← Gardens of Evil: Inside the Zion Society Cult
Gardens of Evil: Inside the Zion Society Cult
CLOSER LOOK, E2: When Memories Return and Puzzles Are Solved
00:56:21
Loading summary
Transcript87 lines
- [00:00]
Mike King
Neighborhood.
- [00:02]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
And Doug, there's nowhere I wouldn't go to help someone customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual. Even if it means sitting front row at a comedy show.
- [00:12]
Dr. Judy Ho
Hey, everyone, Check out this guy and his bird.
- [00:14]
Mike King
What is this, your first date?
- [00:15]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
Oh, no. We help people customize and save on car insurance with Liberty Mutual together. We're married. Me to a human, him to a bird.
- [00:22]
Dr. Judy Ho
Yeah, the bird looks out of your league anyways.
- [00:24]
Liberty Mutual Spokesperson
Only pay for what you need@libertymutual.com Liberty.
- [00:28]
Detective Marcy Korginski
Liberty. Liberty. Liberty.
- [00:35]
Mike King
Sometimes the past doesn't come back as a thought. It comes back as a neighborhood, a street sign, a familiar turn. And suddenly your body knows where you are before your mind can even catch up.
- [00:48]
Anessa
It was roughly two years ago. Almost exactly, actually, two years ago. My family never, ever, ever talked about the situation. We just kind of. It's almost like one life ended and the other life began. There's never been a discussion about it growing up. Nothing. So we'd never been back to that neighborhood. And about two years ago, I wound up getting a referral through my company to go list a house in Ogden. I took the referral, went out there, not realizing exactly where it was until I drove into the neighborhood. Drove into the neighborhood. All of a sudden, everything just hit me. I saw my house, I saw everyone around. I could vividly recall things that happened to people that were there. All the way back to the childhood all over again. I wouldn't say necessarily debilitating at that time, but it takes your breath away for a few minutes and then you say, okay, I'm a grown up. I can do this. I'm going to go do my job. So I. So I went and talked to the guy at this house, wound up listing the house. So I wound up having to return to the property multiple times. And each time those emotions compounded and compounded and compounded until it just made me cry. I probably cried that day. I cried every day I went back. Just things that again, you kind of shove to the back and you kind of go on with life.
- [02:16]
Mike King
That's the sound of memories returning after decades of silence. And if you've listened to the previous episode, you already know where I stand on that phrase. Kids are resilient. Sure, they might be in some areas, but resilience isn't proof that they weren't harmed by a predator's actions. It's only proof that the survivor somehow adapted. I'm Mike King, and this is Gardens of Evil. A closer look Inside the garden. When memories return and puzzles are Solved. Now, before we go any further, a quick content note. We're going to be talking about child sexual abuse, coercive control, and cult dynamics. We're going to explore how silence can become a survival strategy and how memories can remain buried for years. Not because the survivors are hiding the truth, but because their minds learned that staying quiet was the safest way to endure what was happening to them. We're also going to look at what happens when those memories return and how they can ripple through relationships and responsibilities. We're going to talk about another painful reality that many survivors experience, because when they finally do reach out for help, the therapy itself becomes another layer of injury. Not because the therapy was harmful, but because the disbelief that's expressed is. I'm dedicating this episode to those survivors whose voices were silenced and to the people who believed, who defended, and who protected them. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to meet with the survivors of the Zion Society. Now they were seeing each other for the first time as well. And it was like hearing the sound of a bunch of locked drawers opening one memory at a time. Now, in the last episode, you heard dawn say that she didn't remember Amber being in that cold. It actually made perfect sense, since dawn was very young and Amber was moved from the group not long after. But then Amber mentioned something ordinary. It was a memory that she had of curling Dawn's hair. One morning, trying to make that wiggly little child's hair look perfectly perfect for the cult leader, she accidentally burned dawn on the neck with the curling iron and boom. A small detail. But that tiny detail stirred a shift of emotion in the room. Suddenly, Dawn's memory of that moment jumped into view. The connection was restored, and the emotions burst. In a moment that I will never forget, traumatic memories seem to return at the oddest times. Sometimes it's through sensations. A place or a sound, a smell or a daily routine. For Anessa, it happened with a turn into a neighborhood. For others, might be the smell of mint, a voice or a phrase, curtains moving in the breeze. Or for Dawn, a burn from a curling iron. A small cue that unlocked an entire chain of associated memories. And as I watched this unfold, I thought of the controversy I witnessed in the 1990s when I was investigating ritual crimes for the Attorney General's office. It was the satanic panic era, when suggestive questioning, repeated prompts, and agenda driven therapy sometimes contaminated memories. Back then, I learned early that if you're going to handle delayed recalls ethically, you can't feed the witness with information. Instead, you listen intently and then you try to validate what's being said with other reliable forms of evidence. That's a discipline that I've tried to maintain with these survivors. When they came back to me decades later asking to please tell me what happened to me, they certainly deserve to know the truth. But I didn't start by reading my police reports to them. Instead, I listened as they described what they remembered first. You see, on many occasions, the memories being shared by these survivors mirrored the same statement they told me some 30 years earlier in that children's advocacy center. In some cases, they actually repeated almost word for word what they told me when they were 6 year old, 8 year old, 12 year old children. It was remarkable. And to better understand this phenomenon, I thought I'd reach out to a friend, Dr. Judy Ho, to help me answer why this is occurring. Now. Dr. Ho is a triple board certified licensed clinical forensic neuropsychologist. She's also a tenured professor at Pepperdine University. Dr. Ho, when a survivor has a moment where one small sensory detail becomes the picture snap that brings everything into focus. What's really going on in the brain and in the nervous system?
