Part One: Tony Alamo: The Worst Preacher

Summary

Behind the Bastards: Part One - Tony Alamo: The Worst Preacher

Behind the Bastards, a podcast by Cool Zone Media and iHeartPodcasts, delves deep into the lives of some of history's most nefarious individuals. In the February 18, 2025 release, titled "Part One: Tony Alamo: The Worst Preacher," hosts Robert Evans and Samantha McVeigh explore the dark and twisted journey of Tony Alamo, an infamous evangelical Christian cult leader.

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Introduction to Tony Alamo

The episode opens with the hosts addressing the temporary absence of their producer, Sophie, setting a slightly chaotic yet engaging tone. However, the real focus shifts swiftly to Tony Alamo, whom Robert describes as "one of the OGs of being an abusive Christian cult leader in the United States. The worst preacher of all time" ([04:10]).

Early Life and Background

Tony Alamo, originally born Bernie Lazar Hoffman on September 20, 1934, in Joplin, Missouri, had a tumultuous upbringing. Raised in a non-religious Jewish immigrant family from Romania, Bernie was encouraged to conceal his Jewish heritage to avoid persecution in mid-20th century Missouri. This early experience with discrimination seemingly planted the seeds for his later manipulative tactics.

Similarly, Edith Opal Horne, Tony's wife and co-leader of the cult, was born on April 25, 1924, in Alma, Arkansas. Growing up in a household with religious influences due to her father's evangelism during his battle with tuberculosis, Edith's early life was marked by instability and abuse. She married at 14, divorced at 16, and eventually moved to California to pursue dreams of stardom, only to transition into a life of deceit and manipulation.

Formation of the Alamo Cult

By the mid-1960s, Bernie had adopted the name Tony Alamo and relocated to Los Angeles, where he attempted to break into the music industry. His career, however, was marred by poor choices and manipulative behavior, often conning aspiring musicians with false claims of connections to major acts like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. His friendlier facade masked his true intent: to exploit the dreams and vulnerabilities of young artists for personal gain.

Notable Quote:

"Tony Alamo would claim to have ushered the Beatles into fame and worked with the Rolling Stones as well as Sonny and Cher. The only musician that we can prove that he promoted was Pete Best, a former member of the Beatles." ([30:43])

Meeting Edith Opal Horne

In 1966, Tony Alamo met Edith Opal Horne in Los Angeles. Both were seasoned con artists, each viewing the other as a potential mark. Their interaction was a power play of deceit, culminating in a whirlwind marriage—three ceremonies within 48 hours—to solidify their union legally. This alliance marked the beginning of their collaborative ventures into religious exploitation.

Notable Quote:

"They hit it off and got married three separate times over the course of 48 hours. That's why Alamo becomes the first person bigamously married to his one wife." ([37:39])

Establishing the Cult

The Alamo couple officially began their religious movement by adopting new identities—Tony and Susan Alamo—and preaching to marginalized groups in Los Angeles, including homeless individuals, failing actors, and musicians. Their strategy involved providing meals from dumpster-dived food, offering salvation through conversion, and coercing financial donations under the guise of divine missions.

Notable Quote:

"Their followers are made to live in chicken coops. Married couples get to live in shacks." ([44:13])

As their operation grew, they established the Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation in 1969, further legitimizing their efforts to "clean up" after the hippie movement of the 1960s. This foundation became a conduit for their financial exploitation, funneling donations from sympathetic churches and affluent donors who believed in their mission to eradicate homelessness and promote evangelical Christianity.

Cult Practices and Manipulation

The Alamos employed various manipulative tactics to maintain control over their followers. They instituted strict rules, monitored every aspect of their lives, and used fear of eternal damnation to discourage defection. Physical punishments and psychological abuse were rampant, ensuring a climate of fear and obedience.

Notable Quote:

"Every day, they would tell new inductees and their old followers stories about people who had joined the church, left, and immediately died. Right. If you leave the church, basically, you are instantly going to be dead, right?" ([54:27])

Their recruitment methods were insidious, targeting vulnerable individuals with promises of salvation and community, only to exploit them financially and emotionally. The Alamos also manipulated media attention, enhancing their image to attract more donors and followers by presenting themselves as saviors of society's lost souls.

Susan Alamo’s Illness and its Impact

In 1975, Susan Alamo was diagnosed with cancer, adding another layer of manipulation to their deceitful operations. Despite her illness, the Alamos continued to preach that they were immune to death, reinforcing their authority and the fear of followers. Susan's eventual death in 1982 posed a significant challenge to Tony Alamo and the cult's stability, setting the stage for further manipulation and abuse.

Notable Quote:

"Susan dies in 1982 from the same cancer that had inspired them move back to Arkansas. Now, Sam, this creates real issues for Tony because by this point he and Susan, they had spent seven years or so, you know, since she got sick, preaching that she and he couldn't die." ([60:07])

Conclusion and Teaser for Part Two

The episode concludes by highlighting the significant impact of Susan’s death on the cult's operations. The hosts tease that Part Two will delve into how Tony Alamo navigates the cult's future without his enigmatic wife, promising even darker revelations about his continued manipulative reign.

Notable Quote:

"Susan dies in 1982 from the same cancer that had inspired them move back to Arkansas... creating a real pickle for Tony Alamo and the cult. One that they're gonna have to resolve in part two." ([65:08])

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Key Takeaways

• Tony Alamo’s Early Deception: From his beginnings as Bernie Hoffman, Tony exhibited manipulative tendencies that later defined his leadership of a destructive cult.

• Collaborative Manipulation: Partnering with Edith Opal Horne, the Alamos combined their con artistry to expand their influence and financial gain through evangelical exploitation.

• Cult Operations: Utilizing fear, strict control, and financial coercion, the Alamo cult thrived by preying on society’s most vulnerable individuals.

• Impact of Personal Tragedy: Susan Alamo’s cancer diagnosis and subsequent death tested the cult’s resilience and highlighted Tony's relentless pursuit of power and control.

Notable Quotes

1. Robert Evans on Tony’s Musical Claims (30:43):

   "Tony Alamo would claim to have ushered the Beatles into fame and worked with the Rolling Stones as well as Sonny and Cher."

2. Discussion on Bigamy (37:39):

   "They hit it off and got married three separate times over the course of 48 hours. That's why Alamo becomes the first person bigamously married to his one wife."

3. On Cult-Induced Fear (54:27):

   "If you leave the church, basically, you are instantly going to be dead, right?"

4. Impact of Susan’s Death (65:08):

   "One that they're gonna have to resolve in part two."

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Behind the Bastards provides an unflinching look into the life of Tony Alamo, unraveling the layers of deceit, manipulation, and abuse that defined his rise and maintenance of a destructive religious cult. The episode serves as a cautionary tale about the vulnerabilities that charismatic leaders can exploit, leaving listeners both horrified and enlightened about the depths of human manipulation.

Transcript

[Robert Evans]

Call Zone Media. Welcome back to behind the Bastards, a podcast that is mourning the temporary loss of its producer. Today Sophie got into a little bit of a kerp fuffle with the ftc. Some shots were exchanged. Anyway, she's on the run now, but we're expecting her to report back in from her mountain hideaway any day. But until she gets back, Samantha McVeigh is with me today. This week. Samantha, how are you doing?

[Samantha McVeigh]

Good. You know, I was just saying I feel like Sophie is our adult that supervises. So I'm a little nervous that she's not here, but it's okay. Cause I also did another show with Margaret and Sophie wasn't there either. So maybe. Is she mad at me?

