Episode 594: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part I - Dorp on Devil

Summary

Summary of "Last Podcast on the Left" Episode 594: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part I - Dorp on Devil

Introduction

In Episode 594 of Last Podcast on the Left, titled "The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part I - Dorp on Devil," hosts Marcus Parks, Henry Zabrowski, and Ed Larson delve into a chilling true crime story from the South African mining town of Krugersdorp. This episode explores the formation and actions of the cult Electus Perdus and its leader, Cecilia Stain, who orchestrated a series of brutal murders under the guise of combating Satanism.

Background: Krugersdorp and the Satanic Panic

Krugersdorp, a mining community in South Africa, became the backdrop for a terrifying series of murders between 2012 and 2016. The local cult, Electus Perdus ("Chosen by God"), led by Cecilia Stain, murdered 11 individuals, presenting themselves as defenders against Satanic influences. Initially, the police viewed these killings as two separate incidents: the Satanic Killings and the Appointment Murders, unaware they were committed by the same group.

Cecilia Stain: The Cult Leader

Cecilia Stain emerged as the enigmatic leader of Electus Perdus. Claiming to be a survivor of satanic ritual abuse with a bloodline tracing back to Pharaoh Ramses II, Cecilia captivated a devout group of Christians caught in South Africa's own version of the Satanic panic. Her charisma and elaborate backstory enabled her to manipulate her followers into committing heinous acts.

Ed Larson [07:25]: "We know where they like to be. You can see they get their big shoes on, big pants on. They're just gripping, they're playing with... you know."

The Satanic Panic in South Africa

Unlike the relatively brief Satanic panic in the United States, South Africa's version was deeply intertwined with the country's tumultuous history of apartheid. The end of apartheid in 1994 left the white Afrikaner population anxious about their societal status, leading to heightened fears of Marxism and Satanism infiltrating their communities. Reverend David Nell, a prominent Satan hunter, amplified these fears, claiming that a significant portion of the population was involved in satanic activities.

Marcus Parks [26:09]: "One of the most prominent Satan hunters... He insisted that there were 200,000 South Africans who were members of a satanic group called the Brotherhood of the Ram..."

Formation of Overcomers Through Christ

Rhea Grunwald, a devout Christian and financial advisor, founded Overcomers Through Christ, an organization aimed at combating perceived satanic influences in schools and churches. Through seminars and "enrichment weeks," Rhea educated students and community members on identifying and resisting occult practices. Her organization became the foundation upon which Cecilia Stain built her cult.

Henry Zabrowski [55:04]: "Don't they understand that on our holidays we relax? Yeah, this is not the time. We don't party on Walpurgisnacht. We don't do rituals on Walpurgisnacht. That's our work."

Manipulative Tactics and the Orchestrated Murders

Cecilia's manipulation extended beyond charismatic leadership. She fabricated elaborate tales of satanic conspiracies, convincing her followers that they were part of a divine mission to eradicate evil. By leveraging their deep-seated fears and religious convictions, Cecilia directed her followers to commit murders, disguised as assaults against Satanism.

Marcus Parks [08:17]: "But while Mike Warnke told a bunch of stories about being a satanic high priest for money and attention, Cecilia's game was far more insidious."

Connecting the Murders

The Satanic Killings were characterized by extreme violence, with victims subjected to multiple stab wounds and gruesome mutilations. In contrast, the Appointment Murders involved targeted killings of businesspeople, motivated by robbery. Initially seen as separate, these murder clusters were later linked through investigations that revealed a common cult affiliation.

Marcus Parks [11:12]: "They were all extremely different."

Law Enforcement and Cultistic Influence

South African law enforcement, marred by corruption, struggled to connect the murders initially. Cecilia's marriage to a police officer provided her with protection, delaying her arrest for years. The intertwining of religious fervor and cult influence made it difficult for authorities to disentangle the true motives behind the killings.

Henry Zabrowski [12:25]: "Ah, yeah. That's why my mom got away with all her crimes."

Conclusion

Part I of the Krugersdorp Cult Murders podcast sets the stage for a complex exploration of how religious fanaticism, societal fears, and charismatic manipulation culminated in a series of brutal killings. Cecilia Stain's ability to harness the local Satanic panic to justify her actions underscores the dangers of unchecked cult leadership. The episode highlights the intricate dynamics between belief systems and criminal behavior, leaving listeners eager for the continuation in Part II.

Notable Quotes

• Ed Larson [07:25]: "We know where they like to be. You can see they get their big shoes on, big pants on. They're just gripping, they're playing with... you know."

• Marcus Parks [26:09]: "One of the most prominent Satan hunters... He insisted that there were 200,000 South Africans who were members of a satanic group called the Brotherhood of the Ram..."

• Henry Zabrowski [55:04]: "Don't they understand that on our holidays we relax? Yeah, this is not the time. We don't party on Walpurgisnacht. We don't do rituals on Walpurgisnacht. That's our work."

• Marcus Parks [08:17]: "But while Mike Warnke told a bunch of stories about being a satanic high priest for money and attention, Cecilia's game was far more insidious."

Upcoming in Part II

The episode concludes by teasing the escalation of Cecilia Stain's manipulative schemes and the continued unraveling of Electus Perdus. Listeners can anticipate a deeper dive into the cult's activities, the final murders, and the eventual exposure of Cecilia's true motives and methods.

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Note: This summary intentionally omits humorous and non-content sections from the transcript to focus solely on the core narrative of the Krugersdorp Cult Murders as discussed in the podcast.

Transcript

[Marcus Parks]

Why get all your holiday decorations delivered through Instacart? Because maybe you only bought two wreaths but have 12 windows. Or maybe your toddler got very eager with the Advent calendar.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Or maybe the inflatable snowman didn't make it through the snowstorm.

[Marcus Parks]

Or maybe the twinkle lights aren't twinkling. Whatever the reason, this season Instacart's here for hosts in their whole holiday haul. Get decorations from the Home Depot, CVS and more through Instacart and enjoy free delivery on your first three orders. Service fees and terms apply.

[Ed Larson]

There's no place to escape to. This is the last on the left.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's when the cannibalism started. What was that? I think there are a lot of true crime like podcasts and edutainment podcasts. They spend so long just like Roast. And these guys, never once they said the thing about just asking, like, yourself, like, what's good about the criminal? And in this one, straight up, it's the hairstyles, I was going to say, not the hair.

[Marcus Parks]

The hair is. The hair is terrible.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I think the hair, much like Josef Fritzel, is largely her greatest attribute because it gives her a thing. It gives her. You would know Carrot Top if you didn't have the hair. You would. Muscles. No, that's later on. Later on, Freckles. Later on, the Carrot Top comes first. It's in the name. Carrot Top. Redhead. What are you expecting, red hair? His hair goes above and beyond the red that you're even expecting. Selling a Persona. It comes down to packaging. Santa Claus. What is he without the beard? He's just a fat guy from Nova Scotia.

[Marcus Parks]

Welcome to the last podcast on the left. Ladies and gentlemen, My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with the hair obsessed, Henry Zabrowski.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, I am just looking on the positive. I'm glass half full Henry Zabrowski. Oh, wow.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, this woven press.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, this is. You know what? It partially is that I'm trying to begin the rehab of my personality so that I can join a church undercover and slowly but surely flip it from the inside to my own church and then get that church to go kill the other church.

[Marcus Parks]

And we're here with the fair and balanced as always, Ed Larson.

[Ed Larson]

That's right, I am Axe Ass half full.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You gotta empty it. Or guess what if not, if you do feel a constant fullness in your butthole, that's a sign of colon cancer.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, I just got my test back. I'm good.

[Marcus Parks]

Damn good.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I'm good.

[Ed Larson]

No cc over here, baby.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Ed Larson]

I tell you what, though? I'm excited to get to Europe this weekend with you guys.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, man, this is gonna be great. Wait, dude, we can't wait to do our shows in London. They are coming up soon. We got a couple more tickets left in our second show. Go check it out. And Raikovic, get your ass to the show. We'll see you there very, very soon.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, God, I'm so pumped to those evil bastards.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, today we're not talking about Europe. Today we're talking about South Africa. Africa for the Kruger's Dorp cult murders. Yay. Yeah, we're back to cults. Been forever since we've done a cult.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's been really long time. And we were looking for a suitably spooky topic for the end of October because we always kind of go back and forth. Last year we did. We did Madame LaLaurie, which turned about to be, like, spookier in, like, a human pain over time. She was cute.

[Marcus Parks]

No, opposite.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Opposite.

[Ed Larson]

Am I not remembering it correctly?

[Henry Zabrowski]

You might have some fuzzy memory. You know, we've covered some. We did a lot of spooky this year. And so we're like, well, what do we want to do? It's like, it's been so long since we found a good spooky cult. And I will say this is one of those times when the booze and all the weed I consume really helps.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because I was just looking on through dang Amazon prime and I saw the word devils dorp. As soon as I saw the word devil's Dorp, I thought it was going to be something like a famous comedian on his knees with his shoes on his knees. Like, he's got the short legs, and he's playing like an evil version of a tiny devil. Yes, that's what I thought. That is legitimately what I thought.