- [07:38]
Dr. Judy Ho
Well, a lot of people don't realize that oftentimes people who have been through extreme trauma, their memory formation is interrupted during that time. And there's a lot of research about this and also a lot of hypotheses about why this is. But this is why sometimes trauma survivors will explain that they don't recall certain details that feel like they're part of the big picture. Maybe people expect them to recall it, but they'll recall the texture on the perpetrator's shirt or something that seems really mundane, like something they notice in the corner of the room. And again, because their memory formation is so disrupt, it's hard to know what their recall is going to be like when you're asking them about what happened. And there is a theory that this is somewhat protective in nature that your memory is interrupted and disrupted during a traumatic event because your brain is essentially trying to protect you from remembering all of it. But of course, as we know, there is a consequence of that because so much of it gets repressed that it can come out in other ways to harm the person's mental and physical health. And that's why a lot of treatment approaches is all about integrating those memories back again, but processing them in a safe way.
- [08:56]
Narrator (Stolen Sister segment)
23 year old Elizabeth Plunkett heads off for a night away with friends.
- [09:00]
Detective Marcy Korginski
It's the summer in 1976 the best
- [09:03]
Dr. Patrice Berry
summer we've had for years.
- [09:04]
Narrator (Stolen Sister segment)
Just hours later, she is kidnapped by two men in British Bay.
- [09:08]
Dr. Patrice Berry
These are two career criminals wanted for rape in Britain.
- [09:11]
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?
- [09:18]
Mike King
We're being denied any sort of justice.
- [09:20]
Narrator (Stolen Sister segment)
Listen to Bad Women presents Stolen Sister. Wherever you get your podcasts, I'm here
- [09:27]
Geico Spokesperson
on the job site with Dale, who's a framing contractor.
- [09:29]
Dr. Patrice Berry
Hey, good morning.
- [09:30]
Geico Spokesperson
Dale traded up to Geico Commercial Auto Insurance for all his business vehicles. We're here where he needs us most.
- [09:36]
Mike King
Yep, they sure are.
- [09:37]
Geico Spokesperson
We make it easy for him to save on all his insurance needs all in one place with coverage that fits his business and. And bottom line. Oh, I shouldn't have looked down.
- [09:45]
Mike King
It's all right.
- [09:46]
Geico Spokesperson
We're so far up here.
- [09:48]
Dr. Patrice Berry
Look at me.
- [09:48]
Mike King
Take a deep breath.
- [09:49]
Geico Spokesperson
I'm good. So good.
- [09:51]
Mike King
Get a commercial auto insurance quote today@geico.com and see how much you could save.
- [09:55]
Dr. Patrice Berry
It feels good to Geico day or night.
- [09:59]
VRBoCare Representative
VRBoCare is here 247 to help make every part of your stay seamless. If anything comes up or you simply need a little guidance, support is ready whenever you reach out. From the moment you book to the moment you head home. We're here to help things run smoothly, because a great trip starts with the right support. And, hey, a good playlist doesn't hurt either.
- [10:30]
Mike King
Doctor Ho's comments help clarify something that survivors have been describing to me for years. They may not have remembered the assaults in sequence, but they did remember the texture of a room, the movement at a window, or what happened to them. So I asked Dr. Ho to go a little bit deeper on what people casually call a trigger, because clinically, it's a whole lot more than a dramatic emotional reaction.
- [11:04]
Dr. Patrice Berry
Sure.
- [11:04]
Dr. Judy Ho
Triggers are not always sort of in the form of a narrative or even something that is visual. A lot of triggers are pertaining to the other senses. So some of the examples that you just gave are perfect examples of these. That it could be a certain smell, it could be even something that's tactile feeling, a certain type of texture, and being reminded of that texture at a previous traumatic event or a traumatic crime scene. And this is because sense memory is different and processed and stored differently than narrative memory. So narrative memory is sort of the stories, right, that you tell yourself when you try to recall something in a linear way and you have to express it through language. That's a very different kind of memory store and process than Sense memory, which is so immediate and so visceral, doesn't require words. The way that we process sense memory is not with our frontal lobes, right? It's not with this higher order thinking part. It's sort of the very base part of how we are formed as human beings. It's like a very primordial part of our brain that processes sense. And so, despite how great your coping might be, you know, whether you think that you might be over something that could have been traumatic, oftentimes people will say, I just get transported back to that event or that particular traumatic incident. When something triggers me and somebody, they don't even know what that is until they go back and they think about it and they say, oh, wow, like there's actually something that is connected to that, but it happens so quickly that they couldn't really perceive it or describe it in the moment.
