← Gardens of Evil: Inside the Zion Society Cult
Gardens of Evil: Inside the Zion Society Cult
CLOSER LOOK, E1: Get Over It, Kids are Resilient
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- [00:01]
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Carrie
Another pina colada.
- [00:22]
Dawn
Yes, please.
- [00:23]
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- [00:27]
Dr. Janya Lallick
Fantastic.
- [00:27]
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- [00:29]
Amber
You're hired.
- [00:30]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
And you're hired.
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- [00:42]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
Shopify.com setup People love to say, get over it. Kids are resilient. And look, kids can be resilient. They can grow up, get degrees, build careers, raise families and look fine from the outside. But resilience isn't proof that harm wasn't created. Resilience is proof that they adapted and survived.
- [01:07]
Shelly
If you gained three pounds, then you were damned to hell. And also if you could maintain your weight, then you knew you were getting into heaven. But in order for us to maintain our weight, they would force us to weigh in every day. And Carla or someone else would look at our number and then write it down on a chart which is right next to everyone else's weight so we were directly compared to each other. And it was all about our worthiness to get into heaven.
- [01:34]
Carrie
The more you're over £100, the worse you are.
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Mike King (Host/Narrator)
Well, God can't reach you through layers
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Shelly
of fat because that's your like, kind
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Mike King (Host/Narrator)
of your gluttony and lack of willpower,
- [01:47]
Carrie
you know, fighting him.
- [01:50]
Shelly
Yeah, there was a time that I think I didn't eat for 10 days to make way in. That was one of the most psychologically traumatizing pieces. Was feeling like my value was related to the number on that scale with all of our names and numbers and Arvind looking at it and analyzing it to see what we were doing. It was his idea and a direct correlation to our spiritual level and whether or not we're going to get into heaven. Arvin had a strong belief that the spirit couldn't get in if we were fat, that it would literally bounce off of us. Even if it was just a pound or two that we'd gain. The guilt would start. Arvin had a belief that the spirit couldn't penetrate us, couldn't get in if we were just a few pounds Overweight. It was horrifying.
- [02:43]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
Today we're talking about the long term impact of child sexual abuse, coercive control, being raised in a closed society. I'm Mike King and this is Gardens of Evil inside the Zion Society. A closer look inside the garden. Get over it. Kids are resilient. Now, before we go any further, I want to just give a quick content note here. This episode involves child sexual abuse, coercive control, and cult dynamics. In my opinion, when people say kids are resilient, they're either being incredibly judgmental or they are compassionately expressing hope. I think we truly want to believe that a child can survive something horrible and still have a good life. Some do. Some continue to struggle. Most find a way to cope with the roller coaster of emotions that they experience throughout their life. But here's where we have to stop using the word resilient as a way to minimize the harm that many survivors, if not all survivors, have experienced. My experience investigating closed societies or high control groups is that survivors, especially kids, don't just bounce back, they adapt. And many times that adaptation includes forms of compartmentalizing and disassociating the trauma, often through secrecy and learned compliance. Those survival skills can look like strength, but it might include interpersonal disruptions in their relationships, parenting, self trust. And I want to say up front that I'm not a mental health professional. My expertise is in studying criminal behavior, investigating these kinds of crimes, and looking at the corollary effect on survivor behavior. It's based on 40 plus years of studying these kinds of cases. Child sexual abuse is not just a bad event. It's an experience that can rewrite how a child's brain and body interpret safety, the world around them. Coercive control is not just somebody being strict. It's a pattern of domination through the use of fear, shame, isolation, and constant monitoring. That pressure can shrink a person's choices until compliance feels like the only safe option. And cult involvement, especially for children, adds another layer. The environment itself becomes the control system. It's not one person, but the rules, the secrecy, the punishment, and in religious cults, the fear of offending God. Now, in coercive control settings where faith isn't the control nexus, it might be something being used to force compliance, like keeping a family member from being hurt or keeping someone from hurting your favorite pet. In social circles, it could be exposure of images, mean comments, or inflammatory statements that result in compliance. So instead of us asking the question, why didn't they just tell someone? The better question might be, how are they trained? Not to tell. Because in groups like the Zion Society, secrecy wasn't casual. It was trained, and it was learned. And let me show you what I mean. Back in 2020, when I started talking with the original group of survivors, the memories didn't come back in a neat timeline. They came back in flashes. Andrea would say something, and then suddenly Anessa would remember the whole scene, the rules, the feelings in her body. And what kept surfacing wasn't the obvious crimes. It was the daily control, the kind of control that trains a kid to believe their body's a report card. And that approval is something you earn, and if you earn it, you just might make it back to heaven.