[Marcus Parks]

I thought Devil's Dorp was like a murderous gnome.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's what I mean. That's. I ser. It called to me. And then when I clicked upon it, I realized, oh, this is one of the more compelling stories I have heard in a minute. And it's a cult, and it's involved in Satanism, and it allows me to come in and defend Satan from idiots.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, see, What? I made a mistake. I researched the battle at Kruger, which is just a blast, you know, like.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Is it?

[Ed Larson]

Oh, yeah. Have you never watched the Battle of Kruger?

[Henry Zabrowski]

No.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, my God. Do yourself a favor. Google Battle of Kruger. It's a bunch of lions versus wildebeest, and a crocodile jumps.

[Marcus Parks]

I was gonna. I was gonna Ask, is this an animal war?

[Henry Zabrowski]

I know exactly what this is. It is an animal animal war.

[Ed Larson]

It's tigers versus crocodiles, lions versus crocodiles and wildebeest. The wildebeests, spoiler alert. Do pretty good.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, guess what? The wildebeest in this story do pretty well as well. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Will the beast murder a bunch of people? We'll find out today.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No. Christ himself.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Ed Larson]

Rock and roll, man. Jesus fucking kills, man.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. This is the only fucking series we've ever done where Jesus fucking really killed.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, man.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, the Krugersdorp cult murders were a fascinating set of killings that occurred between 2012 and 2016 in the titular South African mining community of Krugersdorp.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Do you know that means Kruger's town.

[Marcus Parks]

Dorp is town.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yep.

[Marcus Parks]

So Devil's Dorp would be Devil's town.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's why it's cool.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, they were living in a devil town. Didn't know it was a devil town.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It was made a devil's town against their will.

[Ed Larson]

The two of us. This dorp's too small for the two of us.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Okay, devil, you can have it then. I'm going back to heaven.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, in Krugersdorp, a small boutique cult of Christians called electus Perdus murdered 11 people in the name of God. Is a high body count cult.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's. It is this story. I am so surprised that it did not get the play. That place that things like Snowtown did, where Snowtown is a much more convoluted story with a smaller body count. Like, you know, that doesn't make it necessarily a. A better or worse thing, but it's just crazy with, with this where like these idiots killed a lot of people.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, they really did. Well, their leader was a self styled satanic ritual abuse survivor named Cecilia Stain.

[Henry Zabrowski]

She definitely was self styled because you can't pay for that hairstyle.

[Marcus Parks]

She claimed she was a part of a satanic witch bloodline that went back 42 generations to Pharaoh Ramses II. She had however, escaped and claimed to be battling the very same groups to which she had once belonged. By claiming that she had escaped her coven, she was able to convince a group of Christians who were caught up in South Africa, Africa's satanic panic, that every outlandish claim she made, which rival even Mike Warnke's craziest lies, was the gospel truth.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I actually think it goes steps even farther than Mike Warnke's craziest lies.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, it's far beyond because Mike Warnke.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I mean mostly he was doing it for the lulz, right? He was doing for the content. He was doing his money and to sell books. But this lady, like, talk about, I like to fashion myself a performer, right? Like a real actor, an actor's actor. I believe all the world's a stage. And like, honestly, one of my favorite stages is my bedroom. But largely that's a different. That's a performance I put on for the benefit of my family and my friends. And everyone loves it. And everyone loves it. Natalie loves it, everybody loves it. But this woman never stopped performing. No, this woman never gave up the ghost once. And that I even give her points above Alex Jones.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

And even you don't do your own special effects.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, no, no. I hire out.

[Marcus Parks]

But while Mike Warnke told a bunch of stories about being a satanic high priest for money and attention, Cecilia's game was far more insidious. Cecilia was all about seeing what she could make people do. As such, her stories inspired 11 murders that were cleverly disguised as volleys against the scourge of Satanism in South Africa.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Unbelievable. You believable.

[Ed Larson]

You think the South Africans need Satan?

[Henry Zabrowski]

I mean, yeah, desperately. I know so many people walking around that need Satan. I see him. If I see you with an umb, with a button down shirt on, with the button up to the collar. Y'all need Satan. Yeah, or golf shirts. Oh God, wicking. I talked about wicking. I hate wicking. Wicking's lying. Wicking is lying. God. Our bodies sweat. Our bodies were made, my guy, out of sweat. How dare you use your science made fabric to wick away my well earned juice.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Cecilia was able to convince one group of Christians that another group of Christians were actually a part of a satanic church and therefore needed to die.

[Ed Larson]

See, that makes her likable.

[Marcus Parks]

In some ways.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I, like, how do you say it? I'm not happy with the result, but I don't have problems with the tactics.

[Marcus Parks]

But once the blade was wet, Cecilia was then able to convince her followers to kill pretty much anyone she wanted, all to serve the phony cause of her cult, Electus per Dayus, which means chosen by God.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Would you not say that their motives, and her motives especially are some of the more mysterious motives?

[Marcus Parks]

Very much so.

[Henry Zabrowski]

In any cult we've covered, like this is. This is someone that arrived much kind of like how like Anders. Like Anders Breivik went against it, committed a one man war against the world that didn't know war was coming. And then he claimed himself victor over a war that he started and then ended himself. This lady kind of seems to have the same energy where she declared war on a group of people that had no idea that they were inviting this into their lives. She just kind of rolled in as a true, like true chaos agent. We were calling her Lady Charles Manson for a reason.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes. See the Krugersdorp cult murders were originally considered by police to be two entirely different sets of murders. Before authorities knew about the existence of Electus Perdus, they believed they had a set of murders called the Satanic Killings and another set committed years later called the Appointment Murders. Two clusters of murders. No one had any idea that all of these murders were committed by the same people. And when you glanced at the cases, there was no reason to link them. Even if you truly studied these cases, there was no reason to link all these murders together.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They were all extremely different.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, the Satanic Killings were a series of brutal murders that rivaled the Manson family. I'm talking like dozens upon dozens of stab wounds, blood on the ceiling, Horrific shit.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, Vicious, vicious murders.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But the Appointment Killings involved business people who would show up to appointments only to be murdered and robbed and then.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Very neatly dispose of, quote, unquote, dispose of. They were cut up, put into bags and then they were robbed. It definitely felt like they were looking for money.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Now were those all locals or were there people from out of town?

[Marcus Parks]

All locals. All these people, these are all Krugers Dorp locals.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And the one thing about Kruger's Dorp is as we'll get into it, it's a very small town and everybody knew everybody.

[Marcus Parks]

So it was like about 120, 130,000 people. It's not, it's about the size of Abilene, Texas.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. So a lot of people knew each other. So it was a very close knit community for it to kind of jump in murders out of nowhere. This is a place that has maybe two murder year.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And jumping murders twice, like two different sets of them. But once the people in the Appointment Murders were identified, their role in the Satanic Killings was quickly discovered. It was also ascertained that Cecilia Stain probably would have been arrested years before had it not been for the fact that she was married to a cop.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Ah, yeah. That's why my mom got away with all her crimes.

[Ed Larson]

Well, the South African police are very, are notoriously corrupt.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And we're going to see that.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, they sell their, the, you know, they sell the lights on top of their car to criminals so they could pull people over and assault them or rob them. You know, they sell their uniforms to groups of people who like you wear them and like fucking just rob jewelry stores and shit like that in the middle of the day. It's a very corrupt society. That's why they rely on private security and private police forces.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But in a way, isn't it almost more honest? Because then things can be bought and paid for. You know what I mean? And it's not all held together by nebulous ideas of duty and jurisprudence and being a good person.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, ironically, I think it is kind of a truly Satanist society.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, in that way. In that way. But Satanism does not believe in hurting people that have not hurt you first.

[Marcus Parks]

That is true. You've been to South Africa, haven't you?

[Ed Larson]

I got the shirt.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's not just a shirt. He bought it by Amazon.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, no, I was. I did the International Comedy Festival in Johannesburg and I was there for 10 days. It was unbelievable. I went to Soweto twice. It was a life changing experience. I got to go on safari and it's a beautiful place, but actually the Johannesburg has a great comedy scene.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I also gotta say, it's really amazing that they let you leave the safari.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You fucking piece of shit. I fucking nailed your ass.

[Ed Larson]

What animal was I.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The nude buffalo.

[Marcus Parks]

I was gonna say warthog, something like that.

[Ed Larson]

Was one thing I noticed, though, warthog was my favorite animal on the entire because I noticed that they party with all the animals. Every time I saw a warthog, it was with another animal.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This is anthropocention. I think they're partying.

[Marcus Parks]

And that's the thing, man, I didn't even know that. That was my instinct. I was just like, what animal? Warthog, Definitely warthog.

[Ed Larson]

I got Pumbaa energy.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, it's all in the tits.

[Marcus Parks]

But before we get into this fascinating and complex story, let's acknowledge our sources. First, we've got the Krugersdorp Cult Killings by Jana Marx, which, while dense, is still a hell of a retelling with of detail. The other is Satanism and Family Murder in Late Apartheid South Africa by Nikki Falkoff, which is.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Despite the title, it's pretty funny.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. That provided us with a lot of the information we have on South Africa's Satanic panic. And speaking of which, this is not going to be an apartheid series.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, no, no, no. We're not yet at that point.

[Marcus Parks]

No.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Let me tell you how it all happened.