- [12:39]
Mike King
Doctor Ho's explanation makes it a whole lot easier for me to understand why the reaction feels so immediate and physical. But I wondered why the memories don't just come back in a neat timeline. Why do they return so often in so many different pieces?
- [13:00]
Dr. Judy Ho
Well, there's different theories about it, as I mentioned, because memory formation was disrupted and it kind of was in pieces when the memory first became stored in a person's brain. It also gets recalled in that way because it's not actually linear the way that the whole memory got stored. But also there's a theory that sometimes the recall is in pieces because your brain is trying to protect you, that if everything came back all at once, essentially your psyche would have a really hard time dealing with that. And so by recalling it in a piecemeal fashion, it's almost sort of trying to help you to cope with it little by little, instead of the whole thing at once. And again, that's just a theory, but to me, it makes logical sense that again, our brain is always trying to help us survive emotionally and physically. And your brain is trying to ensure your survival. And so these things are subconscious, unconscious things that your brain is doing. Its aims are in the right place. It's trying to help you to survive. But as I mentioned, that kind of recall and piecemeal actually makes it harder sometimes to heal because then your memory is in pieces and it feels very out of control. So a lot of therapy is about recalling the entire traumatic event, but processing it in a way that feels safe and that makes sense to you and utilizing coping strategies to calm yourself down when triggers come up. So it's really about establishing a sense of safety. And control for the person.
- [14:31]
Mike King
So how do you keep an investigator or the spouse of someone who's now recalling memories, how do you keep them from creating an environment where the survivor feels like they have to fill in pieces and parts? So they might be, I don't know, tempted to make something up or give you an answer to calm the fear you have in your face because of your, you're a spouse and you're hearing all this for the first time.
- [15:05]
Dr. Judy Ho
Yeah. And I would say that this phenomenon is extremely common with younger people because again, there's sort of that sense to comply, especially with an adult and an adult of authority. But also, as you just mentioned, even adults, certain personality traits too. Adults who are really empathetic, who really care about the feelings of others, especially one that loves you so, and you see their fear, you see their frustration, and you want to appease them. So I think if you're the spouse of that person, the loved one, or even an investigator, it's important to, number one, be super open minded about what they're going to share and express that at the top. Like, you know, it's okay if you don't get through all of it. And sometimes I might ask you questions that you don't have an answer for and that's totally normal and it's okay, just tell me you don't know or you don't remember and we'll kind of move on. I think it's also important that we ask very open ended questions. Again, investigators, some are getting more training about this, which is so important because that first interview, you know, there's a lot of contamination that can happen even in the most, I guess, even in the most well meaning of investigators. Right. Because they're just trying to help. So they're, they're starting to suggest things to try to help you with a narrative. It can even be their own discomfort too. They have to hear so much traumatic material all the time. So they're like, oh, I just want to help you get over this. I, I don't want to see you suffer. And you see that there's a pain on the person's face. But, but really you have to let them answer the question. So instead of giving them a multiple choice or saying, well, when he touched you, what did he do? You're already assuming. Right. That he has touched you, or you're already assuming that a certain act occurred. And so really it kind of needs to just be, okay, then tell me what happened after that, okay, then what happened after that? And okay, is there anything Else you remember, it's really open ended. Takes a lot of patience. But it is how we get the, I guess, the most accurate version of the picture from that person, the way that they're able to tell it at that time.
- [16:57]
Mike King
So when you're talking to survivor spouses or significant others, family members, close friends, what are the biggest risk factors leading toward, like contamination when people are trying to help somebody else remember something?
- [17:15]
Dr. Judy Ho
Yeah, I think when there's time pressure, like everything has to happen today or in this interview, that is a big risk factor. Another risk factor is the interviewer's own distress. Right. So that happens a lot more with family members where they're frantic, they're feeling stressed, and they're putting that energy on you, even if they're not meaning to. And you start to feel like you have to do something to try to calm them down. You're starting to take care of them in the moment. That's another risk factor. As I mentioned, a risk factor is asking close ended questions, just asking them to confirm with a yes or no. That's a huge risk factor. Another one that people don't talk enough about is the interviewer's own trauma history. Right. So whether it's an investigator or a family member or friend, if they've been through something that feels thematically relevant, there's going to be a lot more risk for that type of contamination to happen.
- [18:09]
Mike King
Now, I wanted you to hear from two husbands who have actually lived through this. So I reached out to Rocky and David, husbands of the survivors of the Zion Society cult. These guys aren't clinicians. They're just two guys who love two women who survived a cult. And they've had to learn in real time what their support looks like and how it should be delivered. Now here Rocky talked about that first disclosure. He doesn't pretend that he had perfect thoughts. And he said the same thing that a lot of people feel, but they're afraid to say out loud that the shock, the worry, the rush of questions was overwhelming. But he made a decision early on to separate what happened to his wife from who his wife is.