- [06:57]
Shelly
I was just gonna say that was one of the. In my memory and experience, one of the most psychologically traumatizing things that happened to me there, besides just always gonna
- [07:06]
Carrie
go to hell, was.
- [07:08]
Shelly
Was feeling like my value was directly related to the number on that scale. And it was extremely traumatizing, and I was terrible.
- [07:15]
Carrie
It was.
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Shelly
That was in charge of weighing us in and writing the number on a chart, all of our names and the number. And Arvin would look at it with her, and they would, like, analyze it and see how we were doing. It was a direct correlation to our spiritual level, was what our weight was. If we were going to get fat or gain a pound or two, then we were not with the spirit. The spirit couldn't get through if you were overweight.
- [07:36]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
When you hear these kinds of things, I hope you're beginning to understand what was happening to the children in the Zion society who were only aged 6 to 15 years old. And what you're hearing isn't discipline from a caring parent. What you're hearing about is children being groomed to accept constant monitoring, shame, and performance as their normal course of life.
- [08:00]
Shelly
I just seem to remember Arvin having a meeting where he drew, like, a big Michelin man on a big construction piece of paper and, like, arrows and, like, he was trying to get in our head that the spirit of God will literally bounce off of us if we were fat. Tons of starving and binging and laxatives, and everybody took enemas. Horrible diets and, like, just endless.
- [08:23]
Amber
I felt like the enemas were just more child abuse.
- [08:27]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
This explains why the children, after years of coercive control, adopted the religious language and the routines of the abuse they were involved in. The adult predators in the group were taking something sacred, and they were using it as a weapon. And after months and years of coercive control, the children were taught to be the Predators themselves. And as these brave women and some men gained confidence in sharing their memories, the conversation shifted and they started remembering the small rules that really weren't small at all. The issue of being weighed every day and mocked or threatened when they gained a pound was a common thread. But those same kinds of threats also included looking perfect, having their hair equally perfect, just in case the self proclaimed prophet decided to choose them for his next sexual encounter. Remember, these children who are being forced to have these relationships with adults were between 6 and 16 years old.
- [09:33]
Amber
Yeah. And I would do your hair every morning, which was like, you know, you're a little girl. I would have to curl your hair to make it look so perfect.
- [09:42]
Dawn
I remember getting my hair cold. It's funny because, like, now I was talking to Ellie's eyes, like, I don't really remember Amber.
- [09:47]
Amber
Why don't.
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Dawn
And then I had this memory of hearing your name for the first time. And it was the first time I'd ever heard the name Amber. And I thought it was so strange that a color would be somebody's name.
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Amber
Well, I remember, I remember getting my
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Dawn
hair curled all the time.
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Amber
And I also was the one that was told to take you through the swol book for the sexual way of life. I was supposed to. I sat down and it was my job, like, to read through this book with you and try to, like, point out examples while Sherry stood by and guided me on, make sure that I was, you know, keeping the spirit while doing it. So it was a real trigger for me. When I heard that you were going to be on this call, I was like, that was like my worst nightmare coming to confront me, you know, because I just felt so horrible about it and had nightmares about it for years. Just because you were just like. I was a child too, but I was an older. I was older than you were. And you know, I was a preteen and teen. And it just is like I've always wondered like, what had happened to you. And, you know, you've been in my heart for so many years.
- [10:57]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
And dawn adds a detail here that matters for context. She wasn't even living with her parents inside the group. She was six years old and had already been transferred into the children's dormitory where her cult indoctrination intensified. Her parents lived about eight doors away, and yet she would go for months without ever seeing them.
- [11:21]
Dawn
But I was living like with. I was living down in the group, not with my parents.
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Amber
Correct.
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Dawn
So I was, at least I was between. I was probably 6 or 7.
- [11:31]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
And then dawn Says something that hits really hard because it's the kind of memory that tells you how deep the control was in every corner of her life.
- [11:41]
Amber
And I've never forgot, like, those mornings when. Because you were just so fun and so full of life. When I burned you once with the curling iron. And I remember that, too. And you were so happy.
- [11:50]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
I remember that.
- [11:53]
Dawn
My God, I do remember that.
- [11:56]
Amber
And you were so mad about it, and I just. Yeah. So, I mean, I had to take you around, you know, we also had, like, a very tight schedule of, like, where there's not a moment in between to even think. We had to go to here. So to here, to here. Curl the hair, fix this, do this, do this, go canning, go gardening, go. You know? But just that I had been put in charge of taking you through that booklet and pointing out specifics has haunted me.