[Robert Evans]

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no.

[Samantha McVeigh]

She's just running.

[Robert Evans]

It's just she's on the run from the law. It's there. Yeah, yeah, it's fine. Once she gets to our hidden moun in an undisclosed location in the Rockies, she'll be back on the calls. Everything will be fine.

[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

Yeah, we're going to be doing the podcast via Morse code. Yeah, that is the only way to communicate. Yeah, we're gonna get some code talkers, but with like maybe Klingon based. I don't think the feds can crack that one yet. Not anymore. They got all those feds apt. Those are the first people the Trump folks fired. This is Ashley Echenetti from the Ben and Ashley I almost famous podcast.

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[Samantha McVeigh]

I don't think so. Yeah, I'm on a podcast. It has a book. It's been around for a bit.

[Robert Evans]

It has been.

[Samantha McVeigh]

That's it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. An OG. And speaking of OGs, we're gonna be talking about one of the OGs of being an abusive Christian cult leader in the United States. The worst preacher of all time. A guy that Los Angeles residents might be are going to be aware of as well as most of our Alabama listeners. Tony Alamo. What have you heard of this guy? Do you know Tony Alamo?

[Samantha McVeigh]

I don't. I don't know. Which is what I'm kind of surprised by. Cause I was really deep into the Christian world, so. Don't know this one.

[Robert Evans]

He is. Well, he's one of the weirder ones and he's one of like the worst people we're ever going. This guy. Oh man, he does all of the evil cult leader things. Child trafficking, slave labor, you know, all the good stuff. Abuse of a corpse. It's great. We got a lot of fun stuff today.

[Samantha McVeigh]

So modern day Christianity, let's go.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So again, his last name is Alamo, but it's spelled Alamo, but that's not how it's pronounced, because the state of Texas would have come after him then. He would have had the Rangers on him long before the FBI finally took him down if he'd been weakening Texas's brand. But yeah, Tony Alamo, and this is kind of a weird one, in that he is not the initial leader of his cult. That's kind of his wife. So it starts out as him being almost like used by this cult that he later winds up running. He's always one of the people running it, but his wife is definitely much more like the driving force of the cult when they get started, which is interesting. You don't see that a lot, you know, so this is a. We're gonna be talking about a feminist icon in the world of establishing a cult that traffics children across state lines.

[Samantha McVeigh]

An icon. Well, that's exciting.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's good. Girls can do everything the boys can do. Correct.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Including trafficking.

[Robert Evans]

Including trafficking, that's right. Obviously, we're always saying that.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Equal opportunity. I love it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So one of my favorite things about this is that these guys, the people we're talking about today, were very good friends of one of our friends of the pod who had a run in of his own with law enforcement in a town called Waco. But I'm getting ahead of myself here.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Okay. I was wondering. I'm not gonna lie.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. A little bit of. There's some Waco that comes in here. Yeah. Alamo.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Waco just all seemed too convenient.

[Robert Evans]

That's right. Now, Tony was not just the leader of the cult, you know, again, he was basically its first member or may co leader with the woman who became his wife, who we're going to talk about before we talk about Tony, because she is fascinating, too, Edith Opal Horne, which is, you know, she's got that serial killer name starting. I know Opal. There's something sinister about that as a middle name.

[Samantha McVeigh]

It's sinister. And it's also, bless your heart, like she's gonna poison you, but it's gonna be in a really great pie.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yes. And she is. She is. This is. She is a down home girl. Now, if your first thought when I said Tony Alamo, was that like, oh, well, that's way too good a name of a cult leader to be a real cult leader's name. You are correct. And Tony was not born Tony Alamo. He was born Bernie Lazar Hoffman on September 20, 1934 in Joplin, Missouri. So, again, this is kind of rare for evangelical Christian cult leaders, but he was born into a Jewish family. His parents were immigrants from Romania. And while this may seem like an unlikely background again for an evangelical Christian cult leader, Bernie's family was never religious. And as a boy, his parents told him, hey, you should tell people that you're Romanian, not Jewish. Because if you tell them you're Jewish, you're gonna get beaten up. Right. Like we're in Joplin, Missouri in the 40s and 50s, you know, you really don't wanna. You don't wanna be dropping that too much right now. Edith was also born into a Jewish family on April 25, 1924, in Alma, Arkansas, a small town about the same size as Kansas, where the family moved shortly after her birth. Her father was a convert, or her family was mixed religion. It's a little unclear to me, because she told her daughter later that she first encountered the Bible reciting passages from it at her father's sickbed. He'd been sent home from the military early due to contracting tuberculosis. And over the course of several years, he wasted away and tried to stay outside to avoid spreading the illness to his family. So he's like camping out to try to stop from getting his family sick. Okay.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Interesting technique.

[Robert Evans]

Which is. Yeah, I mean, that's some real, like 30s mostly.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Let us quarantine you out there.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, dad lives in the yard. Cause otherwise he'll get us all killed. Edith would later claim to have refused to listen to what he said because she was convinced that she could heal him by reciting Bible passages. So she insisted on sitting next to his cot or whatever at night. This may have been later myth making after she converted, because our only source on her childhood is her. Either way, what we can confirm is that from an early age, Edith dreamed of being a star in the newly forming film industry, which had just come to be centered in Hollywood, California. But her dreams were interrupted by the normal patterns of life in a small southern town. By which I mean, she got pregnant extremely young, obviously. Right. Like, she's a dire, like Arkansas in the fucking 30s and 40s.

[Samantha McVeigh]

What else is there to do?

[Robert Evans]

Well, I mean, literally there is nothing else that you can do aside from get pregnant early and have your brothers and husband die of various cold related diseases or farming related accidents, you know.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Yeah, yeah, obviously.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, obviously. Like people there have numerous different things that they can do with their lives, all of which involve dying young.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Dying young.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So Debbie Scrivener describes what happened next in the book Whispering in the Daylight, which is about the Alamos quote. She married at 14, had a baby at 15, and divorced at 16, it was then that Edith Opel decided to take charge of her own journey to stardom and headed to California. When she reached Hollywood, Edith Opal changed her name to Susan Fleetwood. After failed attempts at a singing and acting career, she married and then divorced Saul Lipowitz and converted from her Jewish roots to evangelical Christianity. She began to preach and teach informally. And she just straight up abandons her son right now. This is her son that she has at 15. But, yeah, she just kind of bounces on the family she's got over there, moves to Hollywood and starts trying to make it. And the one daughter that she has with Saul Lipowitz is named Christian. Like Christ. H I A O N Coy. I'm guessing Coy was. I mean, I don't actually know where Coy comes from here. That must be her married name. That's what she writes under as an adult. I have never heard of the name Christian before. This may be a misspelling of the name Christon, like Christ O N, which is a Latin girl's name that means follower of Christ. But I don't know. Christian doesn't appear to be anything. Right.

[Samantha McVeigh]

It sounds like it's an amalgamation of saying Christ and then like, Thessalonians and one of the chapters of Michael or something like that.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Somebody's flipping through a Bible on an epidural, and it's like, I got a name.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I'll take these two things, slice them together. Beautiful.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Perfect.