- [19:01]
Rocky
Well, you know, anytime you receive news of something that tragic, it kind of sets you back for a minute, puts you in a little bit of a shock. You know, a lot of thoughts go through your, through your mind to, to try and work out all the, those details that you're being given. You know, it's a, was a traumatic experience for her. And this is like a million things come into your mind. It's that you're Running through, it's like, okay, well, she's trusting me enough to tell me this. This is important. Wow. This is also very shocking. So you're taking that part in, and then, you know, part of you is like, well, especially in a new relationship, it's like our. Is she damaged? You know, all these thoughts go through your. Your mind. And I know they. They. Some of them sound terrible, like, oh, is she damaged? But this is somebody I'm planning on spending the rest of my life with. These are important things to know. And I think initially, when she told me, all those things rushed through, you know, and I think it takes a moment to digest before you really respond to all those. And. And ultimately the outcome that I come up with after hearing that, after she had talked to me about her past, because obviously she cared enough for me. She wanted me to know what everything. And I found that this was just something that happened to her, not. Not who she is. And I. I felt it was important that I didn't treat her like a victim, but I showed her love and respect and, like, see her intrinsic value of who she can be and who she could become versus a victim.
- [20:48]
Mike King
I think you can see why I wanted Rocky in this episode. This guy doesn't sanitize his first reaction, but he does show us what maturity can look like. Now, our first reaction to something so difficult to hear could be emotional and messy, but the way that Rocky handled things speaks to his character and the relationship that he has with Shelley. Rocky explains something else that's really important, that much of the disclosure came out early in their relationship. Well, before marriage.
- [21:23]
Rocky
No, for the most part, it was. We. We spent a lot of time together talking, and. And, you know, it's like, Shelly does something, she does it right. So she brought the truckload. She dumped it on me. So here it is. You know, this is what happened. And, you know, there's little things that come up later, you know, that she may have forgotten about or. Or things of that nature. But for the most part, she. She was pretty open.
- [21:49]
Mike King
And what he said next really cut right into the worst habits that spouses can fall into. They try to turn into detectives. Rocky said that his instinct was to not dig for the grisly details. He figured that he knew enough that he didn't believe that demanding the dirt or more detail would help either of them. So he didn't pry. He didn't try to dig up more dirt. Instead, he provided a safe place for Shelly to share what she had been ready to discuss for some time.
- [22:24]
Rocky
Mine was just the opposite. I knew something bad had happened, and I didn't want all the little details. I didn't want to pry because I didn't want to know those things, and I didn't want to look at her that way. I thought those were things that happened in the past and it wasn't worth drudging up, and it wasn't going to help me nor her to do so. So I knew bad things happen. That's all. I. I got more information than I wanted, obviously, but I didn't think it was important to dredge up small details and nitty gritty things that it's just, it's dirt. Why dig up more dirt? It's dirty.
- [23:06]
Mike King
And by doing so, Rocky learned the difference between support and an extraction. He was candid about the learning curve that he experienced. And he said that while he's a fixer by nature, he had to acknowledge that this wasn't something that he could solve or repair, especially in one sitting.
- [23:26]
Rocky
There's definitely learning curve, right? And how to deal with our relationships. And, and I'm a. I'm a fixer person, so I want to fix everything. And some things I can't fix. I. That's probably the hardest lesson I had to learn is she doesn't want me to fix it for her. She just needs me to listen to her. I think in the beginning I was trying to fix and trying to. And I get frustrated myself. Luckily, Shelly was patient enough with me to say, look, I just need you to listen to me now. Try and fix everything. I think she fixed me. I don't know that I fixed her.
- [24:06]
Mike King
So in healthy relationships, disclosure doesn't just expose the survivor's old wounds. It exposes the loved one's listening habits as well. The need to control or to fix or the discomfort of helplessness in knowing how to help can be incredibly crippling to a couple. That's where extra support comes in. And as the floodgates open for Rocky, he found himself at a crossroad.
- [24:36]
Rocky
I would say, tread lightly, watch questions, don't be a detective. In those moments, it's not if what they want to divulge is up to them. It's. They're. They're trusting. You need to know that they're trusting you. They're. They're spilling everything to you for a reason. You need to be that person they're looking for to support them, to love them. If they need a hug, they. They get a hug. If they need distance, you give them distance. I think you need to be very sensitive to that nature and, and very loving towards that person with all empathy and compassion.
- [25:21]
Mike King
Rocky chose to tread lightly, and he avoided the urge to interrogate his wife. Instead, he respected her timeline, even when it wasn't what he had hoped for. He showed trust, and that trust was felt by Shelley.
- [25:38]
Dr. Judy Ho
Now.
- [25:39]
Mike King
When I spoke with Carrie's husband, David, I marveled at the different experiences that he added to my learning. Carrie's disclosure was revealed in pieces over time. He talked honestly about how uncomfortable it was at first to keep their relationship at the center of his interactions rather than focusing on the abuse. This was all really evident when he said that Kerry determined when the disclosure times were right.