- [12:27]
Dawn
So let that go. But I also understand it's ridiculous because I'm the oldest in my family, and I have had, over the years so much guilt for not protecting my siblings from being hurt at the group, from being hurt during the raid and after, and being traumatized by that. Cause it was my job to protect them. So I understand that. And as an adult, I know that I shouldn't feel that. And I've worked through some of it, but I get that because you're like. You are a child, but you're like. But I was an older child. I should have done something. I should have. But you can't, because you're a kid. Like, you're a baby, too.
- [13:03]
Amber
And we were all, you know, just uneducated young, young girls who had been taken out of mainstream society very young and taught like that, you know, And I was always rebellious. Just wanted you to know that I remember you very clearly.
- [13:23]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
This is a story about the type of control that existed. The appearance, the rules, the fear of not being just real. Right. All wrapped into a child's daily routine. And with so many questions circling in my mind, I decided to lean on someone that I really respect a lot in this space. Dr. Janya Lallick. She's a cult survivor herself and an emeritus professor of sociology. She spent decades studying coercive control, undue influence, and what it does to people long after they escaped the cult. I'm going to play you a few short clips from a conversation that I had with Dr. Lalik and a survivor of the Zion Society cult, Andrea. So I want to start off with this first question about when people look at cults from the outside, they seem to always ask the same Question. How on earth could anyone possibly ever believe this? What are we missing?
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Narrator (Stolen Sister Segment)
23 year old Elizabeth Plunkett heads off for a night away with friends.
- [14:28]
Carrie
It's the summer in 1976, the best summer we've had for years.
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Narrator (Stolen Sister Segment)
Just hours later, she is kidnapped by two men in British Bay.
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Dr. Janya Lallick
These are two career criminals wanted for rape in Britain.
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Narrator (Stolen Sister Segment)
They are Ireland's first serial killers. While both men confess to Elizabeth's murder, no one is ever convicted. How could this happen?
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Carrie
We're being denied, denied any sort of justice.
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Narrator (Stolen Sister Segment)
Listen to Bad Women presents Stolen Sister. Wherever you get your podcasts,
- [14:55]
VRBoCare Representative
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- [15:26]
Dr. Janya Lallick
Well, I think there's a few things that's important to know. One is that two thirds of people who join cults are recruited by a friend, a family member or a co worker. So right there, it's harder to say no to someone, you know. Right. So if that person invites you to the first Bible study or the first yoga session or the first book group or whatever it might be, you're going to go because you're, you know, you want to be respectful to your friend. Once they get you to that first thing, then they zero in on you. Cult recruiters are very good at what they do and so they zero in on you. They do what we call love bombing, which is they make you feel very special, they invite you back. You know, they, they do whatever they can to get you to come back. And you feel kind of, you know, this is one of the principles of influence. There's this obligation feeling that, well, they've been so nice to you and they're asking you to come back. You think, well, I guess I should come back. They've been so nice to me, Right? So then you go back to the next thing and it grows from there. So that's, that's one factor to keep in mind. And then I think the other factor is that our society has become very complex and people are looking for a framework to make sense of the world. So whenever societies are in turmoil, cults do very well at recruiting. Right. And then on top of that, you know, I think all of us on some level are seekers. And, you know, people will say, oh, it's just seekers who join cults. Well, in a sense, we're all seekers. We all want to have a good life, we all want to have a purpose in our life, right? We're all social animals so that we want to be part of something and most of us want to be part of something that's bigger than ourselves, right? That's why so many people just join healthy religions. Right? You want to have that in your life. So it's not a negative that you're a seeker. What happens with cults is you have to come across a cult whose message resonates with you, right? It has to be something that speaks to you. So when you're in those moments when you're kind of looking for something, you know, I always say, for example, I never could have joined a meditation cult, I can't sit still that long. But a political cult that was going to change the world, oh boy, that was it for me, right? So the message has to resonate with you. And that's why those of us on the outside may look at someone who is worshiping some God awful fat guru who's like sitting on some chair and blowing smoke out of his ears and you're saying, what? You know, how can they, you know. But that didn't resonate with you.
- [18:04]
Shelly
Dr. Lalits just highlighted my mother essentially. I mean, she was a seeker due to her own childhood being traumatic and growing up trying to satisfy her own black hole. It was a slippery slope for her. And so she was a seeker. The message she was looking for was, you know, prepare for the last days. She was very drawn into the idea of polygamy. So actually the Zion Society was the second cult that she had been involved in. That's why I say I've been involved in them since I was about 4 or 5 and I didn't have a choice. Like I was already brainwashed when I was little. And so when basically the Zion Society folks got ahold of me to try to lure my sister and I in, I'd already thought that it seemed normal and that the love bombing, they made me feel super special and more special than my parents or anybody else in my own home it ever made me feel. And I as a 12 year old just like fell in love immediately. Like the love bombing works.