[Marcus Parks]

All right? I mean, apartheid certainly will appear at the ed this story, particularly the Satanic Panic, and particularly because apartheid informs damn near everything in South Africa to this day, that's not what we're here for. And I'm sure there are a hundred other podcasts that can explore apartheid far better than we can.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Have you seen that? My Tongue's apartheid. It's got. It's. It's great, great, great podcast with. With some guy. Some other guy in the H. To a girl. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Today's cult leader, Cecilia Stain, was a up who had a pathological need for attention and approval. As you said earlier, this is a true agent of chaos. As far as her appearance goes, I describe her as a surly, balding, truck stop gas station cashier with short, spiky hair, black hair.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You want pack of menthols? Oh, no, you fucking pussy. No. This is the thing. I'm going to have to work out her voice because it definitely is.

[Marcus Parks]

I like the direction you're in, and I.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Lady Charles Manson. That is for certain. And because. Because South African, it's very difficult. And there's so many different arrays. South African accent, too. Like all the. It kind of all sounds like they're from different sections of the world. And then also like all of the documentary footage. Great documentary series. Devil's Dorp, they'll watch. But it really kind of puts it all together. Then you use like, English phrases randomly.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

And there's different languages spoken all throughout South Africa. There's many. There's many different dialects of Zulu and all that. It's very confusing.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Now, I think that if it hadn't been Satanism, Cecilia would have found something else as a framework to manipulate people into doing her bidding, because that really was her game. In fact, like Charles Manson, Cecilia never participated in a single murder.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And especially for somebody like her, the fact that she sort of got away with not doing any of the dirty work really kind of shows. She actually was more of a. A higher caliber manipulator than Charles Manson.

[Ed Larson]

A producer.

[Henry Zabrowski]

She's a real producer.

[Marcus Parks]

But just as Manson was able to plug into the darker zeitgeist of the late 60s to gain control over his followers, Cecilia was able to amplify South Africa's satanic panic to such an extent that her followers were willing to commit murder to fight the scourge of Satanism solely based off Cecilia's word. See, while America's Satanic panic died down in the 90s and returned only recently with QAnon.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, it's because we love reboots.

[Marcus Parks]

South Africa's satanic panic never really settled the way ours did there. It actually established itself within their Government in formal roles.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It was extremely serious.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Now, South Africa's satanic panic coincided with the later years of apartheid, which ended in 1994. In short, apartheid was an extreme form of segregation and discrimination so egregious that it's now considered a crime against humanity. But when you look at it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

So we're against it. I just want to make sure that we got that on the record.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, we're all against. We're with all the musicians.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I don't like it. I don't like it. And apart Tied My Shoes the Wrong Way was also a really inappropriate comedic podcast about apartheid that I really. Again, I didn't even know how there's humor in this situation at all.

[Marcus Parks]

But when you look at apartheid from the satanic panic angle, the end of apartheid was a time of extreme anxiety for the white Afrikaner population of South Africa. And just as we've seen here with QAnon and Maga, some white people tend to lean into some really crazy shit when they get nervous about their station in society.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's almost like it's like some kind of social madness.

[Marcus Parks]

It is.

[Henry Zabrowski]

There's, like, a thing about, like. Because even this. Because apartheid wasn't. Wasn't it called, like, not a majority? It was like it was a minority.

[Marcus Parks]

It was minority rule.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It was minority rules.

[Marcus Parks]

So the.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The idea is that they are all, like, kind of clinging to some idea that we are supposed to be in charge of everyone here.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, basically, they have a certain worldview. And when that worldview is shaken to such an extent that their entire. The way they look at the world has to change, everything about reality for them gets shaken as well.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Becomes unmoored.

[Marcus Parks]

Everything becomes unmoored. And if somebody has a crazy fucking explanation as to why things are suddenly unmoored, then people latch onto it. We saw it in America when we elected a black president and people lost their fucking minds because having a black man in charge of them or having a black man in the top spot was so offensive. It was so crazy. Like, not just even offensive.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It was just living an upside down.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Like, literally, he was the most Republican president we've had. And they were so angry. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

But that's why I voted for bin Laden.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey. Hey. I keep writing it in. I stole my neighbor's ballots. I wrote it in. I stole my other neighbor's ballots. I wrote them in. I'm looking for him to get his third shot.

[Marcus Parks]

But here's the thing that's interesting about the South African satanic panic. While you think they'd focus on the African population. You know, the people that were pushing the change that was turning the world upside down. All of the so called Satanists that were kidnapping and eating South African babies, these were coming from the white Afrikaner community. This was actually another form of racism and another consequence of apartheid. See, black Africans in South Africa did indeed perform what you'd call magic. For lack of a better word. For lack of a better word. Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And it was their culture.

[Ed Larson]

Yes. Like in New Orleans or Haiti.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But to be worried about that magic would mean that white Afrikaners would have to acknowledge black Africa, which was something they couldn't do because apartheid would not let them acknowledge the segregated population. So they had to be afraid about something. But since they couldn't be afraid of the black population because they believe themselves to be above the black population, like.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Their magic couldn't fuck with our white power.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, exactly. Their magic can't fuck with our white power. But I'm still afraid. So I've got to find somebody to be afraid of. But I've got to be afraid of somebody on my level.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I need some white black magic.

[Marcus Parks]

Instead. The South African satanic panic was rooted in the same stupid bullshit as ours. Ghostbusters, Ninja Turtles, Iron Maidens, Dungeons and Dragons, rebellions, drugs, sex, horoscopes. In other words, it's all shit that just comes from America or England.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's all how all of the like. I guess that's one of the worst parts about this story and about satanic panics across the world is that it's buried in ignorance. It's like comes out of this soil of not knowing what in the living fuck that you're talking about.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And it's also wildly specific in ways that should immediately show you that what they're talking about is horseshit. There was a guy named Tian Guildenhoise that was. He ran a thing called Spiritual House Cleaning which took over South Africa for a period of time. And it was this like, concept. It was like this. It was stuff like showing the evil symbolism inside of Spider Man's web.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

On his chest. And how the lightning bolt is the devil signal. So. Which is why Harry Potter is the literal, like embodiment of the devil. Sort of like charming your child into getting them involved in their story.

[Ed Larson]

Don't give him that kind of credit.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Exactly. This is what I'm talking about. From your grave.

[Ed Larson]

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[Henry Zabrowski]

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[Marcus Parks]

Of the most prominent Satan hunters for that was what they were called, was a reverend named David Nell. He insisted that there were 200,000 South Africans who were members of a satanic group called the brotherhood of the ram, which made Satanists, in his view, a full 10% of South Africa's white population.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Technically, you should be courting their vote.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Why are we attacking a voting bl they need to be engaged with?

[Marcus Parks]

But even with those numbers, South Africa's satanic panic started out small. In 1985, a group of female students at a conservative university refused to sell a student magazine on the basis that it promoted Satanism. Apparently the magazine had two very scary pictures. One of a goat peeking over a fence with human hands.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Cool.

[Marcus Parks]

And another featuring a human kitty cat hybrid face. These pictures, the girl said were satanic and therefore should not be associated with the university. And a massive controversy occurred.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Meanwhile, there's just like a poor stupid fucking artist. It's like my problem is I can't draw hooves. I wish I could. I would have made the whole goat. I wish. Please tell me how to make hooves and why you don't make them look like little lions.

[Ed Larson]

Is that a goat with human hands? It's a human with a goat head.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I didn't know how to do it. I'm just a bit dumb. I'm a bit topsy turvy.

[Marcus Parks]

That same year, however, shit ramped up when a 16 year old girl was arrested for killing her mother and brother before shooting at her father. She just kind of went crazy. An unnamed source told the press that a satanic cult was responsible. And that of course created a lot of speculation.

[Henry Zabrowski]

What's great about a satanic cult is that number one to blame is that number one, it doesn't exist. Right, so then the cops can sort of make up the evidence that exists based upon the most scanty pieces where like they could say like, oh, they had a black shirt, oh, they had an upside down cross earring that they wore. But what's Great about them is that it gives them an explanation of why these things happen that they don't have to think, they don't have to think, they don't have to investigate. It's a really good, easy escape for police and for people to say, oh, it's satanic activity. Because then they get a bunch of money, as you can see. They get a bunch of money shows up, and they also get total impunity. And they get to be warriors for Christ, which makes it a better story for them to try to get a blowjob from a man at a bar.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, after that, after that killing, the Department of Education launched an investigation into Satanist movements in schools. And this is what I'm talking about when I say South Africa's panic was more intense than ours. Yes, many people here did go to jail and many did have their lives ruined over bogus claims of satanic ritual abuse. But there was no overarching investigation in which cabinet officials were seriously believing that our country was teetering on the edge of full Satanic influence. But make no mistake, this shit could still happen here.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, it's in the mail.

[Marcus Parks]

It's in the mail. Show up in November. Yeah, we're counting on all of you to show up in November because this shit could absolutely happen here.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I actually think real change will happen in this country once they ban porn. I mean, it. I feel like it's the only. It's like once Miami's gone, once Miami's in the water and once. I'm sorry, but once Miami's finally taken back by Neptune and once porn is banned, then people might realize that once.

[Ed Larson]

We can finally replace the Miami Dolphins with actual Dolphins, the world will be a better place.