- [26:10]
David
You know, it was really early on in my relationship with Kerry, and for context, we met in late 2019, early 2020. We kind of argue about that at times, but it was really early on in our relationship and it was just part of that getting to know you. And it was like, I grew up in San Diego. I grew up in a polygamous sex cult. Like, what are you talking about? That's wild. And it really took me a little while to understand the full depth and breadth of really what happened there. Because Carrie was so matter of fact about wasn't an emotionally charged thing for her. It was really evident in talking to her that she really did some work and grew past it to where 25ish years later, she was able to share it with me very openly and honestly at times, graphically too, which was definitely difficult at times to hear.
- [27:22]
Mike King
David described the disclosure this way. He said it was a drip, then a flow, then a drip, then a flow.
- [27:31]
David
It has really been an adventure for me to put any of my discomfort aside to just hear the story that my wife is telling me, you know, and so it's probably been. She's been like, you know what? He can't handle this story yet. So we're going to give them some time to chew on what I've told them already and then someday we'll bring him up to speed on that. If I know her and if I'm being fair to me, yeah, it's probably impacted that.
- [28:02]
Mike King
So, yeah, when a loved one truly listens, they learn that safety is built in the tone and the pacing and the restraint. And that's what creates a trusting place for these kinds of discussions. David didn't need a minute by minute account of the abuse. Instead, he worked toward maintaining a safe place where Carrie could share what she was ready to share, to hear the
- [28:32]
David
specifics of how a pedophile took advantage of my wife as a 10 year old girl. I don't need to hear that Mike. I do not need the minute by minute account. The questions that I've had were more about logistics, more about the inner workings of the group as we call it, about her feelings about it. And for the first time she told me about it. I knew that this was really going to be one of those things that we talked about with a whole lot of love and openness and empathy and compassion or it was going to get in the way. And so I again trying to put any of my stuff aside, just absorb as much information as she was going to share and then really check my come from on any questions I had about details. Would it re victimize her? Do I have a right to know that information? Am I some sort of a deviant myself for having that question? You know, yeah, yeah. There's been a lot of soul searching around how to show up and is it for her, is it for me and what are my motivations around it.
- [29:48]
Mike King
David also made sure that the questions that he asked were primarily for Carrie, not for himself. She didn't need him to be angry at those people who hurt her. What she really needed was for him to be present and steady and supportive.
- [30:05]
David
That helped me stay out of fix it mode, protect mode. Right. She doesn't need me to protect her from anything regard, especially something that happened 25 years ago, 30 years ago, that she's done a lot of work to move forward from.
- [30:26]
Mike King
Well, David taught me that a spouse can feel outraged for the perpetrator, but remained focused on the survivor's healing journey. That way it became about them and there was strength in that. David also made it clear that he chose to resist judgment and instead he opened his ears and tried to understand.
- [30:48]
David
I believe that we all have the right to agency. We all have the right to some privacy in the world of shame and guilt, guilt and trauma and abuse. Everybody's going to get there in their own way on their own time. Any advice I would have would be if you feel your own triggers, do the work, do it. Because healing is possible for people that have been victimized and the people that love them, that get triggered by hearing about that. Put any judgment you have aside.
- [31:23]
Mike King
Both Rocky and David demonstrated that good spouses don't have to be perfect spouses. They just need to be steady, humble and willing to learn. And to better understand this dynamic, I thought I'd give a friend to call Dr. Patrice Berry, a clinical psychologist, a mom, an author and a Speaker. Now she helps us better understand why this dynamic inside of marriage is. Is often so difficult for couples to navigate. Dr. Berry explained how disclosure might come in fragments and that shame or distrust can slow down the process because survivors are oftentimes gauging the reaction of the listener, trying to make sure that they don't overwhelm them.
- [32:10]
Dr. Patrice Berry
And the brain is really. It's really complicated. And sometimes there are part. There are past memories and that have been blocked. And for some people, when they remember, it comes in like a flood and they remember everything all at once. For some people, things, the memories come back in those pieces. And then for some other people, they're sharing the pieces to gauge people's reaction to either not overwhelm their spouse. They might be afraid that the person might not be able to handle it. There can be a lot of shame that can come up for the survivor and a lot of thought of, will I be believed? How will they react? And it can be a very scary thing for the survivor in a difficult situation for the spouse or partner, too, because they're hearing this awful thing that happened to somebody that they love, and sometimes they can feel like there's nothing they can do about it. And yet what their spouse really needs is their validation, just their listening ear. And that can be so helpful.
- [33:20]
Mike King
Well, over time, more information might come out. And that doesn't mean that the story is changing. It simply means that it's unfolding as the nervous system allows a little more truth to return to the survivor's forefront.
- [33:36]
Dr. Patrice Berry
And often during traumatic events, the what people smell, sometimes what people hear, those are the things that really stick with them. And there can be. I've worked with people where. So I don't wear perfume or I try to be very careful about what scents I have in my office. And I always let someone know. So if they come into my office and I have some peppermint or something, but I don't know that the person that harmed them was, you know, chewing on a mint at that time. There really can be something that activates their amygdala. And that amygdala is that fight, flight, freeze, or people, please. And that's the part of our brain that tries to protect us. And so sometimes the association gets wrongly connected to the mint and not the person.
