LaRue. He was right.
Speaker 4: I talked to him a lot, and eventually I took
Speaker 4: too well out and I put it in front of him,
Speaker 4: but the words facing my way, and I asked him
Speaker 4: who's antwriting? And he said it's my mother, because she's
Speaker 4: got a very very nice antwriting neat and I turned
Speaker 4: the paper around and I said, listen, read how much
Speaker 4: your mother loved you.
Speaker 1: Harsh right, But Ben's instincts were guiding him. LaRue was
Speaker 1: apt to turn against his mother. Throughout his first couple
Speaker 1: of months in police custody, LaRue had been worried about
Speaker 1: his sister Marcel, who also in custody. He wrote her
Speaker 1: a series of letters pleading with her to come clean,
Speaker 1: not to take the rap for their mother, Cecilia or
Speaker 1: any of the others. When Cecilia and Marinda got word
Speaker 1: that one of their puppets was turning on them, they
Speaker 1: tried to kill LaRue. Journalist Maritzka Kotsayer was visiting him
Speaker 1: in jail around this time, reporting on the case, she
Speaker 1: recalled Larux telling her about when his mother brought him medication.
Speaker 3: There was one way she apparently took him medication for
Speaker 3: his stomach, and it was supposedly two step. So you
Speaker 3: know that is a poison that stab one. You take
Speaker 3: it in step till you die. Can you imagine living
Speaker 3: in fear that your own mother wants to kill it.
Speaker 1: It appears that even in jail, LaRue wasn't safe from
Speaker 1: Cecilia's wrath. In Mirenda's will, she attested, I'm Marinda stein laradim.
Speaker 8: Same mind and wished to recorde my last wishes as
Speaker 8: follows every sent and property that I and will become
Speaker 8: available at my death. I bequeathed to Cecilia stein nie
Speaker 8: seword Kniebrandt to use as she sees fit, whether my
Speaker 8: biological children are still in jail or not, whether she
Speaker 8: wants to spend it on them or not. It toutally
Speaker 8: becomes us.
Speaker 1: As soon as LaRue heard about the change in the will,
Speaker 1: he broke down. Ben's compassionate approach had softened the edges, eroded,
Speaker 1: the walls around the roots broken heart.
Speaker 4: And then at tisk started coming out here and his
Speaker 4: lip stopped going like this, and he stopped crying and
Speaker 4: then he said, FuG them. Now I'm going to talk.
Speaker 4: And then he told me a lot of stuff where
Speaker 4: the guns was hiding and stuff like that, and he
Speaker 4: told me about it. Twenty twelve meders.
Speaker 1: After the cathartic confession, Ben did his due diligence and
Speaker 1: got LaRue to repeat it in front of a magistrate.
Speaker 1: Back from the hearing to the jail, Larux is exhausted.
Speaker 1: He fell into this sort of paralyzing exhaustion that is
Speaker 1: specific to the fallout from a world crumbling realization. Once
Speaker 1: Laru stopped seeing the world through the lies, Secilia and
Speaker 1: his mother raised him to believe. Laru was free to
Speaker 1: face the truth of what his entire life had been
Speaker 1: and the grim future ahead. The silence hung heavy on
Speaker 1: the drive. Ben, a detective Herd Krueger, sat up front.
Speaker 1: They knew it would be a long time before Laru
Speaker 1: would ever see the world again.
Speaker 2: Ben ask him, is there anything you need? And he says, yes, Uncle,
Speaker 2: I'm hungry. And Ben asked him what would you like
Speaker 2: to eat? And Lex was very confused because he says
Speaker 2: that they could never decide what they wanted to eat.
Speaker 2: They always had to eat what Cecilia was prescribing because
Speaker 2: that was part of her power. And then he said,
Speaker 2: can I please have a pizza and a coke?
Speaker 1: LaRue became emotional, recognizing something that had been missing from
Speaker 1: his life, human kindness.
Speaker 2: When we got hold of Marenda's diary, she writes in
Speaker 2: her diary as if she's speaking to the person in
Speaker 2: the first person. And she wrote in her diary with
Speaker 2: regard to Lex and Afrikaans, but I'll translate it into English.
Speaker 2: She said, but you sold your soul for a pizza
Speaker 2: and a coke.