[Henry Zabrowski]

So now you want. You really want the NFL's training regimen to be put upon the Dolphins, and then you want the Dolphins to get cte. Because you know what's going to happen is then we're going to the very first dolphin family annihilation, where the father dolphin's gonna come back, strangle the pond, and then kill himself with the training rig that they have in his underwater training area.

[Ed Larson]

It's already happened.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, the investigation came after clergymen called on the government to appoint an inquiry into a supposed epidemic of Satanism on the playgrounds of South Africa. Around that same time, South Africa launched what's said to be the world's only ritual murder task force, the Occult Related Crimes Unit. Now, we've had individuals in American law enforcement that have called themselves experts on the occult, but we've Never had an official unit whose only job was to battle Satan's minions on earth. South Africa did.

[Ed Larson]

Those are like priest cops.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, well, they were cops imbued with the duty of priests to fight on behalf of the state against the spiritual deviants. Which is a big main stripe of the apartheid movement, which is this idea that we are going to stomp out any form of anti Christian thought. Any form of would be a spectrum of atheism.

[Marcus Parks]

Apartheid was also very against Marxism. They were very afraid of Marxism, you know, communism, Communism and all that they were terrified of.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And a tenet of communism is atheism or the idea that we're having an atheist government. And so they would fight that tooth and nail. And again, these things are. Are the thing about when Satan comes into play, which I know all too well, is that things get a little sexy, things get a little bit spicier, the heroes become a little bit braver, the villains become a little bit more nefarious. So what these guys do is that like all of this just boosts their power, which also boosts their ability to not be questioned in the use of their power.

[Ed Larson]

And who do the occult cops report to? The government or the government they're part of.

[Marcus Parks]

Like, it would be like if the FBI had an occult crimes division, but.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That was before we've had local police had occult crimes. There were occult crimes divisions.

[Marcus Parks]

It's like individual guys. Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes, but not from the Pentagon.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Well, the most high profile cult cop was a man named Cobus Yonker, also known as Donker Junker. Which means in Afrikaans, means a dark yonker. Donker is dark. But from here on out, he will be known as Dunker Young.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, Dunker Younger. Man, I saw a couple of these, and these are. I've heard a lot of women don't necessarily need a dunker Darth Yonker.

[Marcus Parks]

In the media, cops like Donker Junker were portrayed as Rambo esque saviors who policed South Africa's national borders both physically and metaphorically to ensure, quote, unquote, collective purity. Now, by 1990, Dunker Junker had enough cred to push concerns that on April 30, the Satanic High holiday of Walpurgisnacht.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Walpurgisnacht.

[Marcus Parks]

Walpurgisnacht was gonna kick off in the most horrific way possible with a massive amount of sacrifices all over the country.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And that's right. Satanists do sacrifice. We sacrifice every day for the freedom of speech in the United States of America. We sacrifice. We sacrifice our mouths in trying Various unnamed Asian markets slash restaurants that look kind of sketch, but, you know, using the imperial empirical vision of the lamplight of knowledge, that I could see that there's no white people in the restaurant. That means it's good.

[Marcus Parks]

Specifically, Donker Yonker said that babies were the most popular targets for sacrifice. So anyone with a baby or a child needed to be very afraid.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Of course, you're just sitting there.

[Marcus Parks]

Donker Yonker also said that he was following a number of leads indicating the location of a satanic cult. Leads that included, but were not limited to a cat that had been sodomized.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Man, these people. Dude, you think that we're going to that kind of man, we. Awesome. Good. The human kind, all right. Not the kind of one that's going to fight back with all four of its little limbs or the butts.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Wow.

[Ed Larson]

If it was.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

If it was a lion, you know, I would have been more impressed.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Anton La would have never. No, lions was his pet that was the most powerful animal in the Satanist. According to him, it was that and the bull and the most powerful animals in the Satanic lexic.

[Ed Larson]

Not the goat?

[Henry Zabrowski]

No.

[Ed Larson]

I thought the goat was the shit.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's. Goat is of baphomet. But technically that whole thing is a symbol of balance, not necessarily a symbol of power.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. If you want to see. If you want to see something really fun, look up the. The interview that Anton lavey did with his lawyer when his lion was taken away.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's very sad. I will say his abuse of the lion is probably the worst thing that he did.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes. Now, according to Donker Yonker sources, how.

[Ed Larson]

Many more times you're going to say Donker Yonkers?

[Marcus Parks]

As many as I can.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The Fritzl voice. I cannot use it for Donker Yonker.

[Marcus Parks]

Actually, I think that might be the last Donker Yonker.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Woo.

[Marcus Parks]

There might be one more.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I actually really like peanut butter. Dunker Yonkers.

[Marcus Parks]

But according to its sources, young people were being lured into Satanism at an alarming rate. But only after they were drugged, forced into demeaning sexual performances and photographed, all to keep them in the COVID Blackmail.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Wait a second. Was that my fucking Saturday Night Live audition?

[Marcus Parks]

Now, Volpurgis knock came and went without incident that year, as it always does. But less than a month later, the head of Cape Town's Child Protection Unit, Captain Leonard Solmes, gave a press conference where he revealed his quote unquote findings from his own investigation into Satanism. He said that he had it on good authority that 11 babies who had been specifically bred for sacrifice to the devil have been ritualistically murdered by having their throats slit and their hearts eating.

[Ed Larson]

He should have picked 13. It's a more demonic number.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Thank you, Eddie.

[Marcus Parks]

This was all seen over by a group of Satanists who were also high ranking members of the government in South Africa's capital, Cape Town, which is a storyline that Americans are quite familiar with. By way of QAnon conspiracies, the elites are killing and eating babies.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But I do find it interesting is that why would the government that has sponsored an entire like part of the reason why we have the ever lingering idea that there are a giant pedophile cabal inside of our US government run by Satanists is the fact that we didn't ever have a national like federal investigation into it. That's one of the things they hold there. Like you see, it's because they're protecting each other. How do you manage to convince yourself that the government's involved in the satanic cabal when they have purposely set up the federal investigative unit to look into satanic crimes?

[Marcus Parks]

No, but this is the local Cape Town government and he's outside of that.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He's saying, oh yeah, yeah, no, sheriff is the devil. Sheriff is the devil. Yeah, the guy, the head of the hoa.

[Marcus Parks]

If there is a devil, it's the mayor of Cape Town. He's the one that's evil. But besides the baby killing, these high ranking officials also allegedly engaged in bestiality, animal cruelty, mass orgies, drug taking, secrecy and threats of death for disloyalty. And while there was no evidence for any of this, not even an empty fucking bottle of lube, Captain Solms assured everyone present at this press conference that everything was true because he'd been told it was true by Satanists. And I'll also people on the inside, it doesn't matter.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But also, I don't understand where it's like, I mean again we're trying to apply logic. Yeah, but the Satanists are the arbitrators of all lies, right? They're the guys that, the masters of deceit.

[Marcus Parks]

Unless they are telling you something that you want to hear. That is that, that's the thing that I have noticed about these people is that Satanists are always liars unless they're telling you the story you want to hear.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And then they're telling the absolute truth.

[Marcus Parks]

And they're telling the truth.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But it's also kind of funny because they are also so like, because you could see much how like prisoners or like serial killers lie while they're in jail in order to make themselves appear more powerful so they can either get more respect or be safer inside of prison that these Satanists, they, it seems like they would be lying to make themselves to appear more powerful.

[Ed Larson]

So what, was he just hanging out with Satanists then? Relying, because then now he's suspect.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Why are they allowed to hang out?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, it's always Satanists who are coming over to our side. They're coming over to our side and they're telling us the truth and they're telling. They want to get these horrible crimes off their chest and oh my God. Yeah, they were here. We did sacrifice everything, but I guess they cleaned it all up. It's all gone now. But we were here last night sacrificing babies. But oh, that is the power of Satan. The power of Satanists are so powerful that they can clean up the fucking ritual murder of 11 babies in one night.

[Henry Zabrowski]

There's not one mom looking for.

[Marcus Parks]

No, there's never one mom looking for.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And you can and thank me, I'm Jackson and I'm the Satanist janitor because I always clean it up nice and good. I get my big stanky mop and I get my evil bucket and I'm always picking up little baby parts, licking that little blood. Look at the little baby penises. And I go, oh, I wish I could dine on that. But I know that that's for the devil. I do it real fast.

[Ed Larson]

You getting close to retirement?

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, no, no, no, no. Bound to this by my sins of my free, my previous life.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, those same Satanists only made things worse by giving supposed interviews to bolster their claims. Because these people are also attention seekers. The same month as the baby eating press conference, a man dubbed Peter the Satanist by the press gave an interview in which he said he ate a human heart.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And I'll tell you right, it wasn't that good.

[Ed Larson]

Barely had any salt.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Kind of underwhelmed in many ways, just kind of whelmed.

[Marcus Parks]

Weeks later in that same magazine, Peter the Satanist claimed that he'd found Jesus through the preaching of Pastor Neville Goldman, who just happened to be this magazine's favorite anti Satanist crusader. The former Satanist also said that he returned to Christianity after realizing his devil worship sleeping was affecting his son.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes, one day. Yes, one day I came home and I found my son sitting in his bedroom with a girl with visible nipple rings wearing a leather harness. And they were. I can't believe it. He was practicing bass for his death Metal band. And he said he was going that night out to hang out with his friends at the Denny's and then take this beautiful woman to his concert. I just couldn't stand to see what had become of him.