- [34:27]
Mike King
Dr. Berry also clarified that validation is not the same thing as approval, and it's not the same thing as certainty about every detail. Validation sounds more like this. I hear you, I see you, I love you, I'm here for you. This wasn't your fault.
- [34:51]
Dr. Patrice Berry
And that's where the brain is protective. And how that child survived that horrific event might have been that dissociation, being able to disconnect and not be in their body and to just focus on those curtains. Because sometimes they might not be able to describe in detail the person's face. Sometimes those memories don't always get stored away the same way that what I had for lunch is filed away in my hippocampus.
- [35:24]
Mike King
When asked about disclosure before or after the marriage and how that impacts successful resolutions, her answer was really important because she ties the feelings of trust to. To the success of disclosure.
- [35:40]
Dr. Patrice Berry
I, I want to go back and talk about high demand or high control or cult groups because secrecy is often demanded, expected. You, you aren't supposed to tell. This doesn't go outside of the group. And people are trained to not tell. And often survivors will have that fear of, what if I'm not believed? Because one of the worst things you can do is share with your spouse and then them not. Not believe you. And that can be a real fear. And then some people, they don't want to be seen as a victim. They don't want it to change how people look at them. But maybe they hear about this large case or that multiple survivors are coming forward, and then they step up and they said, I was, yes, this thing happened to me too. They might have survived up until this time with this huge secret that nobody knew. And now because often people, they don't want to be one of the people that were. That was a victim of this, of this group.
- [36:47]
Mike King
And what became clear to me is that couples who discuss these issues early in the relationship seem to be in a better position to respond effectively. When the triggers or the relationship issues arise in the marriage, you know, it just makes sense.
- [37:05]
Dr. Patrice Berry
So if it's at the beginning of a relationship or before marriage, the person knows, oh, within an intimate relationship, this person has certain triggers. Or this person. Because when people have been through certain things, sometimes they'll say, you can't sneak up behind me. Or because the survivor might freak out. And in a way that's like, it's like I was just joking. And the spouse is confused if they don't know. But if they know what's happened, then they're able to acknowledge and be aware of any potential triggers. If their spouse maybe needs to attend therapy or get additional support, then they know and they're able to work with that therapist. If there's certain things as a spouse that they need to be aware of to, To Support their, their partner. But, and I think you're going to get to it of when a person finds out later, sometimes there can be some confusion of. Because things might start to make sense for them.
- [38:15]
Mike King
Dr. Barry helps us all to better understand how critical our reaction is to successful disclosures. We shouldn't overreact and we shouldn't move into some kind of a fix it mode.
- [38:30]
Dr. Patrice Berry
Something that I tell parents that if their child ever comes to them and says something's wrong, first you fake it, you hide your, your, your real reaction because if you overreact, the person is going to stop talking. So as a therapist, if I'm interviewing somebody and if they share something really painful and I'm like, and if I'm like, and I have this big reaction, they're gonna be like, oh, wait a minute, should I like, so that can sometimes stop people from, from talking. And while you're not, you're not a robot. And it's not that you underreact, but that you, you manage that. You make sure that you breathe that, that you make sure that as this person is talking, that you let them know how much you love them, how much you care about them, how much you support them. And you're so thankful that they felt safe enough to share this with you and that you don't have to try to fix it. Because often the, the spouse wants to make them better. And there's something really good about sitting with someone in the midst of their pain. And what I mean by that is if I shared I had this horrible thing happen yesterday and you were like, oh, it'll be better. I might be like, but it's like I might not be ready to hear that. Like sometimes just hearing that must have been hard. Oh my gosh. I didn't expect, like I'm. Thank you for sharing that. Sitting with people in the midst of something difficult and not trying to make them feel better, which is harder. Please just breathe. Know that for emotional support, like just, just hold their hand, just be there and just support them. That's really all they, they need right now.
- [40:22]
Mike King
She also cautions against asking questions that are confrontive. Things like, why didn't you tell me sooner? Now I like how she offered a more productive way to think about things and how to respond in these kinds of situations.
- [40:39]
Dr. Patrice Berry
I would love for your listeners to try to not ask people why? So the why question can put up defenses. So if I say, why did you do that? Why didn't you tell me why? The question why can make somebody versus eventually I might want to know, help me understand or like just what's been going, like what, what brought all this up for you? Like, I might, that might be a legitimate question. But if I say, why is this coming up now? It's, it's going to come across more aggressive to the other person and that's not how the person intends it. And the reason why I say to not ask for details is because the survivor might think, will you only believe me if I break down the story for you?
- [41:28]
Mike King
And while that shift in language might sound small, it's really significant because one style of questioning implies failure while the other side communicates safety. And with that, she offered some really usable guidance for those first few days when the disclosure starts happening.