Speaker 1: This was the beginning of Christelle and Ben kind of
Speaker 1: taking care of the Rue. They would continue to provide
Speaker 1: him with emotional support throughout the trial, and over time
Speaker 1: they became bonded to him. L Arux even wrote letters
Speaker 1: to Ben while he was in prison. He had no
Speaker 1: one else.
Speaker 2: What she doesn't realize is that if you mean so
Speaker 2: little to your children that they are willing to sell
Speaker 2: you out for a pizzana coke. And this is no
Speaker 2: indication of lex but it's indication of how poor mother
Speaker 2: she was to the children, and that is what she caused.
Speaker 2: Not anyone else.
Speaker 1: Armed with LaRue's confession. Boison and hert Krueger go to
Speaker 1: Cecilia's apartment. Upon entry, they find blood on the carpet.
Speaker 4: I saw the stains on the carpet, and then I
Speaker 4: got the police to come out and check the stains
Speaker 4: for me for blood, and then we fell into Goldfield's
Speaker 4: blood and LaRue's blood inside the premises. So the previous
Speaker 4: policemen that were about ten times in that flat then
Speaker 4: trains for that to be done.
Speaker 1: Ben and his team also confiscate a whole lot of
Speaker 1: illegal firearms and ammunition stashed in the walls at seventeen
Speaker 1: Cassano Flats. LaRue had been the one to create these
Speaker 1: hidden panels.
Speaker 9: And there was a little gap between the cupboards and
Speaker 9: the walk and I kind of broke one of the
Speaker 9: wooden panels, so the length of the closet then it
Speaker 9: made like a little I thought chimney almost, and we're
Speaker 9: like push it back and put a panel back there,
Speaker 9: so it looked like any other coverages, you know, going
Speaker 9: up to the ceiling.
Speaker 1: Cecilia's husband, Sergeant Drese Stein, an officer with the South
Speaker 1: African Police Service, was also arrested after the arsenal was
Speaker 1: found hidden in the walls of his home. All the
Speaker 1: firearms were illegal. He was only held for a few
Speaker 1: days and then released. The case against EPD would finally
Speaker 1: go to trial in twenty seventeen, and it would take
Speaker 1: two years to connect them to all the murders and
Speaker 1: officially see them convicted. Journalist Maritzka Kotsayer's book on the
Speaker 1: krueger Storf killings walks readers through these events from LaRue's perspective.
Speaker 1: It's called outcast. Like most people in Krugersdorp and many
Speaker 1: more across the nation, Maritzka had been following this story.
Speaker 1: Thanks to her press credentials, she was granted access to
Speaker 1: visit both John Barnard and LaRue in the late stage
Speaker 1: of the trial. Upon meeting the two men, it was
Speaker 1: immediately clear to her who her main subject should be.
Speaker 3: That is the easy target, you know, because I thought
Speaker 3: he had a little hard left.
Speaker 1: Maritzka also had a cousin who was locked up with LaRue,
Speaker 1: giving her a whiff of street cred. So he agreed
Speaker 1: to meet with her one on one.
Speaker 3: A godday. Waited. I was scared, and then he actually
Speaker 3: agreed to see me. And I think it's because he
Speaker 3: knew my name because of my cousin. And I remember
Speaker 3: the first words that he said to me was dhxie.
Speaker 3: So it's something like good day is very pulotte. So
Speaker 3: I saw to myself, do you murderers have manners?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: I was really like, what's this guy saying nice?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: Mariska and LaRue had an instant connection.
Speaker 10: You liked metal music.
Speaker 3: He was into piercings, into tattoos. So when you know,
Speaker 3: when I got down you, I only had a short
Speaker 3: time to win him over. So now I said to him,
Speaker 3: I want to tell your story, but I don't want
Speaker 3: to tell your story like, yes, I committed the murders.
Speaker 3: I said, I want to I want to hear your story,
Speaker 3: like I want you to tell me what you want
Speaker 3: to say. And that day he asked me my number
Speaker 3: and I gave it to him.
Speaker 1: In the months leading up to his sentencing, she and
Speaker 1: LaRue formed a tight bond that evolved in the Mariska
Speaker 1: becoming an advocate for him and Marcel.
Speaker 3: I mean, is there not one person that can see
Speaker 3: that this was child abuse? She conditioned them to be monsters.