[Samantha McVeigh]

No problems here.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Now, according to Chris. We're gonna call her Chris. Cause I'm not gonna try to pronounce that name the whole time. And that's generally what she seems to go by. Edith, her mom makes a living during this period primarily as a con woman because she's trying to find work in the movie. She does some acting gigs, but they do not. Her career doesn't take. Daughter will credit this to the fact that she just does not have the look that Hollywood's going for in this period. She was, per her daughter, quote, beautiful in the weirdest way. Not like you would look at her and go, wow, a striking beauty. But when she walked in a room, she had so much command that people stopped talking. So she's not the kind of. She doesn't have the right look to get the big Hollywood gigs, but she does have the right look to, like, make people pay attention to her and kind of gravitates naturally to conning them as a result.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I mean, this all tracks to where she goes. It feels like it's very on point.

[Robert Evans]

Perfectly natural. Yes. I'm seeing the A to B here. Very easily, very quickly, when she managed to get work or successfully work a con, the family would have money. And so during Chris's childhood they swung wildly between mild solvency and absolute poverty with such regularity that it made Chris childhood kind of dizzying. Also dizzying was the violence that Edith employed on a near daily basis. And I'm not going to read a lot of detailed stories of physical abuse here. Kris has a book that she's going to write later about her childhood and her book Mama said has some of the worst and most descriptions of like the beating and psychological abuse of a little kid that I've ever read. Edith is a very bad mother. Like I, I cannot overemphasize how abusive this woman is to her daughter. Or at least that's how Kris relates it. I don't know why she would lie about the specific things that she's lying about given that they comport entirely with the life that Edith is going to live from this point forward.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

So Edith, now living as Susan and her daughter, spent years on the margins. Once Kris is 13, Edith is like, hey, you gotta start earning your keep. Right. You're basically an adult woman. It's time for you to start going out for parts and recording demo tapes as a singer. And you know, you kind of get the feeling that part of what she's doing is like, hey, you know, you're, you're the age that a lot of creeps in Hollywood are interested in. If you can make that work for us, go do it. Right. It's a, it's a bad again childhood. The two live in a one room apartment with a pull down Murphy bed and survive primarily off of what Chris describes as mystery cans which are canned foods with the labels removed that sold for cheaper than regular food. Quote, you would open these cans and whatever you opened, you ate.

[Samantha McVeigh]

It's like a surprise.

[Robert Evans]

It's like a surprise. Yeah, exactly. You're keeping your life interesting. Probably just pounding a lot of pure fucking coconut oil or whatever.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Like right. I'm imagining some kind of pie maybe.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Pie meat if you're lucky, pie meat. Yeah. A lot of expired suits, soups. Oh my God. Yeah, that's like, that's such a perfect like absolute poverty story right there. Yeah. Just eating mystery cans with my mom as she tries to pimp me out to the music industry.

[Samantha McVeigh]

She beats me, tells me I have to keep.

[Robert Evans]

Going. Yeah. Get pregnant or drop and eat pee. Right. Like those are Your options. So by this point, by the time Chris is 13, Edith has aged out of most of the roles that interested her. Right. She is again, particularly for this period of Hollywood, too old to become a leading lady. Right. And the bulk of her earnings now come from con artistry. And here is how Debbie Scrivener describes her most successful and repeated con. She developed her evangelical skills by scamming churches under the pretense of being a missionary seeking funds. She would say to Chris, put on a dress. We're going to do a church. They would go, and during the service, Susan would stand and say, I have a message from the Lord and I need to speak. Susan would speak, Chris would sing, church members would pass a love offering, and mother and daughter would leave with money. And so, at age 34, Edith Opelhorn gave birth to a new Persona. Susan Lipowitz, with business acumen, powers of persuasion, and gritty determination, well in place. There's some disagreement in my sources over when she starts going by Susan, but it appears to be something she takes on as part of this, like, I'm going to be scamming churches. And I think it's interesting again, that she comes from a background that is very much not evangelical Christianity, which may be why she knows how to manipulate these people so well. Maybe it's just the simple fact that none of this is sacred to her in the way it is to these people. So she's able to kind of look in from the outside and like, oh, I know how to fuck with these people. I know how to get their money. Right?

[Samantha McVeigh]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

I know what they want to hear. They want to see my daughter singing. Yeah.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I mean, if she truly was trying to heal her father, realize it doesn't work. And this is bs. They're like, I'm going to just take.

[Robert Evans]

Their money, then I'm going to take their fucking money. They're lying. They lied to me when my dad was sick. But, yeah, maybe there's something there too.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Just say, that's trauma.

[Robert Evans]

If I'm. If I'm greenlighting the HBO miniseries, that's at least how I try to.

[Samantha McVeigh]

That's how we're going to begin.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, that's how we're going to start. Give her a little.

[Samantha McVeigh]

That's her villain origin, Right?

[Robert Evans]

Right. So Susan nursed clear ambitions of turning her daughter into a money ticket. And Chris's initial ambition was music. But Susan was the kind of mom who was more than capable of acting on opportunity. One day in 1964 or 65, when Chris was in 8th grade, she rode home on a city bus. Now, this was during a time, again, we're talking 64, 65. This is a time of a heightened racial tension, particularly in Los Angeles. The way Chris describes it, decades later. And again, Chris is not being raised what we would call racially open minded. Right. Her mom grows up in the south in the 20s and 30s. She is raised believing some very racist things. So she sees Chris, sees this group of black girls on the bus and quote, I may have given them a look they didn't like. I'm not sure. One of the girls responds by sticking out her foot, and Chris trips and falls, and then the girls laugh at her. And other people on the bus start laughing too. And so Kris runs for the exit and then trips herself on her way out. Right? So she winds up with like, scraped up bloody knees and everything. And that's, as Kris says it, that's all that happened, Right. Like, you know, she's probably this girl who's raised very racist, gives a mean look to a black girl who trips her, and the encounter ends right. In the grand scheme of things, not a huge deal. But when Kris gets home, Susan sees that she has bloody hands and knees, mostly from the second time that she fell on her own. And Susan's like, what happened? And Chr told her, I got tripped on the bus by this black girl. And Susan responds, you let a bunch of. And then she drops several slurs in a row. Run you off a public bus. Chris tries to explain, I couldn't do anything. But Susan is drunk, so she beats her daughter mercilessly, breaking her nose badly enough that she has to go to the hospital because there's blood coming out of her ears, right? So we're talking like very serious abuse here. So when they get to the hospital, they can't. Susan, like, Susan doesn't want her daughter saying, well, I got tripped on the bus and scraped at my knees, and then my mom beat me so bad I have a concussion. Right? Because then mom's gonna get arrested, right?

[Samantha McVeigh]

I mean, that's not great.