- [41:49]
Dr. Patrice Berry
So when a person discloses, they might have an increase in trauma symptoms because they opened Pandora's box and because this has been closed, this wasn't something that had been shared, this wasn't something that they had brought up. And a lot of my survivors don't understand that. And I break it down that that's very common that when they disclose it because every time they look at their spouse, they now know that their spouse knows. And so I think in those, in those first hours, some people might not want to be physically comforted. So if I go to hug them and they back off and to not take that personal, so that in their mind they might be, they might need to feel safe first. So felt safety is different from physical safety. They, you might see, they might have trouble sleeping that, that night they just might need a little bit of extra support and they might just want to watch something funny. And so that's where sometimes not if you're not sure, sometimes just asking like, hey, do you just want to talk or do you just want us to be together in silence? Let's, let's just not talk. Perfect.
- [43:13]
Mike King
Personally, I thought that was one of the most useful lines in this whole episode. And it was, do you want to talk or would you rather sit in silence? Now that doesn't mean sit alone unless the discloser wants to sit alone. It's not an open ended demand or a pressure filled invitation. It's just a supportive check in, you know, When I asked the Zion Society survivors about their parenting skills, 72% said they were overprotective parents, using terms like I'm a helicopter parent, While the other 14% said they feel the constant need to protect their children. Now that means that most of them didn't simply move on, but they adapted, they watched, they managed risk while they tried to make sure that what happened to them didn't ever happen to their own children. According to Dr. Berry, overprotection might come from love, but protection is healthiest when it builds safe adults around children rather than wrapping children in fear. I love this piece of advice that she gave her own child and that she recommends. We consider teaching our children that you should never keep secrets with adults. And if something feels wrong, they should tell multiple, safe adults. That means they should be willing to tell their teacher, their doctor, their parent, their next door neighbor if they are people that they feel safe with.
- [44:51]
Dr. Patrice Berry
And it's something that I see in my practice all, all the time, where letting their child be out of their sight when their child is in kindergarten and going off to school or going to daycare or they have to have a babysitter for the first time. And being overprotect, overprotective doesn't protect children. So really what protects children is them having safe adults. So I have an 8 year old and something that I do with my child is that if there's something. So first of all, we don't have secrets. Like, we have surprises. We don't have secrets. Adults shouldn't have secrets with the children. And then for our. For. For my son, I tell if there's something ever not okay that he can tell. We have a list of people he can tell. He can tell mommy, he can tell daddy, he can tell Gigi, he can tell his teacher, the school counselor that if something isn't okay to not tell just one person, Please tell everyone if. If you're not safe, don't tell one person, Tell everybody. Because sometimes a child tells their parent and their parent says, that's not true. How could you say that about this person having. It's not. If something's not okay, tell. Shout it from the rooftops. Please tell everyone until you're safe.
- [46:16]
Mike King
One of the Zion Society cult survivors, Cammy, put words to this in a way that I haven't been able to shake for 35 years. Her memory of her abuser was larger than life, and she spent years living in fear of him. That trauma followed her into adulthood and into parenting. I'd like you to listen carefully to what Cami had to say, because in just a few lines, she captures the psychological damage of child abuse. And she does it better than most textbooks ever could.
- [46:51]
Cammy
Sexual abuse literally cracks a child into a million pieces. I spent all of my life until 2009, when my abuser died, living in horrible fear that he would get out of prison and confine to me and kill me for getting him busted. I spoke out as a tiny child against monsters. And I lived many, many years in absolute terror, fearing my abuser would come after me. I felt so alone with so many questions. My children come first. They need me to not be consumed by my demons. Painfully, I look back on my past, wishing there had been some type of program to help me get through the horrors I had endured during my childhood.
- [47:39]
Mike King
This little child saw Arvind Shreve, the predator as mighty. In episode one, Aaron Mason compared the Zion Society's polished facade to the great and powerful Oz. How fitting, because for Cammy, Arvin didn't appear frightening at first. He appeared larger than life. A predator can look strong, capable, even protective to a child who's hungry for steadiness. But Kami shows us what people often miss. That the abuse doesn't end when the access ends. It kept living inside of her as fear and isolation and the belief that the monster that she exposed might one day come back for her. And when Kami says that her children come first, you can hear what so many survivors carried into parenthood. They're not just raising their own kids. They're also trying to build the safety net that they never had. Cami put her finger on something really important, that being rescued is not the same as recovering. She got out of the Zion Society, but the healing has taken a lifetime. You know, I've thought a lot about that as I've watched the Zion Society survivors reconnecting, comparing memories and starting to fit the puzzle pieces together. What many of them needed the most was not somebody to explain away their pain, but somebody who was willing to help them make sense of what they experienced carefully, truthfully, and without judgment. And throughout my investigation into the Zion Society cult and later, while writing Deceived, I watched these triggering moments happen over and again. Sometimes the past would rush in so fast that it looked like it was happening in real time. I saw it with the survivors and I saw it with the police officers who also worked that case. One Zion Society survivor told me about a police detective who came to her home on the morning of the raid. She was only six or seven years old at the time, but she never forgot that detective. She recalled that she was blond and beautiful, but that's not why she remembered her. It was because the detective was kind and compassionate. The search of the compound lasted for hours, and the detective faithfully stayed with the children, keeping things calm and quietly, controlling the nervous parents. This little six year old survivor didn't know the detective's name, but based on the details in the description she gave, I did. She was describing Detective Marcy Korginski, who wrote a carefully detailed report of her activities that day. Detective Korganski went on to have a remarkable career report, retiring as Chief Corginski. But it wasn't her rank that struck me. It was her memories of that morning. She noted in her report about one of the little girls having sores on the inside of her legs. She described that memory to me 30 years later during the writing of Deceived.