Speaker 1: On December fourteenth, twenty sixteenth, John Barnard took his plead
Speaker 1: in exchange for testifying against EPD. His sentence was reduced
Speaker 1: from life to twenty years in prison. Charging the rest
Speaker 1: of EPD was a challenge. Now keep in mind that
Speaker 1: in South Africa it's a judge's courtroom. The jury system
Speaker 1: was abolished during apartheid, so the fate of each EPD
Speaker 1: member lay solely in the judge's hands.
Speaker 11: You might shure you bring the truth to the court
Speaker 11: in a Watertodd Vihko where you're the jud character of effect.
Speaker 1: That's Dion Venvick. He's worked in the State's Attorney's office
Speaker 1: for thirty years, twenty of which were in the High Court,
Speaker 1: which is like the federal district courts in the US.
Speaker 1: He is currently a senior State Advocate. At just under
Speaker 1: six feet tall, Dion Vnvick is an authoritative presence and
Speaker 1: has been doing this so long. He's extremely well versed
Speaker 1: in the intricacies of South African law and not to
Speaker 1: be confused with Captain johann and Vick, who you've heard
Speaker 1: from in earlier episodes.
Speaker 11: On the effects of the case that you guys are investigating.
Speaker 11: Many crimes were perpetrated by various of her followers, but
Speaker 11: the challenge is to prosecute them all, for each and
Speaker 11: every one of them, to keep them liable, criminally liable
Speaker 11: for all the offenses would be impossible without detulov racketeering.
Speaker 1: Ben had a background in organized crime, so he developed
Speaker 1: a strategy to approach this rare, unprecedented prosecution. Then, Vic says,
Speaker 1: according to the Prevention of Organized Crime Act or POKER,
Speaker 1: Ben would have to prove that the crimes involved racketeering.
Speaker 11: Section one of our Poker Acts creates that too. You
Speaker 11: turned on proving an enterprise, which was easy to do.
Speaker 1: In this case. Alectis Perdaeus's enterprise was blatant insurance fraud,
Speaker 1: thinking zach death to cash in on his policy.
Speaker 11: Secondly, how you your factual association, It all depends on
Speaker 11: what level. Obviously, the main person will be the manager.
Speaker 11: You have sufficient evidence to prove.
Speaker 1: That Cecilia being the sole beneficiary of the attempted fraud
Speaker 1: made her the manager or ringleader in this act of
Speaker 1: organized crime.
Speaker 11: And the person's associating in activities to further the objectives
Speaker 11: of the enterprise, and that was the key.
Speaker 1: This is how Mirinda and her children were linked in complicity.
Speaker 1: The kids were working to carry out Cecilia's enterprise. For example,
Speaker 1: LaRue had made incessant calls to check on the claim
Speaker 1: for Cecilia, then he backed her up in the insurance
Speaker 1: inquiry video, and Marcel was an active participant in the robberies.
Speaker 1: The ATM withdrawals from this angle. They were all enmeshed
Speaker 1: involved in an ongoing conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt. Still,
Speaker 1: this approach was unheard of at the time.
Speaker 11: Normally you would not deploy racketeating on a murdic case likeness,
Speaker 11: but that was the only way to bring them all
Speaker 11: to book, and there's nothing boarding us or boring the
Speaker 11: prosecution team in law to apply that. So that's the
Speaker 11: first in South Africa as far as I know.
Speaker 1: Since it had never been used in a murder case before.
Speaker 1: It took a while to convince the judge that pocket
Speaker 1: charters held water for the prosecution, but finally in February
Speaker 1: the judge approved. Senior State Advocate Dion van Vick also
Speaker 1: illuminated for US based on his years in the field,
Speaker 1: that organized crime at this level usually leads to murder.
Speaker 11: Keeping in mind that it doesn't matter in what sphere
Speaker 11: of organized crime you move. If your financial your criminal
Speaker 11: benefit is big enough, people will die.
Speaker 1: Just to be clear, Dion van Vick didn't work on
Speaker 1: this case, but we spoke to him to get some
Speaker 1: clarity on the racketeering stuff from an actual state official.
Speaker 1: While Ben developed this racketeering angle, he also gathered witnesses.