- [18:59]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
Something I learned over the course of my career. My mentality initially was that these are just, you know, dim witted people that are going in. But these cults are not recruiting dim witted people. They, they want people that are successful that have money, that have something to offer.
- [19:15]
Dr. Janya Lallick
Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, I say this all the time. And cults recruit the best and the brightest because they want you to run their businesses, they want you to bring in your contacts, they want your money. And all of they want, you know, all of that lends legitimacy to the group. They want you to do their pr whatever. Cults don't want lazy people, they don't want stupid people, they don't want sick people. The cult's not there to take care of you. You're there to take care of the cult leader and keep the cult growing and keep the cult functional.
- [19:47]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
I think this matters in the Zion Society case we're talking about because a lot of these families didn't walk into this thinking, hey, I'm going to go join a cult. They walked into relationships, into a group of like minded people, they walked into belonging. But once they got inside, the rules started to change. When we say cult leader, what are some of the personality and behavior patterns that show up again and again?
- [20:16]
Dr. Janya Lallick
Well, the leader is, you know, is obviously the person who comes up with the message, the idea that they are some special being with some special message, whether it's religious, political, you know, self help, transformational, you know, whatever. The leaders are narcissists, meaning that everything's about them. It's all about their ego. It's all about everybody serving them, depending on their own personal proclivities that will mark, you know, that will affect how, what the group is about. So whether primarily it's about sex, money, power. It's always about power because they're the ones who are in control. If it's about money, it might be a leader who wants millions. They're always very volatile individuals and very erratic in their behavior. Like you never know who's going to walk in the room. Is it going to be the nice, sweet cult leader? Is it going to be the angry, awful cult leader?
- [21:18]
Carrie
Right.
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Dr. Janya Lallick
So that keeps people on their toes, right? You're kind of always walking on eggshells, you know, you're just living in a constant state of anxiety because you don't know what to expect. Right? Is this the day you're going to get it or is this the day he's going to love you? Right. Or she. So they're not, they're not nice people, they're manipulators. They're very good at manipulating, they're very good at reading people. A lot of them just straight out con artists and started out maybe as a two bit con Artist and then figured out how to do this. The issue that gets people confused, I think, is the idea of charisma. People think that charisma is an attribute that an individual is born with. Like, oh, he's. He was charismatic. He's going to grow up to be charismatic, whatever. Charisma is actually a social relationship. Charisma is about how you respond to that person, right? So if you have a guy who's standing on a soapbox in the middle of the streets in London and he's preaching and he's saying he's speaking for God and nobody's listening to him, he's not charismatic. He doesn't have any followers, right? He's just, you know, some guy standing on a soapbox. So charisma is about how you respond to that person. That's why some people can be in the room with that guru who's blowing smoke out of his ears and think he's absolutely awesome. And other people can go, what the hell? He's, like, ugly. He looks. You know, what's that cigar in his mouth? Right? It's all about how you respond. But by you responding, you're giving that person power. They now have power over you. It's an imbalanced power relationship. And so it's on the charismatic person to keep that charisma alive. That's why they appear now and then and, you know, do magic tricks or do whatever it is they do, hold giant rallies with the thousands of people, get everybody revved up. They have to every now and then do that. But it's your obligation to be devoted to the person who you've granted this charisma to.
- [23:22]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
So let's shift a little and talk about why cult leaders and cult life control everything. Now, in the Zion society, control wasn't just spiritual rules. It was the food that they ate, their individual weight or their clothing, including the color of the clothes they could wear, the grooming and scheduling and where you stood, how you studied, when you gardened and when you slept, who you were allowed to talk to. And I guess the question I keep coming back to is, why do these cult leaders push control this far?
- [23:58]
Dr. Janya Lallick
Well, you know, they're control freaks. So the more they can control you, the more they know they have you at their beck and call. So they want to control you in whatever way they can. And you have to remember that in these groups, these are not democratic groups, and there are no checks and balances. There's no way to hold the leader accountable to anything they see. After time, they get Away with more and more and more. And the more they get away with, the more they try and the more extreme it becomes. And that's some of the dangers of the groups that have existed a long time or the groups that are completely sequestered from society because nobody's seeing what's going on.
- [24:45]
Shelly
We were completely controlled. There was. We didn't watch television. There was no kind of any kind of material outside, you know, Babylonian material. So every moment, every waking moment, someone knew where we were at. In fact, we had schedules on a piece of paper in half hour, if not even 15 minute increments. And a person older than us was in charge of us. So they would be know our schedule. We would do it together, they'd have a copy. And you couldn't just randomly wake up at nine and then, you know, sit on the porch with your morning coffee for an hour and just ponder life and look at, watch the birds. Like every 15 to 30 minutes, you had to be somewhere and doing something. And we didn't leave the area, like hardly ever. So it was basically just a, you know, the one block radius. And, you know, it was housework, personal grooming, yard work, sewing, sexual activities, you know, pretty much every day. Scripture study, more cleaning, more personal grooming. We had to bathe twice a day, which I ended up just despising. You know, we had to be prepared to have sex if we were going to be in bed with somebody.