[Marcus Parks]

Now when Walpurgis Nacht rolled around the next year, the media created an even larger panic by making sure to note that two high profile South African child abduction cases had occurred just before dates that were important to Satanists. So called high holidays like Samhain and Halloween. Halloween. As a result of this panic, some schools were completely emptied by April 24 because parents were so afraid Satanists were going to abduct their children. And police departments were inundated with rumors of abductions and reports of Satanists hanging out at the mall.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No.

[Ed Larson]

Not Spencer.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The original home of the dark arts Spencers.

[Marcus Parks]

No, actually, if you were to ask me like in, in the 1990s, like where, where are the Satanists at the. They're hanging out at the mall.

[Ed Larson]

Very much so.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They're at the Orange Lazarus. Like they are for certain all hanging out because you can see they get their big shoes on, big pants on. They're, they're just griping, they're, they're playing with the like, you know, like sometimes some, some male have the things you could drive around, like little carts. Little carts, yeah. They're fucking Larry. They're getting jinkos. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Outside the movie theater, they're hanging out outside the yogurt shop. We know where they like to be.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh yeah, we used to always hang out near the fountain. The water fountain is always a good place to hang out at the mall.

[Ed Larson]

And let it run red with blood.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You never met the 29 year old Satanist manager of a Hot Topic. Just vaping outside, just going, whatever.

[Marcus Parks]

And the thing is, he's dangerous, but not in the way you might think. He definitely shouldn't be someone you let your daughter hang around.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh yeah, he's going to come inside your daughter. Yeah, yeah. You're looking at a son in law.

[Marcus Parks]

Now there was a rash of schoolgirl disappearances, but they had nothing to do with Satan. Instead, the schoolgirls have been kidnapped and killed by a pedophile named Gert Van Ruyen who murdered at least six girls with a female accomplice before dying in a murder suit. Suicide. Now that's of course terrible. And there is some evidence to suggest that Gert Van Ruyen may have been involved in a pedophile ring. And pedophile rings absolutely exist as well.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Honestly, it was kind of more of like a Circle. We were just hanging out in a way. It was more of a. If you look at the positions we were all in, it was kind of more of a trapezoid.

[Marcus Parks]

But there was no evidence that Gert Van Rooyen was doing what he did for any motivation other than his own twisted sexual desires.

[Henry Zabrowski]

As a matter of fact, I could consider myself more of a Taylor Swift Crypt fan than anything else. That is how I identify.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. I don't know how. I don't know how many times we have to say this, but when you find out the music tastes of serial killers or murderers, it's always the blandest on the face of the planet.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And like prog rock and weird, like the only.

[Marcus Parks]

The only one. Dennis Nielsen actually did have pretty good taste. He loved Laurie Anderson, which I'm a massive Lori. And I'm a massive Lori Anderson fan.

[Ed Larson]

She's insane, man. I saw her fucking exhibit at the Hirshhorn Museum in dc. Fucking rock and roll, man.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, dude. Dennis Nilsson, serial killer. Favorite song, favorite singer.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, his favorite song was oh, Superman.

[Ed Larson]

That makes sense.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, it's like I always. The example I always give is that guy who murdered the little boy. And that murdered the little boy in Brooklyn. Remember way back when we were living there? Yeah. His favorite band was Hootie and the Blowfish. It's always like that.

[Ed Larson]

Well, you know, I like Hootie, you know. No, he's friends with Dan Marino.

[Marcus Parks]

Okay.

[Henry Zabrowski]

He was just arrested for selling ecstasy.

[Ed Larson]

Dan Marino?

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, Hooty.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, really?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yep.

[Ed Larson]

God, he gets cooler every day.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, after it became apparent that Donker Yonker and his cult and his cult cop compatriots. Actually there's quite a few Dunker Yonkers left. Once it became apparent that he and his cult cop compatriots were coming up with a bunch of goose eggs, the South African police tried issuing gag orders, telling them that they were to make no further statements to the media regarding Satan. Soon after, though, In November of 1991, Donker Yonker uncovered what he believed was proof positive that Satanism was alive and well. He'd arrested an alleged satanic high priest and his younger brother in what Donker Yonker called the biggest Satanism hall the city of Port Elizabeth had ever seen.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Such a funny idea. Just the image of Dunker Yonker on a boat with a priest and his child on. On a giant fishing line. Like he's sport fishing.

[Ed Larson]

Just staple gun to tail to. We got him.

[Marcus Parks]

The so called high priest and his brother, however, were pretty much Just a couple of shithead kids. In essence, they were stealing gravestones and smoking weed.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Whoa, man. That's fucking.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, it's not good. You're not supposed to steal gravestones. You're supposed to.

[Ed Larson]

You're supposed to switch them.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's true fun.

[Marcus Parks]

The gravestone, it's sacred. You're not supposed to with gravestones or graveyards or anything like that. But the arrest was nevertheless seen as a victory for Dunker Yonker, who was soon after tapped to lead the aforementioned Occult Crimes Unit.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's like going fishing and you just, like, catch a shirt, you know? I mean, where you're like, yeah, we got something.

[Marcus Parks]

One of their most bizarre cases occurred in the small town of Riot Fontaine. There, five schoolgirls claimed to have been victims of what they called the Thing, AKA the Riot Fontaine Slasher. These girls, in what sounds quite similar to cases like the Devils of Lyon, they claimed that an invisible supernatural force had torn at their clothes, scratched their legs, pulled their hair and sexually abused them. But since this whole thing seemed to be related to the occult, Dunker Yonker was put on the case.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, there girls where they put the tip inside. Donkey Yonker will be there.

[Marcus Parks]

Name?

[Ed Larson]

Zonker.

[Marcus Parks]

Donkeyonker.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Donkeyonker.

[Ed Larson]

Please be incredibly serious while I speak.

[Marcus Parks]

I am a serious man.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Serious job. Serious man. Yes, I'll take my favorite drink. Nor shoes mixed with milk. Pierce. Nice Tangerine. Bevered.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, after interviewing the girls without assistance from psychiatrists, Dunker Yonker reported to the press that this was a matter for Jesus Christ. Whoa. And that there was nothing else the police could do.

[Henry Zabrowski]

My hands are tied.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This Donker is Yonker. I'm done. I don't want to deal with this no more. We're gonna have to toss this up to the Arab upstairs.

[Marcus Parks]

He then passed on the matter to local priests who exercised the school where all this was happening.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Get out. Devil, take a couple laps. Yeah. Get out.

[Marcus Parks]

The school's principal then joined in, demanding prayer from his students. Demanding it. Then the Minister of Health services, a government official, traveled to the school and led the kids in prayer, saying that, yes, Satan had come to riot. Fontaine. When asked if the girls might be lying, the principal said no, because the girls were all well adjusted and quite attractive.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes. Don't believe me. I know. Noticed is I'm Donker Yonker. The Yonker that Donkers his way across South Africa.

[Ed Larson]

No pretty girl has ever told a lie.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I know that for a fact. And how I can tell is if my balls Move. I'm a human lie detector. I look down to my Yonkers and I see if they move left or right. A left means they're being deceitful. To the right means I'm getting aroused.

[Ed Larson]

My Yonkers are quite bunkers.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, the kicker here was that Riot Fontaine was right next to the border of Namibia, which was considered a part of South Africa until Namibia claimed independence in 1990. Suddenly, Riot Fontaine was right next to black Africa instead of being snuggled in white South Africa, and white people therefore got very weird. But while Donker Yonker was involved in some of the goofier cases, that doesn't mean that he wasn't called when the major crime seemed to an occult edge in 1992. Donker Yonker, man, there was so many more Donker Yonkers.

[Henry Zabrowski]

There's a lot of Donker Yonkers, but I like each one.

[Ed Larson]

And every time I crack a little smile.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Even though he's a gig, I should add, I just kind of smile a little bit.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, in 1992, he was assigned to the brutal murder of Don Orso. Now, police were quick to draw connections to Satanism in this case. And when the killers were revealed to be Dawn's daughter Dominique and her boyfriend Lawrence, their testimony only confirmed the satanic suspicion of the authorities. Dominique and Lawrence's defense was that they had been possessed by demons during the time of the killing, which, incredibly enough, actually garnered them sympathy with the public because they seemed to be victims of the devil as well.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But now we're seeing a function of satanic panic where it gives those of you. This is now going to come up where it gives people agency to act however they want in the name of either side, and then the one side gets the Hail Mary.

[Marcus Parks]

There is no either. There is no either side. There's no Satan. There's no satanic side at any point. Almost.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Almost never what happens is that truly people like Cecilia Stain are the things that make that stuff, quote unquote, real, because they're using the smoke screen of the panic to allow themselves to get agency for their beliefs like this. The all of this is like being able to just say and get sympathy. Saying the Devil made me do it means that now a lot of people got more excuses to do.

[Marcus Parks]

But as the case progressed, it became obvious that Lawrence was a up misfit who had been manipulated into committing a murder by his charming girlfriend who wanted her mother dead. As the judge put it, the crime was too goal oriented to be involuntary. But lest he think this judge was a reasonable person. He made sure to note that the court did accept that people could be possessed by demons. That just wasn't what had happened.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This time I'm going to let you know I was possessed by demons all last week. And then eventually I went to the bathroom and I realized I'm lactose intolerant. Now.