Speaker 4: And fifty witnesses actually, and I served to aenit in
Speaker 4: fifty two supunas three times, but we only used at
Speaker 4: the end of the day about seventy witnesses to testify.
Speaker 1: Many of the witnesses were reduced to tears. They were
Speaker 1: all emotionally broken and terrified of speaking out against Cecilia.
Speaker 1: As you've heard, Luke asked us to alter his voice
Speaker 1: and use an alias because he's still convinced that he's
Speaker 1: a target for testifying against Cecilia. Prison bars were no
Speaker 1: match for her. Not only did she speak of astral projection,
Speaker 1: but no one would have been surprised if she put
Speaker 1: a hit out on any of the witnesses or their families.
Speaker 1: Throughout the investigation, Ben received death threats warning him that
Speaker 1: if he didn't stop his pursuit of justice, he would
Speaker 1: be murdered by the Satanic Church. At one point, Brigadier
Speaker 1: Manny victor got a tip that a one million RAN
Speaker 1: contract had been offered to anyone that would take out
Speaker 1: Ben Boysen. That's about fifty thousand US dollars. A suspect
Speaker 1: was eventually arrested and identified as the would be hitman.
Speaker 1: Cecilia also came after Ben and Cristelle's.
Speaker 7: Family since her first year in Joel, one of the
Speaker 7: peoples she was incarcerated with was released and she told us.
Speaker 7: She made a statement, she's coming from Kruystol, and she
Speaker 7: told us that Cecilia is planning on killing our youngest daughter.
Speaker 7: She took out a contract to kill our youngest daughter
Speaker 7: for revenge on what Ben has done. And then our
Speaker 7: younger his daughter had to move out of town and
Speaker 7: she doesn't stay with us anymore.
Speaker 1: The court dates kept getting postponed for myriad reasons, a
Speaker 1: slow moving justice system being one, but also because the
Speaker 1: twenty twelve case files were missing. LaRue's confession was not enough.
Speaker 1: Ben had to completely recreate reports on crimes that happened
Speaker 1: four years earlier, which took time.
Speaker 4: But remember there was no dockets, there was no witness statements,
Speaker 4: there was nothing. So even if he tells me and
Speaker 4: he confession all this stuff, I still need to go
Speaker 4: out and get evidence to prove what he said is
Speaker 4: the truth.
Speaker 1: And that was very difficult, and Ben's health had not improved.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was buckling under the pressure.
Speaker 4: Every time the court postponed. I had to serve all
Speaker 4: that tupunas again by myself. I became very very ill.
Speaker 1: Christelle finally forced him to go to the doc.
Speaker 4: I didn't want to go to the doctor because I
Speaker 4: know they're going to book me off and I can't
Speaker 4: be booked off because I still need to get information
Speaker 4: and stuff. And one morning I woke up and I
Speaker 4: was sitting on bed and I didn't have a voice,
Speaker 4: and she said, you're going to hospital to the doctor today.
Speaker 4: And I was so weak when I get to the
Speaker 4: hospital that I actually couldn't walk.
Speaker 1: Turns out he had pneumonia, but even during treatment, Ben
Speaker 1: kept working.
Speaker 4: So they brought the wheelchair to take me into the hospital.
Speaker 4: And as I because the hospital was its opposite Cecilia
Speaker 4: Stein's flats.
Speaker 1: There was suspicion that Cecilia had a friend working in
Speaker 1: the hospital pharmacy who would secure drugs for Cecilia and
Speaker 1: Electus per Dais.
Speaker 4: I saw the chemist and I said, I still need
Speaker 4: to I want to tell I still need a statement. Yes,
Speaker 4: And my wife freaked out that she said, no, since
Speaker 4: you warned everybody in but all that they must not
Speaker 4: talk about the case with me, I must relax. And
Speaker 4: then eventually the doctor came to me and he said,
Speaker 4: you've got overgrown art.
Speaker 1: An overgrown heart. After a few days of rest, Ben
Speaker 1: was released.
Speaker 4: I wasn't supposed to go to work, but when I
Speaker 4: get home, I took the sick note, I tear it
Speaker 4: up and I started working the next day again. My
Speaker 4: wife was very very cross with me, But you know,
Speaker 4: I knew that if I'm not going to see this
Speaker 4: cases through, that it's not going to work out nicely.
Speaker 4: So I forced myself to do work.