- [26:00]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
And to fortify that simple principle of coercive control, you got to separate them from any source of support that they might already have or that they might lean upon like a parent. In the Zion Society, many of the children live just steps away from their parents and still may not see them for months at a time. Some reported even a year or more at a time. So my question becomes, why is separating children from their parents so common in cults?
- [26:31]
Shelly
Like I said earlier, we were essentially moving to the neighborhood before my parents even bought a house. And I have no idea how much time passed. I'm guessing a few weeks to a few months by the time they actually joined. And they literally lived four houses away from where I was living with Arvin and the women and the four houses. I mean, they just did a really good job of brainwashing my sister and I right away that those were no longer our parents. They weren't our guardians. They were just other members of the cult. So I didn't even. And I didn't have a strong bond anyway with my parents, I mean, for obvious reasons. And so I didn't feel that I should go home around the corner and check in with them.
- [27:06]
Dr. Janya Lallick
It's actually quite common in cults for children to be separated from their parents. I mean, I've seen that time and again. They're either raised collectively in some collective environment where maybe even in a lot of cases, it's even the older children who are taking care of the younger children, or they're literally given to different families. And that's the purpose of that, of course, is to break the familial bond.
- [27:37]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
So if you're a child in a cult and your attachment figure gets cut off, you don't stop attaching. You just attach upward to whoever has power. And it seems that this is how the Zion Society system sustained itself. The abused would eventually become abusers. But let's go a layer deeper. Why do victims sometimes cling to the leader, even when the leader is the source of all their injury?
- [28:06]
Dr. Janya Lallick
The only loyalty you can have is to the leader. You don't have loyalty to your parents. Parents don't have loyalty to their children. The loyalty only goes one way, and that's up to the leader. So by separating people, it just reinforces that part of the belief system.
- [28:24]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
And this could be exactly why the children didn't tell somebody about the abuse they were enduring. If their only safe place was inside the system, disclosure would feel like a self destructive bomb. When people hear that the cult ended, they thought that the problem ended. Heck, I thought that the problem had ended. But Dr. Laylik describes how leaving the cult doesn't change the person's identity and functioning overnight.
- [28:52]
Dr. Janya Lallick
If a person decides to leave a cult, I think it's. It's one of the hardest decisions they'll ever make because you're giving up your whole world and you're giving up your whole worldview. And it's like suddenly the rug is going to be ripped out from under you and nothing makes sense anymore. So it's absolutely terrifying. There's this funny feeling. I know for me, there was this funny feeling of like, freedom. Like, oh my God, I just been let out of prison. But at the same time, I was. I was afraid to cross the street. I mean, I was 41 years old.
- [29:24]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
So I guess in reality, I wasn't surprised when the survivors told me in 2020 that the counseling didn't happen. I wasn't surprised, but I was certainly angry. Without knowing, we, the law enforcement team, the child protective services team, the courts walked away from a serious car wreck while the injured were still bleeding inside. So here's my Last question. Who has the harder recovery road ahead of them? An adult who joins a cult as a convert or the child who's raised in a generational cult setting?
- [30:03]
Shelly
Definitely the convert, in my opinion, because at least they've had some sort of a life style that had to do with normal society. We would assume they know cultures, they watch a lot of television, they've talked to other types of people.
- [30:19]
Dr. Janya Lallick
Well, I, I agree with Andrea. I think it's much more difficult for children who were raised in a cult because they don't have, they haven't had a life before that. They can.
- [30:34]
Shelly
Yeah, they have.
- [30:35]
Dr. Janya Lallick
They have no reference, they have no idea if some, some cases, if they have other relatives out there or whatever. And so there's nothing to fall back on, you know, Whereas if you're, if you join a cult as an adult, you've presumably had some kind of life before then. But when your entire formative experience is, is in a cult, you've got to redo absolutely everything and you don't have, like, old friends you can go back to and things like that.