- [51:07]
Detective Marcy Korginski
I was in a conversation with the mother of this child, and there were some comments about some marks on the upper inner legs of these children. And it seemed at that time that it was a fairly common occurrence in these children. Not just one or two children, but a number of these children had these little sores on their legs. And so I said to her, I said something about those sores to her and, and, and I'll just. I just never forgot it because I was just so surprised by her answer. She said. I said, what. What are these little art. Are you concerned about these little sores on something to that effect? And. And she said, oh, they're just herps. And I said, they're just hurts or they're. They're what? And she said, they're just herps. And I didn't know initially what she meant by that. And what she meant was she didn't. She was naive to what was really on those children's legs. Those little marks on their legs were herpes. And they didn't understand the gravity of these little. All of these little children having herpes, sexually transmitted disease that would go with them throughout their entire lives. They had no idea how serious what those children had, what that was on their legs.
- [52:35]
Mike King
When I heard those comments, I immediately remembered that survivor meeting that I'd had a few years earlier, listening to one of the survivors, now a grown woman in her mid-40s. The conversation turned to concerns of sexually transmitted disease because of the abuse. And as the girls talked one to another, quietly and matter of factly, this survivor said that she had lived with herpes and dealt with the symptoms, the confusion, and the unanswered question of how she got it. For decades, Detective Korganski's observations from that day of the raid rushed back into my mind as validation. It wasn't a rumor and it wasn't speculation. It was a documented observation from a crime scene 30 years earlier, and it now provided the missing puzzle pieces. So with both the detective and the survivor's Permission, I connected the two of them together so that they could talk about it. Now, their meeting didn't erase the trauma or fix the past, but it certainly connected the dots. A year later, another survivor asked if I could tell them what my reports said happened to them in the culture. Again, erring on the side of caution, I asked them to share what they remembered. But I promised that I would see if there was anything in my old reports that could validate the memories they were having. And what happened still sends a little bit of a shiver down my spine. As this survivor described the abuse that they endured at age 6. I was less surprised than before as the survivor described the assaults almost word for word in the same way they had decades earlier. That kind of consistency doesn't prove that every delayed memory in every case is accurate. But it does remind us that this blanket skepticism can be as irresponsible as blind acceptance. Sometimes the records line up, and when it's validated, it gives the survivor an anchor to build upon. The puzzle pieces stick together. So please think about what healing can look like after 35 years. For some Zion Society survivors, this podcast has become a doorway into better understanding. It's been powerful to watch the survivors reconnect with their childhood friends, kids who shared similar homes, lived under the same rules, and felt the same fears. But now reunited, they continue to validate and even correct each other's memories. And little by little, the puzzle pieces are fitting back together. And every time a survivor finds a puzzle piece, their voice becomes a little bit stronger and the power shifts from the cult that tried to control them through secrecy, shame, and isolation. As they discover the transparency of truth and connection and community, they grow stronger. Sometimes it happens because a spouse learned how to listen better, or a psychologist helped the survivor discover their past while embracing a stronger future. And it even happens when a retired police investigator is united with a little girl that she comforted decades earlier. But the survivors have found each other, and they found clarity where there used to be confusion. Most importantly, they found their voice. But that's not the end of this story. Our final episode is called what the Cult Tried to Take But Couldn't. And I'm not going to spoil it, but I will tell you this. It's about what survives and what couldn't be erased by Arvin Shreve and his lieutenants. Those evil designs, the people who wanted the last word. They demanded silence, but they didn't get it. If you're a survivor of abuse, I hope this episode offers hope. If you need help, reach out immediately. If you or someone you know is experiencing sexual violence, contact the Rape, Abuse and incest National Network RAINN. That's R A I N N.org or call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE. Services are free, confidential and available 24 7. This episode of Gardens of Evil, Inside the Zion Society Cult was written, narrated and audio produced by me, Mike King, based on the book Deceived, an investigative memoir of the Zion Society Cult. I hope you'll check out my weekly podcast, Profiling Evil, wherever you get your podcasts. And I'd like to thank Aaron Mason, who narrated the earlier episodes of Gardens Evil. I'd like each of you to know that I'm donating all of my proceeds from book sales and this podcast to fund child advocacy efforts and criminal justice scholarships. Executive producers are John Goforth and Jeremy Sinan. Gardens of Evil is a production of the Gamut Podcast Network.