[Robert Evans]

That's not great. Yeah. That's like even. Even in this period of time, in the mid-60s, that's child abuse.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Just saying.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So because her injuries require an explanation, Susan, on the way over to the hospital, is coaching her daughter who has a head injury. Like, hey, you gotta. You gotta say it was those girls on the bus. You gotta say it was like a race thing, that they beat you up because you're white. And in her book, mama said, Chris Writes, quote, those six black girls. And this is her talking about, like, how she. What she tells the hospital, those six black girls beat me up on the bus. I told them I got on the bus and that girl tripped me, uttered racial slurs, knocked me down and kicked me. Mom chimed in to add another fantastic detail. Every time I retold the story, you know what they said to her? They were screaming at her, screaming, we're going to take over America, you white bitch. They told her, this is their city. The nurses, all white, would gasp and cluck, and then even more racist things get said. I think you get the idea, right? Like, she is. Susan is very much leaning into, like, the, like, racial animus of the time in order to try and, like, make this a story that she can sell not just to these, like, white hospital workers, but to the media, which is where she's going to go next. Because when she calls the cops, the cops are like, we don't really care about some kids getting into a fight on a bus. This is where the LAPD, and this is the 60s. There's so much else going on right now, and we're the lapd, so we don't really care about much anyway. So she starts reaching out to every newspaper in town to tell them increasingly elaborate lies about the hate crime her daughter had suffered. The only reporter who shows up is a guy from the Herald Examiner. And the next day, Chris is on the front page of the paper. Now, this ignites a response from the local community, and that's what brings the cops out. A whole bunch of particularly the most racist people in LA start sending bouquets of flowers to Chris, often with very racist messages in them. Susan, because again, this is all about money for Sue. She tries to sue the bus company and eventually gets her daughter on local tv, which turns her into, in Chris's words, a martyr for the cause. The John Birch Society gets interested, and Susan and Chris are enrolled in the organization. Yeah, so this is like the kind of the first big con Susan realizes she can play with. Her daughter is like, I'm going to try and make her, like, the face of the anti integration movement. Right. And it, you know, this works for a little while. Spurred to action by media attention, the LAPD takes to the field with the usual degree of competence you would expect. This is from Chris's book. Six black girls were arrested, thrown in jail, charged, and dragged into a courtroom to answer for my mother's crime. Mama told me I'd have to testify on the witness stand. The thought made me want to die. Mama caught me trying to overdose on pills before the court date. She poured salt water down my throat until I threw everything up. She didn't beat me this time, though. She couldn't have me showing up to court with fresh wounds. So pretty bad. Pretty bad story. Yeah.

[Samantha McVeigh]

She didn't beat her. That's nice.

[Robert Evans]

But she didn't beat her. She just nearly drowned her with salt water.

[Samantha McVeigh]

It's fine. Fine. Waterboarding. It's fine. Saline solution. Everything's great. You know, I'm actually surprised that the police didn't jump in and be like, oh, racial stuff. Let's go beat some people. That seems like something they would want to do because they don't actually want to work.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, I mean, I think that's. That's my expectation. But also, you have to note that a big motivator for them is always not doing anything. So when they first get the phone call, they're gonna be like, well, I don't care. What are you trying to get me to do?

[Samantha McVeigh]

Why are we doing this? Okay.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Anyway, so that's what's happened so far. Pretty fun story of outrageous child abuse.

[Samantha McVeigh]

What a beautiful fairy tale.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. What a beautiful fairy tale. This is a little bit. There's a little bit of a fairy tale feel, except for instead of, like, Kris getting rich and powerful, her evil and abusive mother does right after this point. But before we hit that, let's do some ads. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. We talk a lot about red flags in relationships when you're looking for someone to date or for a friend or just people in general. But what about green flags? Things that let you know that somebody's a person you might want to be more involved with? Well, if you're not sure what a green flag looks like for you, therapy can help you identify green flags and actively practice them in your relationship. So you can embody green flag energy yourself. Whether you're dating, married, building a friendship, or just working on you, it's time to form relationships that love you back. And therapy can help with that. It can help you learn positive coping skills and how to set boundaries. And that empowers you to be the best version of yourself. If you're thinking of therapy, BetterHelp might be a great option. It's fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient, serving over 5 million people worldwide. Access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties, and easily switch therapists anytime at no additional costs. So discover your relationship. Green flags with BetterHelp, visit betterhelp.com behind to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp H-E-L-P.com behind hi, I'm Cindy.

[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

And Symbiotica is here to support your journey.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Their products are free from seed oils.

[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

Cutting edge technology for better absorption and results. Go to symbiotica.com and use code I HEART at checkout for 20% off +free shipping. That's symbiotica.com and use Code IHEART at checkout for 20% off+free shipping. And we're back. How you holding up there, Sam?

[Samantha McVeigh]

I'm just thinking about this. It seems like. Have you ever heard the story of Gypsy Rose? Yes, the child star. The mother. This sounds like the redneck version of that. Except church, which makes sense if you want to be, like, real honest. And I'm not gonna lie, I'm sorry. To those who live in Arkansas. I know it's not your fault, but Arkansas is one of the top four states that I'm terrified to go through as a person of color. Like, yeah, if I can, I will never go through there.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, yeah, it's. And again, we're talking like 70 years ago in that area.

[Samantha McVeigh]

But even now, words.

[Robert Evans]

Susan grows up knowing, like, yeah, it's like a whole different level of racism. So, yeah, Chris thinks that these girls who get arrested based on her mom's lies get acquitted again. She's like, in her early teens at this point in time. In her book, she speaks of feeling deep shame for the incident, particularly the damage it may have done to those girls. She claims it opened her eyes to the Kind of systemic bias that black people face. And I have no reason to disbelieve her. In her autobiography, she expresses pretty honest guilt and sorrow over this. And given that she is an 8th grader when this happens, I hope we can agree none of this is her fault.

[Samantha McVeigh]

So they found the right girls. They didn't just pick random black girls that they were like, yeah, this suits. That's surprising.

[Robert Evans]

She describes it as them finding the girls, but I don't actually know that that's the case. Again, her memory is not going to be perfect of anything happening.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Right.

[Robert Evans]

Anyway, that's Susan's background. This is the woman who becomes Susan Alamo.

[Samantha McVeigh]

What a delight.

[Robert Evans]

And she's not going to be our primary character. So the fact that, again, she's going to be kind of running the cult for its early years, but she'll be out of the picture after a while. And I just need to prep you with her story because Tony's is so much worse. And this gets us. And part of why we're doing this is because I have a lot more detail on her early life and young adulthood than I do the early life of Bernie Hoffman, who becomes the future Tony Alamo. He's about, and this is interesting as a male cult leader who has a lot of sex crimes later. He's about 10 years younger than Susan. So, hey, there you go. You know, he's not going to be consistent about that sort of thing the rest of his life. But in this case, Susan is in more of a position to take advantage of him than he is of her. Right? Sure, sure. I think she's also just much smarter and savvier. Bernie also moves to Los Angeles as a young adult in his late teens with a dream of striking it famous. He seems to have always wanted a career in entertainment. He was a good dancer and became an instructor for Rudolph Valentino as a young man. While still a teenager, he moves to LA to break into the music industry. He records several songs at the height of the British invasion in like 63, 64, where he's like trying to sing like a British person, but he doesn't really know how to. It's an odd set of choices that he's making. Interesting. Yeah, but he is working with some actual people. Like one of the songs he records, little Yankee Girl, had been written by Bobby Jameson, who is a prominent songwriter for hire in the area, and was produced by Kim Fowley, who co wrote and produced songs for Kiss, Kris Kristofferson, Alice Cooper and others. So he is working with Some people who are real music industry folks. In conversations at parties and bars. Bernie, who by this point had started going by the name Tony Alamo, would claim to have ushered the Beatles into fame and worked with the Rolling Stones as well as Sonny and Cher. The only musician that we can prove that he promoted was Pete Best, a former member of the Beatles. But he promotes Best after Best leaves the band. And primarily what he seems to be doing is like conning people who wanna be musicians out of their money by showing them this letter from Pete Best and being like, see, I helped get the Beatles started. Even though the letter he's got from Best is after Best left the Beatles.

[Samantha McVeigh]

So he's trying to let everybody know I have connections. I did this. I can do this for you.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. You know the guy who fumbled the bag bigger than anyone has ever fumbled a bag? I worked with that guy.