- [31:06]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
And this brings me back to the episode title, Kids Are Resilient. The reality is that a child raised under coercive control isn't just recovering from events, they're rebuilding their entire operating system. So when we hear the phrase get over it, Kids are resilient, remember what we've laid out here, because even after rescue, recovery could take years, sometimes decades, and in some cases a lifetime. And if every survivor talked about how hard relationships were after leaving, you're going to hear the impact of what this did for two other women who carry the scars of victimization from the Zion Society cult. They were each around 14 years old at the time of the raid. And in just the last couple of months, I've reunited with them after they agreed to come to the ribbon cutting of a brand new children's justice center in northern Utah. Carrie Shelley. I want to start by saying thank you, truly, thank you for trusting me with your voices and for trusting this audience of listeners from around the world. You know, it takes real courage to step back into a story like this, especially after 35 years. So I want to start by, by asking what changed in your life in the last year that made it possible for you to finally talk with me after so many years?
- [32:35]
Carrie
I don't think I've ever had
- [32:38]
Shelly (continued)
an
- [32:38]
Carrie
aversion to talking publicly about it. I mean, aside from it took me a couple of years after I left the group, there was a lot of tumultuous Stuff in that time, me figuring out like things out things that didn't make sense, things that, you know, starting to question things and. But once I, I realized that that group was wrong and it was abusive and controlling and manipulative. I've been talking about it ever since. I just talked about it to people who wanted to hear about it. And I didn't have any need, you know, I don't have any need to like tell the whole world about it. But I, I also just. I'm happy to talk about it and I want the story to be out there. And unfortunately, my family has kind of tried to, especially my mom has tried to suppress any information.
- [33:36]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
Carrie's answer stayed with me. She told me that she's been willing to talk for a very long time, but she felt pressure even within her own family to keep this thing buried. Then her sister found my book, an investigative memoir of the Zion Society cult. And it cracked something open. They decided to travel to the ribbon cutting of the new Children's Justice Center. And what I took from that was pretty simple. Control doesn't always end when the cult ends. Silence can keep going even when the people enforcing it believe they're protecting you, you know? When Shelly arrived at the ribbon cutting, she told me that she felt like that scared 15 year old all over again. I asked her to describe what it was like when she walked back into that group of people that she knew so many years ago.
- [34:31]
Shelly (continued)
I think it's first off, internally I am capable of handling it. For a long time in my life, I was in such a big depression. I couldn't even get out of bed. I spent a couple years just not even able to get out of my bed. After I realized my mom who she was, I. I really struggled. But I. Once I found that inner peace, I was able to function and take care of things. So when things come at me now I'm able to like support myself, you know. And although I was in complete shock while I was there, I felt like I reverted a little bit and I was a little bit scared. I felt like a scared little 15 year old girl. But I was capable of it, so. And I hadn't spoken to my stepmom, I hadn't spoken to her for a while. And she was, she was probably my biggest support. She really was there for me on a daily basis. I don't know. I couldn't have made it without her. Basically just put herself aside and took care of me. How do I tell her no? You know, so I couldn't. I said yes. If she'd be there, I'd be there.
- [35:39]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
Well, what moved me about Shelly and Carrie showing up that day is that there was no performance to it. There was no spotlight. It was just two survivors stepping back into a space that held a whole lot of memories. And when people carry trauma and still choose to show up quietly, without fanfare, it tells you something about their character. And it also speaks to something else that I heard over and again from the survivors of the Zion Society. Many of them worried their role as children in that system, their compliance, their survival behaviors, that it might have hurt other children. They wanted reconnection, but they didn't want to reopen wounds for someone else that had fought very hard just to survive.
- [36:31]
Carrie
You know, I think it's possible that bringing this up will re. Traumatize them in some way. I don't feel that way. I feel like it's been really cathartic for me to have this. I had wondered about you for a long time, but I literally thought you were dead. When I was 15, you seemed like you were, like, 50. I think you're only, like, 15 or 16 years older than I am.
- [36:59]
Shelly (continued)
You?
- [36:59]
Carrie
Yeah, I just kind of assumed. I thought about looking you up. I just assumed that you would be dead. For some reason, you. It's weird, the image I have of you in my mind from when I was 15. But you were so vilified at that time to me. Right. And so. And you fit the mold that I was told you would. And so I was told that you were the bad and evil, and I believed it. And so I have. The memories I have of you are of somebody threatening. And I. And I remember you saying, I don't know whether you told me this or not. This is. This could have never happened, but I remember you telling me I would regret not talking to you. Like, I would regret not telling, because I never told. You know, I never told anything to the police, ever. I never broke.
- [37:45]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
Well, once they were there and they saw the faces of children they hadn't seen in decades, it brought back a flood of emotion. That's just how trauma works. It's not just memories. It's the body reactions, the sudden fear triggers that you didn't even know you still had. Carrie worried that her presence might trigger somebody else. And Shelly, she told me that she came because of her stepmother, Kate, who asked her to do so. And both women were just trying to do the same thing. They were trying to speak the truth without making somebody else pay for it.