[Marcus Parks]

As the 90s progressed, Satanism stories fell out of favor in the mainstream South African press until they disappeared altogether. It's much like the Satanic panic did here in America. But as is evidenced by the Krugersdorp cult killer, South Africa's satanic panic left a permanent mark on the Christian Afrikaner community. If it hadn't, then there would have been no way that Cecilia Stain would have convinced a group of devout Christians to commit 11 absolutely horrific murders. Now, before we get into the story of Cecilia Stain, let's first talk about the woman who effectively empowered Cecilia to do what she did. A person whose biggest crime was being stupefyingly gullible. This woman's name was Rhea Grunwald.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, you say stupefyingly gullible, but I still feel it's all this. How do you say sometimes you get what you ask for when you want to be some form of superhero.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And you think you're fueled by Christ himself and you have this. It's hubris.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, very much so. Now, at worst, you could see Ria Grunwald as a busybody, maybe even a full on pain in the asked. Cyria was a believer in the eternal battle of God versus Satan. A battle that was being played out on earth every single day by human agents on both sides. Ria, of course, considered herself to be an agent of God. So by 2006, Ria was a financial advisor living in a South African town called Florida.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh wow.

[Marcus Parks]

Just a few miles from Johannesburg. She was divorced with two kids. She was 52 years old. And she was of course a devout Christian.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I'm a divorcee, got two kids and I got crashes my coat co pilot. I'm unstoppable. You should see this snapper. I got three clicks.

[Ed Larson]

I live in Florida. Africa, the safest place you will ever be.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh man. I rode a crocodile to the post office and then I punched the mailman in the face and he said thank you, Praise Jesus.

[Marcus Parks]

Maria's entire life was shook up, however, when she was invited to a Christian training course about how to identify the occult and how to help so called survivors of Satanism. These so called Satanists were people who had supposedly managed to break Free from the shackles of the occult by converting to Christianity.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Let me just have you know, right now, honestly, they never do that. They never go from the occult to Christianity. They go from the occult to owning a gem based store. They go from the occult to becoming a podcast producer. They don't go to Christ.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Or they go from the occult to just, I don't know, do nothing.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Nothing.

[Marcus Parks]

It's like it's not. The occult isn't evil. There's nothing. I don't know.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's all things. All things.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, for whatever reason, Rhea felt like this training course was her true calling. So she devoted all her time and energy to saving people from Satan and the occult.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I am burdened with this responsibility.

[Marcus Parks]

Such was her dedication that she became almost like a sidekick to the local police who would work with Rhea when they were hunting Satan. Rhea even started bothering and enabling the delusions of youngsters. Like one high schooler named Monique who came to believe that Satanists were planning to kidnap and sacrifice her on Halloween. As we mentioned earlier, so called high nights like Halloween, Samhain or Beltane. These were when Satanists supposedly performed their most powerful rituals and made their most high value sacrifices to Satan. So Rhea encouraged Monique's delusions.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Don't they understand that on our holidays we relax? Yeah, this is not the time. We don't party on vault. We don't do rituals on vorpus knock. That's our work. We save that for Monday to Thursday.

[Ed Larson]

And Satan's busy. He doesn't need more sacrifice.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, he's got a lot going on, the elections coming up. He's got a lot of stuff on Satan's plate.

[Marcus Parks]

Rhea discovered that Monique's mother knew nothing of the dangers of Satan and the occult. So Ria started educating her as well. Instructing her on how to fend off spiritual attacks with prayer. Now of course nothing happened to Monique, but because nothing happened, Rhea could say that nothing happened because of her. Now, Rhea Gruenwald became enamored with the idea that she was battling the devil's minions here on earth. So she formed an organization and chose a name that does not sound as good as she probably thought it did. She called it Overcomers through Christ.

[Henry Zabrowski]

There is a shirt she wears that says I am an over overcomer and I really want it.

[Ed Larson]

Where's that?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Can I possibly get anyone side stories [e-mail]. i will pay good money for somebody to. I will put up the actual picture of the shirt. I want one but spelled the right way.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, because Overcomer for Christ.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's because I am an overcomer. And I think that because, you know what's nice about overcoming is that then you're not horny enough to be tempted.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

So if you overcome. You ever do that? Oh, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Where it turns to just like water.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But, you know, you've never been home, like, Julie's out of town or whatever. You never just gone to town yourself and masturbate.

[Ed Larson]

There was a summer in Tallahassee when everyone was out of town and it was just me for like three weeks. I was empty.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I am not going to lie in Australia in the hotel room, I reached the end of my balls and it was right there, honestly, interestingly enough, that I felt the power of Christ.

[Ed Larson]

That's why when we shook hands, they stuck together.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, yeah, you know, I. Hey, you know, I just want you to know where I've been.

[Marcus Parks]

And it's not overcomers for Christ. It's worse than that. It's overcomers through Christ.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, that's so much come that it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Blasted out of his own.

[Marcus Parks]

The holidays are all about sharing with family meals, couches, stories, Grandma's secret pecan Pyrex recipe, and now you can also share a cart. With Instacart's family carts, everyone can add what they want to one group cart from wherever they are. So you don't have to go from room to room to find out who wants cranberry sauce or whether you should get mini marshmallows for the yams or collecting votes for sugar cookies versus shortbread. Just share a cart and then share the meals and the moments. Download the Instacart app and get delivery in as fast as 30 minutes. Plus enjoy free delivery on your first three orders. Service fees and terms apply. Well, Overcomers Through Christ basically functioned as a small church with meetings, directors and official members. Rhea even had a graphic designer named Candice Riavis design business cards and a logo for Overcomers. But that's all to say that Ria wanted Overcomers to be as professional and official as something like this can be.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because again, once you overcome, then you can be. Then you can actually focus on your work.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, if you're fighting Satan's minions on earth, then you're not going to keep that to yourself. So Ria and the other Overcomers.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Banana. Banana. Yeah, my favorite. I love the minions.

[Ed Larson]

You do, man, you do love the Minion. You're slowly becoming one.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I want to dress up as a minion and I want take a gun.

[Marcus Parks]

To the store.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Maria.

[Marcus Parks]

And the other you like you're like.

[Ed Larson]

Rick Moranis playing a minion.

[Marcus Parks]

Maria and the other overcomers went to every school and church in the area to warn teachers and students about the dangers of Satan during week long seminars called enrichment weeks.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I think a lot of people in America experience something like this. I'm pretty certain that people have gotten. Because I know that we had a. What was that? We've talked about this before. The Christian dudes, the big power lifters guys, powerlifting for Christ. They would rip open. People had that. Do you have church people visit your school?

[Marcus Parks]

We had. Well there was the church yo yo people. The people yo yo.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

No, no, no. That they had. They did yo yo tricks and then they talk about Jesus. Yeah. And they'd sell you yo yos at the same time. Christian yo yos. Yo yos.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We have yo yos. What was it about our, our lives as kids? I love yo yos but we were given yo yos.

[Marcus Parks]

Adored yo yos.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They were jammed down our throats.

[Ed Larson]

That's cuz our dads liked them.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Is that what it is? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

It's exactly what it is. And then video games kill the yo yo.

[Marcus Parks]

Yep. Yeah. Now we also had this other pussy.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Killed yo yo for me. Yeah, yeah. It was having sex.

[Ed Larson]

It made you better at fingering.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, baby.

[Ed Larson]

I'm going to walk your dog.

[Marcus Parks]

Maria worked with the local police social crime prevention unit to scare children and teenagers about the influences of promiscuity, drug abuse, emotional, most of all satanism. Ria would also have a band play and lecturers would give speeches, all while she or some other overcomer led the children in prayer throughout the whole week. These enrichment weeks. And that's the crazy thing about it is that it's a week, you know, when the Christ for yo yos for Christ guys came through. Like that was a couple hours. A couple hours at most. Yeah. Period. These were like festivals that would be held at these schools.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. Cause those yo yo guys, a lot of them had to go check back in with their parole officers.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's so hard to be a yo yo guy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. They also weren't free. Rhea charged around $345 per enrichment week.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. Cause Christ ain't free, man.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And that doesn't sound like a lot, but she did suggest that schools and churches all have one enrichment per month. You had to keep enriching, otherwise it wouldn't work. It wear off.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It kind of sounds like a, like a MLM or something. It sounds like a, like a scam. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

But if you, if you learn how to make an enrichment week, then you can start doing enrichment weeks. And then you can also pay me for the privilege of giving you the enrichment training materials. Yeah, and training. And then you can be in my downline.

[Ed Larson]

Would you like to buy some Tupperware?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, do you know that the otc, like essentially like that's what it was like they did. Like that's why it was different than a church. It kind of felt like a weaponization of the church's ideas. This lady really thought that she was. Was fighting Satan every day.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And so they would think. They view themselves as sort of like conscripted soldiers.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But it must be said that Rhea put all the money back into bothering people about something that didn't exist instead of spending it on herself. So at least she's not a hypocrite. Which I know you think is the worst thing you person can be.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You can honestly, you can kill, you can. On a mass scale, you can steal, you could do. But as long as you say I'm sorry, I'm cool with it as long as I expected it from you.