[Samantha McVeigh]

The person you have to Google. Cause you're not sure why, you've heard of him, but then you figure it out.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, a guy who fucked up being in the Beatles. Sorry, Pete. So Tony's usual spiel involved bragging about traveling on the road with the Beatles and the Stones. Here's an excerpt from one such recitation of his speech. The bodyguard would open the door, throw down a big velvet pillow, and we would step into the velvet pillow. The barber would comb our hair, the nurse would take our pulse. One of the fellows would spray us with cologne. Another strew flowers in our path. And the cops would stand at attention and like, there'd be some video of this. If anything like this ever happened to you, Tony, Like, I know people were crazy for the video, the Beatles, but this wasn't how they did it.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I, Like, I can't imagine. Because just the thought of that, I was like, I would have immediately trip. Like, that does not sound like a safe pillow.

[Robert Evans]

Why are they taking your pulse?

[Samantha McVeigh]

Like, what is wrong with you?

[Robert Evans]

What is the pulse thing? I don't get it.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I don't get this.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. So this was not particularly believable to anyone with real experience in the music industry. But those people aren't Tony Target. He is trying to get the attention of dumb, inexperienced young wannabes who have some cash in their pocket and who he can convince, like, oh, hey, you got. Like, if you've got a couple of grand, that's all it's gonna take for me to get this demo tape into the hands of a DJ who's gonna put it on the air or something like that. Right? Like, these are. These are the kind of cons that he is carrying out. Right? And he makes a living doing this. Not a good one. He is not super successful. He is just kind of on the edge of not starving to death all the time as a result of his income from this. Now, later in life he would claim that this year, 1964, during a business meeting, God struck him deaf and gave him an order. Start preaching the gospel or he'd be killed then and there. This is what he's going to claim later. It's absolutely not what happens. And we know that because Susan's daughter Chris is there when Tony meets her mother for the first time. And the account she gives is a lot more believable. One day In, I think, 1966, the timeline's a little fluid. Toni steps into a bar that she and her mom are drinking at right now. At this point, Chris is kind of making some money as a recording artist. She's not huge, but she's doing like backup vocals and stuff. So she understands a little bit about the industry and she knows people in the industry and she's been warned about Tony. And that should tell you something. In 1966, if you're a 16 year old girl in the music industry, people warn you about Tony Alamo. And like, you have to be really bad to cross that line in 1966, right?

[Samantha McVeigh]

Yeah, I mean, I guess if you know enough people or the right people, you'll get good information.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. And she does. She gets warned about this guy. And so she warns her mom. Cause he starts walking up to their table and she's like, I've heard about this guy. Do not talk to him, He's a fucking creep. But Tony walks right up to their table. And my read on what happened is that weirdly enough, Tony and Susan are kind of made for each other. They're both con artists. I think initially they both identify each other as a good mark. Right. Because Chris claims they immediately both start lying to each other. Right. Trying to get money out of the other. You know, Tony starts talking about the stars that he was promoting. And Susan is like, I'm an actress. You know, my daughter's a singer. We've got connections. When she says that, Tony's like, oh, I can make your daughter a star. And Chris would later recall, I'm watching them and it's like a tennis match of horse crap. They both think the other's got money. He gets to go up to go to the bathroom. And I turned to my mother and I said, listen to me, this guy is an absolute bum. He's living with that little pregnant girl. She puts her finger in my face, which she often did, and said, you mind your fucking business. When he gets back, you wait a few minutes and politely excuse yourself from the table and don't come home tonight. So again, Mama had a plan. Mom of the year.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Mama had a plan. At least she told her to get out of the house, I guess. I mean, yeah, it could have gone really awry very quickly.

[Robert Evans]

So it's going to go awry. Not much longer than this, unfortunately, of course. But, yeah, I mean, you are right. Mama had a plan, right? Like, Tony is not going to wind up taking advantage of Susan. Like, she is going to wind up kind of looping him into her thing. So he comes back and he sits down at the table and Chris looks at him or. And sorry. And Susan looks at him and says, tony, I've got to ask you a question. Did you know that Jesus Christ is coming back to earth again? And Tony looks deep into her eyes and says, of course I know that, Susan, but how did you know? And she's like, let's go to my apartment to talk about it. Which is the, like, evangelical con man and con woman. Flirting is. I've never really heard that story before.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Oh, amazing.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Okay. We need to advertise that as the perfect pickup line for other Christians.

[Robert Evans]

Crime date. Yeah.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Come on.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Are you looking to, like, rob a bunch of MAGA people? Like, this is the dating site where you can find your person. Oh, man. So to make a.

[Samantha McVeigh]

How did you know?

[Robert Evans]

How did you know? They just. It's almost supernatural, right? They can feel the vibrations of each other. Like, oh, this is a man who, you know, is. There's just nothing inside of him but a desire to fleece people for their money. And that's all I've got inside me. It's beautiful. I love it when people find each.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Other, you know, it's better than a soul. Come on.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. No, a soul's just gonna weigh you down, right?

[Samantha McVeigh]

It's true.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. If you're just completely hollow inside, you float like a witch in the fucking 1600s or whenever. So to make a short story even shorter, the two hit it off and got married three separate times over the course of 48 hours. Now, why do they get married three times in two days?

[Samantha McVeigh]

That seems excessive.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it does. It does. They first go to Mexico where they get hitched, but then right when they're about to have sex, Susan's like, actually, I worry that Mexican marriage isn't Legal, and I'm not going to sleep with you until we're legally married. And Tony is apparently hard up enough that he drives them from Mexico to Vegas without sleeping and purchases two marriage licenses and pays for two different marriage.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Ceremonies just in case she backs out another one.

[Robert Evans]

I really, really.

[Samantha McVeigh]

This is the real one.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, this is for real.

[Samantha McVeigh]

For real.

[Robert Evans]

This is the real one. And eventually Susan's like, all right, I guess we're married enough. I think this might make him the only person I've ever read out about who is bigamously married to his one wife.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I was gonna ask, is that bigotry? But I didn't know for sure. How does that work?

[Robert Evans]

He is going to do lots of bigamy. He does so much bigamy in the future. But he kind of does start by getting bigamously married to a single woman.

[Samantha McVeigh]

He's a practice round.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, this is his practice round of bigamy. Yeah. Yeah. He's the chosen one of bigamy. He's the fucking Luke Skywalker of bigamy.

[Samantha McVeigh]

He's got to do it right, and he's got to practice it and get it through, and then, like, you know, it perfects everything.

[Robert Evans]

That's right. That's right. You can't just start, you know, and assume you're gonna be good at it, like, I don't know, surgery or something. Easy. So the two change their names to Tony and Susan delamo, and they start preaching the word. Now, in the beginning, this is just an iteration of Susan's extant con work at churches, right? The new couple would trawl the streets of Los Angeles for starving hippie kids, generally. Kids who were, like, coming down from bad trips or who were living on the street because they had too many bad trips. And since these kids were broke, preaching to them wasn't. There's no, like, money from these kids, right? So they. They get a bunch of followers, but those followers are just kind of eating them out of house and home. So the Alamos tell them, hey, go get jobs and mail us the money. We've got to move to Las Vegas for unclear reasons. And so they do that. And Chris, Susan just kind of leaves her daughter behind in la, which is, I would say, maybe the best thing. Chris, at this point in time, keep your mom away from you.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Where she was. Okay, so she dropped her for the new one.