Speaker 1: About a year into the trial, Janna Marx was working
Speaker 1: as a court reporter.
Speaker 10: I was working in court, so I was attending court
Speaker 10: cases and I was literally sitting in court every day.
Speaker 10: It would be different cases because cisis Skates postponed. I
Speaker 10: was a digital journalist. It becomes difficult to see a
Speaker 10: trial evolving from start to end. I mean, it's not
Speaker 10: always possible because of the speed of the journalism that
Speaker 10: we practice.
Speaker 1: The case against EPD was moved to the High Court
Speaker 1: in May of twenty eighteen, and Yana was assigned to it.
Speaker 10: So I think from the very beginning this really grab
Speaker 10: people's attention, just because of the religion and also the
Speaker 10: normalization of what happened there. I mean, the regular people
Speaker 10: being part of a group are goodness. Now regular people
Speaker 10: are killing other regular people.
Speaker 1: We are so grateful for all the insight and expertise
Speaker 1: that Yana lent to this project for over a year,
Speaker 1: Nearly every time these murderers took the stand, Yana was
Speaker 1: there watching. She'll walk us through the trial. In the
Speaker 1: next episode, we'll get her take on Cecilia, Zach and
Speaker 1: the kids as they try to make a case for
Speaker 1: themselves Merinda too well sort of. Yanna also speaks to
Speaker 1: Cecilia's delusional style, which was on full display in the courtroom.
Speaker 10: Cecilia is very She's very lively, and she tells jokes,
Speaker 10: and that happens in court.
Speaker 1: Cecilia's charming personality is part of what makes her so terrifying.
Speaker 1: Even today, her shadow is buried deep. I know this
Speaker 1: because I met her well.
Speaker 12: I like joking and I like, you know, having fun.
Speaker 12: Laughing life is serious and and you can't be serious
Speaker 12: all the time. It'll just make you the priest if
Speaker 12: you certain think about life.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of Queen Havoc, LaRue.
Speaker 4: Right when when he was found guilty and in front
Speaker 4: of his mother, he said, thank you Captain for sending
Speaker 4: this beach the.
Speaker 13: Jail on understand she lied Latant. I killed Reginald and
Speaker 13: I enjoyed every minute of it and went into great
Speaker 13: gory detail about how she did it and saying it
Speaker 13: had nothing to do with Cecilia.
Speaker 3: But he still says there in things like what if
Speaker 3: Cecilia I can sneak into my cell and come and
Speaker 3: hurt me.
Speaker 10: You know, Massell was a bit different. I think the
Speaker 10: whole country's sympathy lay with Mussel.
Speaker 7: And everyone believed her.
Speaker 6: Everyone believed in.
Speaker 7: What she was saying.
Speaker 1: So Queen Havoc in Her Murder Cult is a production
Speaker 1: of Schooly Humans and iHeart Podcasts. Queen Havoc is hosted
Speaker 1: and created by me Kurt Kupachak, produced and written by
Speaker 1: Jennifer ZC Kenny, Julia Chriskau, and Kirk Kupachick. Lead producer
Speaker 1: is Julia Chriskau. Story editor is Saren Burnett, Senior producer
Speaker 1: is Amelia Brock. Production manager is Daisy Church. Original music
Speaker 1: composed by Claire Campbell, editing, sound design and scoring by
Speaker 1: Jesse Niswanger. Associate producers are DaShan Moodley and Jamaine Kriher.
Speaker 1: Additional producing by Ben Melman, fact checking by Dennis Webster.
Speaker 1: Recording engineers are Graham Gibson, Clay Hillenberg and Josh Hook.
Speaker 1: Brinda Stein was read by Angelique Pretorious. Executive producers are
Speaker 1: Virginia Prescott, L. C. Crowley, Brandon Barr, Jennifer Takeny and
Speaker 1: Kurt Kupachick. We want to thank all of those who
Speaker 1: so generously welcomed us in South Africa and shared their stories.
Speaker 1: We're incredibly grateful to you all. We also want to
Speaker 1: acknowledge how traumatic these events are for the victims and
Speaker 1: their families. Please respect their privacy. If you or someone
Speaker 1: you know has been affected by cult behaviors, there are
Speaker 1: resources available, including voices for Dignity at Christine Murray dot
Speaker 1: com