[Ed Larson]

What do you call a blood that wears blue?

[Henry Zabrowski]

What?

[Ed Larson]

A Hippocrip.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Interesting. You better be careful, Eddie. You just got put on a hit list.

[Marcus Parks]

Ed I E T U N E S Right?

[Henry Zabrowski]

And one every piece of merch keeps him one inch away from the pohouse. Amen.

[Ed Larson]

Go get your ham daddy hats, please.

[Marcus Parks]

But while Ria would not be the person who would take her highly paranoid Christian busy body Overcomers and turn them into murderers, she did bring all of them together through her personal quest against Satan and his minions. See, In February of 2007, Rita Grunewald and Overcomers through Christ held an enrichment week at a high school in the town of Rudeport. There Rhea met or the Dorp of Rudeport. There rhea met a 40 year old English teacher named Mirinda Steyn, who's not related at all to Cecilia Steyn. It's just a coincidence. Coincidence. But while most of the people who saw the Overcomers were at most impressed with their message, Mirinda came out of her school's enrichment week saying that it had been the highlight of her life and that the Overcomers had also somehow helped her to stop smoking.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I guess you.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, you can overcome a lot of stuff through Christ.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, it just seems like they're giving them a lot of credit. It's like Reiki.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And while this woman sounds innocent enough, and back then she absolutely seemed like she was just a regular 40 year old English teacher Mirinda Stain would become one of Cecilia Stain's most violent murderers just a few years later. Like Miranda Stain's pretty much her Tex Watson.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And she was an English teacher, which is why you wonder like when you have that super mean teacher at school, like they're an inch away from killing you.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Now, about five or six months after Marinda became an overcomer, Rhea got a call from a former Satanist begging for help.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Do you know over 30% of women can overcome.

[Marcus Parks]

The person on the phone said that her name was Petro, but in reality Petro was Cecilia stain, 26 years old when she kicked off this entire operation.

[Henry Zabrowski]

26.

[Marcus Parks]

She was actually 26. She just presents as a hard 38.

[Henry Zabrowski]

She. Yeah, she just has. She's got what you said, she's got 711 clerk face.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Now, Cecilia Stain was born Cecilia Brand in December of 1980 to Mara and Pete Brand. Pete was an electrician at various gold mines around the town of Harris Smith and seemed to be a normal person, as was his wife Mara.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, because the entire book all they do is interview them while they're barbecuing. You notice that, right? Have you read that? Jokes, all the chapters, talking to her parents. It's just them barbecuing.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, they're very normal.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. And they're all like, well, you know, Cecilia crazy.

[Marcus Parks]

They were religious, but not overly so. And Cecilia seemed to be a fairly normal, if mischievous goth girl. Cecilia didn't have any friends and spent all her time wandering the ruins of abandoned buildings, catching spiders and snakes. She also had a discipline problem, but not too bad. I mean, she attacked anyone who gave her. But her father always said she was really proud. He was really proud of her for not ever letting anyone walk all over. She smashed windows, she threw rocks at cars. Nothing horrific, nothing really that bad.

[Ed Larson]

Seems like those were all bad things.

[Marcus Parks]

You listed, but not that bad compared.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Killing 11 people and torturing them and cutting them up.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. She's not Joseph Fritzel. No, like, you know, like she's young.

[Henry Zabrowski]

She'll get their fingers crossed.

[Marcus Parks]

But in keeping with the times, Cecilia was expelled from school her freshman year, 1994, not for being mischievous, but because she was a goth kid and therefore must be involved in the occult.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Now this is a line from his, from her father that she. He said that he always had issues with how Cecilia viewed herself. So this is what it was. Even though, like he was supportive of her rebelliousness. I just thought this a funny comment. She's always been the greatest alcoholic, greatest Lesbian and greatest Satanist. Pete says that's what happened when. That time when she got expelled from school, too. She never meant it. She just said that she must have said something similar to friends or someone at school. I think the court should refer to my child for psychological treatment. I think that she has a psychological problem. She had never been raped or molested or anything. I never even hit her.

[Ed Larson]

What do you want, a medal?

[Henry Zabrowski]

What else you want for me?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, this accusation was so bad that cops even searched her family's home to look for evidence of further satanic activity. Cecilia was thereafter moved to another school, where this time she was just seen as a pain in the ass instead of an occultist. She was asked to leave, but Cecilia would often lie and brag that she'd met all the requirements to graduate when she was still in the ninth grade, and therefore she never needed to finish high school.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You know, that asking. You know, they actually offered for me to teach, Jim. That's how good a student I was.

[Marcus Parks]

She looks like a gym teacher. Yeah. Now, by age 16, Cecilia left the goth world and devoted herself to God.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This is like the. The equivalent of, like, you know, when someone gets sober at 21.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. You know what I mean? They get really serious about it, and.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They'Re all like, well, you know, I don't drink anymore. And you, like. You find out they haven't drank in, like, 25 years. You know, you're like, it's all right, buddy. But it's like. It kind of feels like that the way she left Satanism. She, like. She literally just had black shirts and. And, like, a noser.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Might have read a book.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. She underwent Deliverance, which is a spiritual practice in which curses are broken and demons are driven out. It sounds like those videos you see at church services where people are exercised in front of the whole congregation.

[Henry Zabrowski]

One of my favorite is Priority deliverance. It's only $2.99 more, but the deliverance comes immediately, and you have to wait for it to get cold.

[Ed Larson]

We barely have to squeal like a pig.

[Marcus Parks]

But what no one really knows is why and how Cecilia came to be such an effective manipulator.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I don't know.

[Marcus Parks]

There's a black hole of information when it comes to Cecilia in her late teens and early twenties. Pretty much all we know is that she went to church and she was briefly married to a Romanian.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The way I kind of. I think certain things are, history comes around to a person finding their place.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I do think that they are in that way. Where like she had a. Almost like. I guess that's what you'd call it. It was an unremarkable life. Like in a. Not in a bad way, just a normal life. She had her son was daughter. Right. I think that they had.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, they had a daughter.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They had a daughter. It seemed relatively quiet and home, but this obviously was brewing inside of her. I view her, her manipulation style as being different than any cult leader we've ever had. And the way I view this is like a gravity where she used everybody's sympathy against them versus like creating like cult leaders a lot of times create a problem and the solution. The dialectic. Right. So they create the problem amongst the people and tell them about the problem and then. But they provide the solution. In this case, she was the problem.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Which I find interesting. She made her herself like the kickoff point of the cult.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And unlike a lot of other cult leaders, I've never seen another cult gamify themselves the way this one did. It's just like, you know, it's just like QAnon is like. That's what QAnon is. It's the gamification of conspiracy theory. And this is. And she does the exact same thing. She gamifies the entire thing and larps it. Everything becomes a larp and it eventually. But you lars yourself into being a fucking murderer.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I just larp myself into becoming a comedian. Yeah. I just kill audiences.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh well. Things come back into focus in 2003 when Cecilia married a cop named Andries Stain during a shotgun wedding. Now, their marriage wasn't strained or abusive, but it is important to note that they lived completely separate lives. Andries had work and video games to keep him busy while Cecilia had her own hobbies. She had an extensive collection of almost 500 knives and also had an impressive collection of 127 Zippo lighters.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's not the knives, but the Zippo collection. It's lesbian coded. Oh yeah. I do feel like in that way it does reveal that she was. She's definitely at least bisexual. Let me show you my lighter.

[Ed Larson]

All right.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Let me use this lighter. I can take compared to. Look at that pussy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

You wouldn't have saved extra gas from a lighter, would you?

[Marcus Parks]

But really knives were her main passion. It's my passion. And she carried one with her everywhere she went. Now, from what it seems, collecting knives and Zippos weren't enough to fill Cecilia's day. Because when she was pregnant with her second child in 2006, she contacted Rhea Grunwald and the rest of the overcomers with outlandish tales of Satanism run amuck.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because I was trying to figure out, like, what was the real trigger point. And the closest thing I got which was it, but it wasn't. It was two years later, which was the Nick Dedrick's the high school slashing, the samurai stabbings that happened at the time.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, we'll definitely get into the samurai stabbings, like, later on. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

And how was she as a mother? Like, was she normal?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Whatever.

[Ed Larson]

Did she pay attention to her children or. They don't even bring it up.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Also, we don't know one thing, that.

[Marcus Parks]

She probably abused her children. We'll get to that here in a second.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And we also don't really know whether or not she had begun the talk at home. Like, if the concept of these things started at home. And she built up the lore because oftentimes with, say, with these Satanists, remember Mike Warnke, the idea is that, like, they, like, one day, quote, unquote, wake up from their programming and then they remember everything that's happened. Because the Satanists are supposed to put a layer of hypnotism over you where you don't remember anything that happened.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, her husband did say that he never believed any of her lies or delusions. Like, he said he had heard it all and was like, no.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This is also a warning to all you husbands out there that go get lost in video games in the other room for six hours at night. Stuff happens when you're in there on Balers Gate 3. What you need to do is check in, pop out, check in, make dinner.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Still believe it's Satan.