[Robert Evans]

Okay, yeah. Susan's not super committed to being a mother. So Susan and Tony are in Las Vegas. Chris eventually travels there because she misses her mom. And as soon as she shows up, she claims Tony Rapes her. Right. She would have been 15 or 16 at this point. Susan walks in as it's happening, calls her a whore, accuses her of trying to steal Tony and sends her back to Los Angeles. And then a couple of months later, Tony and Susan return to LA because they found another wannabe celebrity to promote. This guy's name was Rovon. He was a motorcycle riding opera singer. Yeah, very multi talented. Right. I don't think his career takes off, but there's enough there that Tony's able to get a lot of backer money. He's able to convince people, hey, this guy's gonna be huge. Give me some money to get his career started. And then he buys jewels, furs, leather jackets with that. But this business is not doing well. And so even though their first stab at becoming cult leaders hadn't really made them a lot of money, they return to that grift as soon as they get back to Los Angeles. So they start expanding their recruitment from just some down and out hippie kids, to prostitutes, to other homeless people, to failing actors, to musicians and stuff who are kind of on the margins and like government housing and the like. Some of their first marks are because they burst back into Susan's life and they take all of her friends and roommates and put them into a cult. Basically convert them by being like, hey, you'll get regular meals, which they provide via diving in dumpsters for expired food. So they get all of these kids to start working, you know, just kind of bullshit jobs and funneling that money, donating their salaries to an entity that the alamos Established in 1969, the Tony and Susan Alamo Foundation. So fascinating grift so far. You're just kind of. I mean, all they're ever doing is abusing poor people, right? Like that's the, that's the Alamo con. And particularly her daughter's boyfriend. Right.

[Samantha McVeigh]

This is interesting.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, it's pretty bleak. And a big part of what they're doing is they're finding poor Jewish kids who are living on the streets, some of whom who had converted to Christianity and others who they converted. Tony particularly was really good at converting these like down and out former hippie kids. And the more people they bring in, the more money starts to come in. Some of it's coming from members handing over salaries or like inheritances and savings accounts. But the real money comes in when Susan figures out what is their first really brilliant con. So then, like today, Southern California has a massive homelessness problem, right? And specifically the kind of people who are filling the streets are the kind of people that the Alamos make their business preaching to and converting. And then as now, affluent middle class and middle class people are disgusted by homelessness and eager to support anyone who promised to take these people off the street. So once they get followers and they're pulling these people off the street and they're putting them up in, like, rented spaces and stuff, they're warehousing them. Basically, they'll pile their followers into vans on the weekends and drive to mega churches in rich areas. And then Susan will line up with. They'll clean these hippie kids up, and Susan will line up with them and she'll start preaching the word and she'll go down the line and have them all give, like a version of like, I was on the street, you know, doing heroin or whatever, and then I got found by the Alama. Right? And then Susan would conclude by being like, hey, does this church support work like this? Right. Getting these indigent kids off the streets and back to God. Right. Well, if you want to see me continue to do this, give some money to the Susan and Tony Alamo Foundation. Right? And that's the grift. Right. We're getting these homeless kids off the street. And the actual money is coming in from churches where they don't have followers. Right. But they do have a lot of people who hate seeing homeless people. That's how they get their money.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Wow. I mean, little respect. They really did pull people off the streets.

[Robert Evans]

They are pulling people off the street. Off the streets.

[Samantha McVeigh]

They're not completely wrong.

[Robert Evans]

They are accurately describing, to an extent, what they're doing. They're not giving these kids a better life or a safer life, really.

[Samantha McVeigh]

But they're not on the streets.

[Robert Evans]

They're not on the streets. Yeah. Well, it's such a fascinating through line of. Okay, I can see why that works. Right. Because you're able to say, hey, you know what are kind of like conservative Christians more scared about than anything in the early 70s, the hippie movement. Right. 69 was not that long ago. We're cleaning up after the hippie movement. Right. Like that drugs.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Hippie movement.

[Robert Evans]

Exactly.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Anybody of different colors or a different race.

[Robert Evans]

Right. And we're taking these people and putting them where you don't have to see them. Right. Perfect. Yeah. And they start making a lot of money doing this. Soon the Alamos have enough cash to make the dream that every cult leader has real buying land and starting a compound. In 1971, they purchase acreage in Saugus, California, and an old restaurant that they convert to a church. Their followers are made to live in chicken coops. Married couples get to live in shacks. And once it was known that the Alamos are doing the good work of cleaning up the shrapnel of the hippie movement off the streets, more money and followers start to flow in. This is part of a broader trend in evangelicalism as counter swing to the summer of Love. In this sort of leftward tilt of culture at the end of the 60s, I think we're all familiar with the way in which this kind of stuff kind of yins and yangs out, right? Like you have your big sort of leftward shift and then this huge reactionary shift. Whoa. The Alamo's grift hits right at the peak of that reactionary shift.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Perfect timing.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, the worst people always have pretty good timing. Speaking of Samantha, let's listen to the incredible timing of some of our advertisers.

[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

Beautiful skin at every age.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Learn [e-mail] Clorox Scentiva smells like lavender.

[Robert Evans]

Cleans like Clorox.

[Samantha McVeigh]

And feels like. All right, that could go on for a while. Experience the long lasting freshness of Clorox Scentiva. Now available in Clorox Scentiva Lavender scented bleach. Use as directed. Living a healthy life looks different for everyone.

[Robert Evans]

And Symbiotica is here to support your journey.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Their products are free from seed oils.

[Robert Evans]

Preservatives, toxins and artificial additives designed to complement your lifestyle.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Plus, their liposomal vitamin C packets use.

[Robert Evans]

Cutting edge technology for better absorption and results. Go to symbiotica.com and use code iheart at checkout for 20% off + free shipping. That's symbiotica.com and use Code iheart at checkout for 20% Off + free shipping.

[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

Chumba Casino has been delivering thrills for over a decade. So claim your free welcome bonus now and live the chumba life.

[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

VGW Group void. We're prohibited by law. 21/ terms and conditions apply. We're back. Oh, man. Good stuff. So in her book, Betty Shriver cites an article, the Great Guru Hunt, by columnist Art Kunkin, who documented at the time this kind of reactionary shift occurring and the space that it was making for cult leaders like the Alamos, there is very definitely something in the air. And it is not, as I originally thought last year, just the cycle of individualism and personal mystical search that could have been expected to fill the vacuum left by the failures of mass political activism in the 1960s. A certain cat is being let out of the bag accidentally or by design, which will either result in the creation of many socially motivated individuals of great personal energy who can stop mankind from destroying itself, or the widespread dispersal of these same energies utilized by egoistic persons who will accelerate the crises. Which one of those would you say? We got?

[Samantha McVeigh]

All.

[Robert Evans]

I mean, I find that's so familiar to what we saw happened after 2020. Right.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

You have all of these energies that get mobilized and then dispersed into these different sort of like cultic movements and disinformation streams that the Internet and social media has really enabled. Yeah. By egoistic persons who accelerate the crises that the mobilization had existed initially to. Yeah.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Then they're the only ones profiting off of anything.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, yes. Like, we can. Oh, boy. I mean, it's sad.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I don't like it.

[Robert Evans]

I go back and forth between, like. I guess it's comforting that this happened back then, too. Like, is it?