- [38:25]
Shelly (continued)
At first, I was scared to death. The moment I. When I came to the Children's justice center in Ogden and I saw them, I just started shaking. But part of it was because my mom had a lot of people from the group. Carla, or. Yeah, names. Had a lot of people from the group around her. That's how I knew she. Or felt like she had never changed, is because I saw her surrounded by these women from the group, and so I wasn't sure who to trust. It's. That's when I shut the door on her, I was like, nope. So when I saw those women now, I was like, who can I trust? I don't know. Are they with them? Are they outside the group? Are they. It took me watching them and seeing them at the table, interacting and through our conversations and seeing their pain, too, to know that they're safe. And then you don't feel alone. You know, it's nice that I'm sorry that they were harmed, but it's. It's nice not to feel alone.
- [39:22]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
Well, when I asked both Shelly and Carrie about their mothers exposing them to the cult. And I want to be really careful here, because in cases like this, there are parents who claim that they didn't know what was happening, and then there are parents who were proven in court to be a part of the criminal activity. So I asked this question in a way that kind of left room for complexity but didn't dodge accountability. You've had the privilege of also being a mother. As you think about your own mother putting you in those circumstances, or as you hear parents today who try to minimize a child's trauma, what are your thoughts?
- [40:09]
Carrie
I have a lot of, yes, anger and resentment towards my mom for the situations that she put me in, and then for lying about it still. She's still lying about it right now. I think it's a parent's ultimate, like, sacred responsibility to protect their kids, to keep their children safe, and to put them first. And I know that my mom saw she had this extreme need to sacrifice. She, the God that I knew and she knew was a cruel and vengeful God who requires sacrifice of you. And so. And especially about the group, that was about sacrificing your relationships with your family. And I always. I always have the sense that if the group had told her they had to, like. Like, sacrifice my life for God, she would have done it. I have. I have no doubt.
- [41:04]
Shelly (continued)
I think because I did forgive her. I've had to forgive her twice. I forgave her once. After she came out of prison. She went to prison for. I Think it was nine years and came out and I forgave her, hoping that she was fixing herself. And me and her never talked about what happened. And I was around her for another. I don't know, I want to say nine years, but I don't know how long it was. But for quite a bit of time we were surface again. We were very surface. But I was around her, she was off. She was strange, never really connected with her and thought I just put it all away so that she could heal. And so I did try. And then in my eyes she hasn't. She's the same person. Things have led me to believe that, that she's just hiding things. And so that's when I crumbled and ended up in bed and ended up in huge depression. I was very suicidal. I couldn't function. I was heavily medicated by doctors and my children. Seeing them was the only thing that kept me alive on a day to day basis because I was scared to death that she was going to kill me. I'd look through my windows and I. I was afraid that they were going to come into my home. I had things barricaded. I was scared. But again, there's a point where you just. Either you live or you don't. And I had to get out of bed and start just moving. And in order for me to move, I had to forgive her again. I will never have a relationship with her. I refuse. I will not put myself in a situation where and I put my children next to her, I put me next to her, I put my siblings next to her and I will never do that again. I'll never trust her again.
- [42:55]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
Well, this is actually one of the hardest long term truths about coercive control. It doesn't just steal their childhood, it can fracture the parent child bond for lifetimes. Shelly explained what it looks like for her today. She's close to her husband and children and she's guarded and surface level with almost everyone else. Carrie, walk me through the emotional roller coasters that can show up in adult relationships when your early model of love is tangled up with fear and control.
- [43:32]
Carrie
I'm married to a really awesome guy. It's my third marriage and I think I got it right the third time. I had a tendency to choose partners who were. Could be emotionally unavailable and cruel and even emotionally abusive. And I'd never, I don't think I'd ever had a successful relationship modeled to
- [44:00]
Shelly (continued)
me
- [44:03]
Carrie
or what it was like to have somebody who really cared for you and saw you, who really saw you for who you were and liked you for who you were. And I always, you know, obviously growing up in the group in that situation really didn't prepare me for adult relationships, for mature adult relationships in any way. And so it's been rough and a lot of therapy, but learning to know what it is I need in a partner and how to trust someone else is something that has happened and it's been a positive thing and led to me having a successful marriage.
- [44:42]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
Carrie's comments point to something that survivors learn the hard way, that trauma doesn't just politely stay in the past. It shows up in patterns, in reactions, and sometimes in the moments you wish you could just be calm and normal. And like every other Zion Society survivor who participated in this podcast as an adult, parenting has brought its own challenges. In that 2020 Survivor reunion, I passed around a questionnaire, a set of questions focused on parenting and how the cult experience shaped the way that these kids raise their own kids. 72% described themselves as overly protective. They used phrases like helicopter parent or they made statements that they would never allow things like sleepovers. Carrie described herself as a hyper vigilant mother, and she talked about the crushing reality of growing up in a world where adults couldn't be trusted. Shelley echoed that same posture from her own life.