[Samantha McVeigh]

Or is it just frustrating that this cyclical thing has to continue to happen and we just have to never learn? Like, we never fucking learn are the people that have learned really well. And so they bring it back so they can make that profit. I'm gonna throw this computer. Keep going.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that that's. Yeah. Fair. As the money flowed in, the Alamos constructed a new facility, Music Square Church in Hollywood, and started filling it with street kids. Susan handled much of the foundation's outward facing communications to what we might call normies, the big donors and leaders of other churches. While Tony handled converting new followers and took point on actually creating a belief system for their teeming legions to follow. From a book by Greta P. Allendorf, the Alamo ministry preached a wide range of ideas. End times, paranoia, UFOs as divine messengers and Vatican conspiracy theories. Tony hated the Catholic Church and blamed them for everything bad that had ever happened, including Nazism. One Alamo tract entitled the Pope's Secrets read, the Vatican is posing as Snow White, but the Bible says that she is a prostitute. And I mean, he's not 100% wrong about the Catholic Church being particularly fucked up in this period of time, given what we're going to find out in the late 90s and early 2000s. But it's also not more responsible for that kind of thing than his own church is going to be. Right? Like Tony's also a prostitute of people's souls. He's a pimp of people's souls, I should say. That's how he makes his money, right? So in her book, Betty does a pretty good job of explaining how the conversion process worked for new inductees after they were picked up, generally hungry on the streets of Hollywood, they'd be promised a meal and taken by bus to Saugus. Quote from the moment Brenda and Daniel arrived at the corner of Hollywood and Highland to catch a bus, the brothers and sisters separated them. A woman known as Sister Cynthia ushered Brenda to a seat. For the next 45 minutes, Cynthia fervently explained that all the signs of the end times written in the Bible were currently happening. She pointed out the vapors of smoke covering Los Angeles. She mentioned the earthquakes and wars. Cynthia told her that God was looking for dedicated laborers to preach and save souls before Jesus returns. The bus pulled off on Sierra highway in Saugus, the heart of Canyon country. Hundreds of people were milling about, greeting the buses and leading people about the grounds. Brenda, Daniel, and the others were ushered into a large hall where they sat on benches and waited expectantly. The room was packed with people, standing room only. Brenda was a bit uneasy, but Cynthia assured her that she was in for a treat. A man who called himself Brother Michael stepped up to the podium and gave a hearty welcome to the gathering. You're as welcome as the flowers of May in the noonday sun. Praise the Lord. Amen. He continued with a few rules that included no talking during services and a ban on literature from other places. Brothers walked through the rows to collect foreign forbidden materials. Brothers and sisters, called overseals, Sears, monitored the physical needs and functions of the community, such as water supply, electricity usage, and even the distribution of toilet paper, often pages torn from telephone books. They had to seek permission from Tony and Susan for every aspect of their existence. One evening after dinner, Sister Cynthia sharply reprimanded Brenda for Overstepping the authority of an overseer. When she turned on the lights in a building, Brenda said, but I thought I should turn on the light since I was the first to arrive. Cynthia retorted, there you go thinking again. Oh, fuck. That's some good classic cult banter. Yeah.

[Samantha McVeigh]

You know, this is the thing about cults, I think, and this is kind of one of the big problems, especially a cult like this is, you know, you want to sit back and say, man, they were crazy, but those rules apply for so many of the churches. Like, literally the type that I grew up in, they wouldn't say necessarily, you couldn't turn on the lights. But the idea don't bring in literature, don't learn things on your own, was very much like, place and told us, like, things like seminary and being any of those places were against God and not having faith. So, like, unfortunately, that because this cult is so crazy, it makes the other things look normal and it's not.

[Robert Evans]

Yep.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I'm okay, though.

[Robert Evans]

No, yeah, you sound very okay with all this.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I'm okay, though, so.

[Robert Evans]

Physical punishments were common, as is sexual violence from Tony, who really seems to prefer young teenagers to adult women, including his wife. What keeps people from leaving, you're not going to be surprised to hear this is a fear of hell, which is inculcated daily from sermons by the Alamos and their followers. Every day, they would tell new inductees and their old followers stories about people who had joined the church, left, and immediately died. Right. If you leave the church, basically, you are instantly going to be dead, right? And then you go to hell. You go straight to hell, Right. You know, it's not new, but it serves right. You know, this is a functional, functional cult thing to be doing.

[Samantha McVeigh]

This method is proven. It's sound. Let's keep going with it.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Why fuck with it?

[Robert Evans]

It's like driving a Volvo, you know, why fuck with what works occasionally? So the only reason normal believers would need to leave the property was to work. And more and more of them worked for businesses owned and operated by the Alamos. They also had to travel to churches and civic centers to deliver what the Alamos called popcorn testimony. These are the little speeches by former hippies and homeless people that opened up donor pocketbooks, right? You know, where they're saying, like, hey, if I hadn't. If the Alamos hadn't found me, I'd be dead or in jail or in a mental institution, you know, these are the popcorn speeches. By the mid-1970s, the Alamos are wealthy. They're outwardly respectable. They're operating several successful businesses that were keeping, according, you know, in the eyes of a lot of Angelenos, the riff raff off the streets and you know, where they belonged. Locked up somewhere away from the people with expensive houses. Susan and Tony then got to live the life of high rolling multimillionaires. On one famous occasion, Susan showed up for an interview wearing a lynx jacket and a floor length dress, telling the interviewer, God wants his children to go first class and I guess to have links fur jackets.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I mean, you gotta show off when you're blessed.

[Robert Evans]

That's right.

[Samantha McVeigh]

You worth blessed.

[Robert Evans]

That's right. If you don't do that, people might not really believe that God has blessed you and that endangers their souls.

[Samantha McVeigh]

What's the point if you're not gonna be blessed?

[Robert Evans]

I'm glad you understand it. Right. You're really doing this for their souls, right?

[Samantha McVeigh]

I mean, I'm not gonna show you my jacket right now, I'm just saying.

[Robert Evans]

No, no, but you have a lot of lynx. You're heavy into lynxes, which. Yeah, exactly. That's all I wear is Lynxes. This is 100% Lynx hoodie.

[Samantha McVeigh]

It's really hot though.

[Robert Evans]

It's incredibly warm. Yes. Not at all comfortable, especially when I've got the heat on. So in 1975 we finally get some good news, which is that Susan gets diagnosed with cancer. Now, as a little girl, she had claimed to have been struck. Sometimes she would claim that she caught tuberculosis from her father. Right. And that she had been healed by God after praying. And as a result, when she gets sick, she prescribes herself. And as well as prescribing Tony and most of their followers that they're going to pitch up stakes and move back to Arkansas where they'll be healed. Right. They still keep the Saugus compound open. They still have their followers there, like recruiting people off the streets of LA and raising money, working some businesses, but kind of the core of their best followers. And they take most of their money to a place called Dyer, Arkansas, which is where she'd grown up. And they buy a compound. So this is a little town, population less than 500, and they make, you know, people notice when they suddenly drive in because they only have black Cadillacs. That's the only car his followers drive. So he has like suddenly this huge fleet of new black Cadillacs and dozens of converted hippies move into this very small town. Their combat is centered around the home that had been Susan's home when she was a little girl. They Expanded it and updated it with all of the least classy adorn their new riches could buy. Greta Allendorf writes, the couple was fond of red carpeting, chandeliers, and velvet wall coverings and installed them in every space they occupied. Just the most hideous place you could imagine.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I needed to be shaggy carpeting.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah. Oh, my God.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I need some, like, bare skin rugs.

[Robert Evans]

That's right.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I'm gonna need all of those. And then the golden candles.

[Robert Evans]

Yes, golden candles. Every wall is pure velvet. Like, I mean, the instant you drop a cigarette in this place, it goes up, up, right? Just. Just beautiful stuff. So at this time, they also begin construction on a sprawling Victorian home on the mountain, complete with dormitories for their followers and a heart shaped pool for Susan. A grand church hall is constructed for their evangelical TV show, where Tony sang love songs for Susan, such as my personal favorite, I love you so much it hurts me. Now, one of the things that's interesting is that a lot less of his songs than you'd expect, given who he is, are actual religious songs. Again, this is just him talking about how much he loves his wife, his horrible, evil wife. But I do feel like I'm legally bound to show you a video of the Alamos playing this song. Now, this should tell you something about the level of. Because I'm talking about these people. They are a cult. They're very abusive. That's not how they're treated. They are treated as like mega church pastors who are widely beloved. The clip that I'm about to play is from a performance that they make at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, which is a very real, very major venue for country western musicians. Right. This is not like a fringe thing. If you're at the Grand Ole Opry, like, you have a degree of legitimacy within the music, within at least, like the country western chunks of the music industry at the time.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Or did they just pay a lot of money?

[Robert Evans]

I mean, I think that may be what they did, but in terms of people looking out from the outside in, you just see, like, well, they're on the Grand Ole Opry, so they must be legit, right?

[Samantha McVeigh]

Legitimate.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Next to Dolly Parton right there.

[Robert Evans]

Well, Dolly Parton will show up in this story, unfortunately. Oh, yeah. It's not all that bad in terms of her involvement, but she's not completely uninvolved with the Alamos either. Great stuff. So I'm going to.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Oh.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah. Look at them.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Why do they look beautiful? They're an off brand, like Johnny Cash and The pork.

[Robert Evans]

He is so Tony Alamo. If you're not able to look at the video of this, I would recommend checking some of them out on YouTube. They're all over YouTube. Tony looks like, like, off brand Johnny Cash. If he, like, if he put on about 40 pounds of just water weight and a wig.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Shipped from Temu.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah, shipped from Teemu. He's. Because he got a little melted in the shipping container. And then. I don't know. Like, honestly, Susan and I, like, she. She's wearing like a fucking opalescent white out, like pure white, but it's like a shiny opalescent white suit.

[Samantha McVeigh]

So uncomfortable.

[Robert Evans]

It looks horribly uncomfortable. She is dying of cancer at this point, but legitimately, yeah, she's sick by this point. It's gonna take her a while to actually fucking die. Like years. But she is sick at this point. Her head, the shape of it. She looks kind of like one of those gray aliens wearing a skin suit. Like, that's how Susan Alamo looks, except for, like, a lot of makeup, too. Yeah.

[Samantha McVeigh]

What is that one movie? I already forgot that has the aliens and obviously the White House is involved. Like, what is that one?

[Robert Evans]

Shit.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Glenn Close is in it and I think he. Like, do you know I'm gonna get corrected later.

[Robert Evans]

Let's look this up real quick.

[Samantha McVeigh]

All right. I could be wrong. There's those aliens. That's so bad. Like, digitally.

[Robert Evans]

I don't know. That doesn't sound familiar to me at all. Wait, they're thinking of Mars attacks. Yes. Yes. She does look like she's. She's got. She's got, like, if those aliens were wearing like a rubber human suit, right?

[Samantha McVeigh]

Like, that's what it looks like. Yeah.

[Robert Evans]

It's fascinating. What I want to get across is that they really don't look like regular people, like real people. Like, they both look like almost CGI humans. Yes.

[Samantha McVeigh]

And she scares me.

[Robert Evans]

They are both frightening, I would say, but her particularly. Yeah, yeah.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Like, she. I see her beating people. I see that.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, yeah. Not hard.

[Samantha McVeigh]

She is.

[Robert Evans]

So now that we've said that, let's listen to them play beautiful music together.

[Samantha McVeigh]

To be dedicated to message in songs. And It's Tony Alamo, J.D. sumner and the Stamps Quartet. And we're going to try to preview as much of this album as we possibly can. So if you'll just stay right here with us. And Now, Tony Alamo, J.D. sumner, the stamps Quartet. I love you so much it hurts me. She's definitely expiring. This song is dedicated to my wife, Susan.

[Robert Evans]

Susan.

[Samantha McVeigh]

It's a message and song that's so very dear to my heart. Because I lived every word of this song during a very long illness of my Susan. This is so painful.

[Robert Evans]

During those long dark years, I cried.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Out to God every day of my.

[Robert Evans]

Life to let my sweetheart live. God in his divine mercy heard my cries and he answered my prayers.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I love you so much it hurts me.

[Robert Evans]

Okay, I think we're good.

[Samantha McVeigh]

It went away.

[Robert Evans]

Oh, I stopped it. We didn't need it. We didn't need to keep going. I just wanted you to hear his singing voice.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Really bad. Like SNL skit from the 70s.

[Robert Evans]

It feels like a parody of like Josh, Johnny Cash is a fucking scam preacher. Yes. His outfit is amazing. He's standing alone on this.

[Samantha McVeigh]

The background.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. It's so good.

[Samantha McVeigh]

They're going to haunt me.

[Robert Evans]

Yeah. It's a haunting vibe. Right.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I need someone to come sage my house.

[Robert Evans]

Cause I don't in my brain. It's a deeply evil vibe. Yes. Yeah. I'm so glad the cancer came back, which it does. Susan dies in 1982 from the same cancer that had inspired them move back to Arkansas. Now, Sam, this creates real issues for Tony because by this point he and Susan, they had spent seven years or so, you know, since she got sick, preaching that she and he couldn't die. Right. Susan had described herself. Cause they have a TV station by this point. She would call herself the Lamb of God and would say that she and Tony were both had to be alive on earth to act as witnesses for the end times. Right. So the fact that she is dead now creates a real pickle for Tony Alamo and the cult. One that they're gonna have to resolve in part two. You got any ideas about how they resolve it?

[Samantha McVeigh]

I'm thinking like Weekend at Bernie's level.

[Robert Evans]

Oh my God. Yes. You got it. You saw where this is heading? Oh, yes, yes indeed. Absolutely. Like an R rated Weekend at Bernie's. Unless weakened in Bernie's was rated R.

[Samantha McVeigh]

I was gonna say I think it was in the 80s then.

[Robert Evans]

Like an X rated Weekend at Bernie's. Samantha, before we record that, you want to throw out your pluggables here because we're done with part one.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Yeah. Again, you can find me on stuff mom never told you'd. With my co host Annie, we talk about a lot of intersectional stuff. So that means really sad stuff right now. Until like you know, we're actually on the list and people come at us. But anyway, that's a podcast that I'm on. And then you can find me on Bluesky McVeigh, Sam. And that's about it.

[Robert Evans]

Yep, yep. Check out Sam, find her on the blue sky, listen to her podcast and, you know, listen to this podcast that you just listened to. Go back in time and listen to it a second time so that we. We start trending in the other time streams, you know? Right.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Or also listen to that song and sing to your love.

[Robert Evans]

You know what? Put that song on and listen to nothing else else for the next, like 48 hours. Right?

[Samantha McVeigh]

You'll be fine.

[Robert Evans]

You're gonna be great. You're gonna do good. You're not gonna lose your mind. Behind the Basterds is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, Visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or.

[Samantha McVeigh]

Wherever you get your podcasts.

[Robert Evans]

Behind the Basterds is Now available on YouTube. New episodes episodes every Wednesday and Friday. Subscribe to our channel, YouTube.com behindthebastards.

[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

Whoa. I won again.

[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Samantha McVeigh]

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[Robert Evans]

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