- [45:50]
Carrie
I, when my daughter was little, I just was so hyper vigilant about protecting her. You know, I was so afraid she was going to get hurt or abused in some way. And yeah, I just think it's, it's a parent's, it's your ultimate responsibility to do that. And when, and when something happens to your child, traumatic, something traumatic or abusive happens to your child and you couldn't stop it, it's just, it's crushing in a way.
- [46:17]
Shelly (continued)
I inherently, I trust everyone completely in one sense. Like, I just take it at face value. I trust almost everything. I used to get teased for it, but at the same time, I don't trust a soul. So it's like with my children, I could never have them. I didn't want them sleepovers. I didn't want them sitting on anyone's lap. I, if anyone took special interest in my child, I immediately was. Had alarm bells and, you know, that person's a child molester. Keep my kids away from them. You know, I just, so I had both. I know that sounds kind of contradictive, but I had both.
- [46:55]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
I titled this episode get over It. Kids are resilient.
- [47:01]
Carrie
Yeah, it's very harmful. I think it's harmful when people make comments like that, that, oh, you Were only there for a couple years, or, oh, look, you're clearly fine. Yeah, I am. And. Or you're strong. Like, yeah, I am strong, and I am. Okay. If you are somehow, what do you. I don't know what. They expect us to be kind of living on the streets, on drugs. Like, if we've somehow turned out okay in society, like, we didn't have a choice. Like, what people say you're strong or you have to be strong. I don't know. I'm not sure what the other option would be. You know, it's not. It's not anything magical. It's. When I think a lot of trauma survivors of other types of trauma probably hear the same thing, and it's just like, that's not. You don't have a choice to not survive. Like, you just have to go on about your life and figure it out.
- [47:58]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
So what advice would you have for a parent today who's tempted to minimize a child's trauma?
- [48:06]
Shelly (continued)
Oh, I wouldn't. Definitely would not do that. I would definitely put them in therapy, too. I think therapy, even though that therapy may not help them today, it will help them down the road. Like, they might be 40 before they pick it up, but they'll pick it up. But no, I wouldn't minimize it. I also wouldn't let them make it their whole world either, though. Like, I would take a child and I'd let them have that chance. Kick and scream and, you know, follow your eyes out and have that moment. But you still need to go to school. You still need to move. Like, be moving forward while you're in therapy. So you have your therapy, but you're moving forward. You're not stuck. Don't get stuck. But. So it's a heart that's a hard one, because you. You want the child to be moving, but you. You definitely need to validate how awful those things are. Because even as an adult, it happened to me as a child, and I still had nightmares from an adulthood. I. Sometimes I wake up and I just had a dream I was in the group. It's horrifying.
- [49:05]
Mike King (Host/Narrator)
And as you listen to the Zion Society survivors speak, you can see how hard they worked year after year to build a functional life while carrying injuries that most people never have to imagine. And their example is the difference between hope and denial. Hope says, we're going to help you heal. Denial says, quit talking about it. Or better yet, get over it. Kids are resilient. Yes, kids can be resilient even after they've been harmed. But resilience isn't an end. All that minimizes abuse. If you're a spirit survivor of abuse, I hope this episode has offered you some hope. And if you're someone who cares about prevention, remember that data point that I mentioned? 86% of the survivors of the Zion Society cult never got the counseling they deserved. If you need help, folks, reach out immediately. And if you know someone who's experiencing sexual violence, contact the Race, Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. It's called rainn, that's R a I n n dot O R G. Or you can call the National Sexual assault hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE. Services are free, they're confidential, and they're available 247 and one more piece of context, the 32 children rescue from the Zion Society Cult. We're the first children to walk through the new Utah Children's Advocacy Center. These centers provide child victims with a safe haven where they can be interviewed and supported as they work their way through the criminal justice system. And it gives them a place to start the process of healing. Please consider donating to your local children's advocacy center by finding them at the National Children's alliance of Website Inside the Zion Society A Closer Look Inside the Garden was written, narrated and audio produced by me, Mike King, based on my book, An Investigative Memoir of the Zion Society Cult. I want to thank Aaron Mason, who narrated the earlier episodes. I'd like you to know that I'm donating all of my proceeds to from my book and this podcast to fund child advocacy efforts and criminal justice scholarships. Please check out my podcast Profiling Evil, where I explore unsolved criminal cases and I examine the mind of predators. You can find profiling evil on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts. Executive producers are John Goforth and Jeremy Sinan. Go Gardens of Evil is a production of the Gamut Podcast Network.