[Marcus Parks]

All right, now, we don't know why Cecilia chose the Overcomers, and we don't really have any evidence of Cecilia doing anything like this before. It could be that she'd been hearing the Satanist storyline her whole life and wanted to try it on for a while. Then it got out of hand. Or it could be that she saw an opportunity for a scam way to make money. Could also be that she was just really fucking bored. And when people like this get bored, this is what they do.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It sounds like it's the steps up. It sounds like it starts because you just wanted to try to be a Satanist to somebody else and eventually she. Because it's mostly about the scam in the beginning.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, well, I mean, the scam took a little while to come in.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, when Cecilia called Rhea, she already had a massive backstory all cooked up. And Rhea believed every single Word. Cecilia said, because Rhea had been waiting her entire adult life for someone from the Satanic community to reach out for help.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This woman was begging for this interaction. She wanted a Satanist to come forward. And I, you know, in that way, I think Ria sort of created the scenario and it all worked out for her. It almost. Sometimes we. We've talked a little bit about, like, roles. I think people want to fulfill roles in life and I think at some point Cecilia is like, I'll be your Satanist.

[Marcus Parks]

Yep. Now, Cecilia told Ria that she'd cut bonds with the Satanic Church In October of 2006, about a month before call. And she'd converted to Christianity after undergoing deliverance, which had expelled all the evil spirits that had been living within her.

[Henry Zabrowski]

They made a crazy noise when they came out too. They looked like little kernels of corn.

[Marcus Parks]

Smartly, though, Cecilia did not say that she was the one who needed help. Instead, she invented a woman named Andrea, who was a former friend and current witch in the Satanic Church. Cecilia claimed Andrea had two children that she was going to sacrifice in a Satanic ritual. And Cecilia needed Rhea help to save the children.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Can you even imagine that? My fucking. My Satanic Union card ran out and I still gotta pay even though I ain't done no Satanic rituals all year.

[Ed Larson]

And she completely made up Andrea.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, absolutely. She made up everything.

[Ed Larson]

Okay.

[Marcus Parks]

Rhea said that there was a place in Krugersdorp where abandoned children could be safely held if only they could get the kids away from Andrea. But Cecilia said that as a former Satanist, she knew that any member of the Satanic Church could gain entry into any place they wanted.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I still land you right now. It will show you how easy it is. Oh, look. Oh, I believe in Christ. Easy gets right in there. It's so easy to say.

[Marcus Parks]

Rhea frantically tried to come up with another option, but just when the pressure was taken to its maximum point, and that's what Cecilia was so fucking good at, is taking the pressure to the maximum point. Cecilia would relieve the pressure by saying she received a message that Andrea's children had been taken to safety because ruined.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Rio was calling people. She was calling people. She was calling people in the city. She was trying to get the orphanages involved. She was trying to do all this stuff and cook it up because this is a great get for her. This is an amazing, Like, I'm a flip. This whole Satanist community. Everybody's going to fucking love me. Everybody's going to be overcoming.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Now, of course, this was all just A story. But the immediacy of it had fully pulled Rhea into Cecilia world. But because Cecilia was a convincing storyteller who knew how to hook people that were obsessed with Satanism, it would take years before Rhea could pull herself out again. Years. See, from what Cecilia told Rhea, everyone in her family was into the occult. And Cecilia, a 42nd generation satanic witch, was intended to have been sacrificed in a Satanic ritual by her father, the diabolical Mr. Brad.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes, it is I. Mr. Brand and I barbecue chicken on the weekends. Like a nice glass of white wine with my wife in the backyard. Most definitely.

[Marcus Parks]

Mr. Brown was supposedly a high priest in the Satanic church.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes. We're gonna go down to the flea market. I wanna look at a long table for the dining room to abut the wall so we have a place to put our drinks when we play board games. The most devilish. Devilish of activities.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, likewise. Cecilia's mother was a witch named Elise with a similarly strong satanic bloodline.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Biological lover. Biological mother.

[Marcus Parks]

Biological mother, yes. And to prove it, Cecilia showed Rhea a picture of a witchy woman saying, this is my mom. Except this picture was not Cecilia's biological mother. Instead, it was a picture of Spanish actor Arlie Povert, who played the vampire with the slick back blonde hair in the first Blade movie. Whoa. Okay.

[Ed Larson]

Okay. Well, you know, that's a good choice.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it is.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But I mean, if you're gonna choose a vampire. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. She's attractive. Yeah. She said that's her mom.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, she said that's her mom. Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Mama be hot.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

And plus, no one saw that. Blade.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, I want the first Blade was great.

[Ed Larson]

First Blade was great.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

But she's in Blade too, right?

[Marcus Parks]

I think she was in the first place.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, she was in the first place then, you know, bad choice.

[Marcus Parks]

But that's the thing, is that she knew that Rhea wouldn't have seen Blade because Blade is a satanic movie.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. So she knew. That's the thing about her, is that she knew all of these little. She knew all the areas that she could hit because she knew which areas that Rhea avoided. You know, she knew these people. She's a fucking master manipulator.

[Ed Larson]

And in Blade, they had Stephen Dorp.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Don't do this to him.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, as we've heard from other satanic panic stories, Cecilia claimed that her father subjected her to ritualistic abuse from birth because being tortured ritualistically somehow makes you a stronger satanic witch.

[Henry Zabrowski]

According to. According to the podcast the Best Friend by Candace, who Is was Rhea's best friend. Chronicles of the Krugersdorp Killers. She talks about how her father, Cecilia, told her that her father would torture her fetus while she was inside of her pregnant mother by sticking needles up her vagina into the fetus. Right. Which I don't even.

[Marcus Parks]

It doesn't work like that.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I don't know. I've never been there. I never done it. Never tried it. No, no. How far my finger goes up, pregnant lady. And so they stick it up there. But what that does is it starts to destroy your personality in the womb. That's how you get multiple personality disorder when you're born.

[Marcus Parks]

It's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Heard in my life. Or is it so dumb that it's right?

[Ed Larson]

Well, you put needles up there. She could be born with stigmata.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, speaking of stigmata, Cecilia claimed that she had supernatural powers from the satanic ritual abuse. Those powers, however, had gone away when she converted to Christianity, which is the magical equivalent of saying, you have a girlfriend in Canada. And like the girlfriend lie, Cecilia was able to talk a big game about what she had once been capable of. She said that she had telepathy, telekinesis, she could walk on water. Pretty much made herself a fucking X man. But to give it an edge of reality, Cecilia would take screenshots of horror movies about the occult, presumably stuff like the devil's reign or to the Devil, a daughter. Fucking incredible movies. Then she would insist that the fuzzy figure in the background was her demonstrating some sort of magical power.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I've got to tell you, Ernest Borgnine was such a professional. And this was my favorite set because we got this incredible pasta salad set because I requested it as an agent of the devil.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Pasta salad is satanic. I fucking hate pasta salad.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Really? You know what? I'm also. It's not satanic. It's actually quite a angelic. Because it's bad. I don't like pasta salad.

[Ed Larson]

Am I around two people that don't like pasta salad?

[Henry Zabrowski]

I like macaroni salad. I like.

[Ed Larson]

Is it macaroni salad? Pasta salad?

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, it's macaroni salad.

[Ed Larson]

But macaroni's pasta.

[Marcus Parks]

I don't like cold pasta.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Macaroni salad is not pasta salad. Pasta salad, I would say, is different entirely. It's entirely different sub bracket.

[Ed Larson]

What kind of pasta is impossible salad?

[Marcus Parks]

Rigatoni.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Rigatoni's in that, or. Yes, rigatoni, I would put. It's a cold noodle salad.

[Ed Larson]

How about spaghetti? Can you use spaghetti to pasta salad?

[Marcus Parks]

No, no.

[Ed Larson]

Why not?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because then it's spaghetti.

[Ed Larson]

Spaghetti salad.

[Henry Zabrowski]

If you make it. If you put spaghetti. Cold spaghetti. Get out of my house.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Although I love cold spaghetti.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I do too. Oh, me too.

[Ed Larson]

Just grab a whole handful of it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Why do we. Why am I totally fine with eating cold as a meal? Cold egg elbow noodles, cold roti noodles, I'm fine with eating it. But cold spaghetti, I'm like, what is this? Like, if you would have served me cold spaghetti, I'd be like, are you fucking with me? Yeah. Is this, are you trying, Is this like you trying to tell me to go fuck myself?

[Ed Larson]

I mean, serve, yes, but a handful out of your fridge, that's different. Delightful.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's my right.

[Ed Larson]

That's your spaghetti.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's my spaghetti.

[Marcus Parks]

It's bizarre. It's a bizarre way to eat spaghetti.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, it's fun. You gotta just give in. Give in, man. You gotta relax.

[Marcus Parks]

Back to Cecilia.

[Ed Larson]

Cecilia, I know she likes spaghetti.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Cecilia claimed to be able to morph into a werewolf or a vampire producing fang stinged teeth and or blood every time she did it. These transformations.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Greedy.

[Ed Larson]

It's one or the other.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, she was officially a werewolf.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, she was officially a werewolf and these transformations were actually caught on video. But unfortunately for the hopeful believers, Cecilia can clearly be seen putting in a set of fake teeth in her mouth before presenting as a werewolf.

[Henry Zabrowski]

What she used to do was tell the people that were closest to her that she was about to change and she'd go like cover in her mouth. I mean it. If you listen to the description of her changing into a werewolf from Candace's point of view, you just. I just am, I'm extremely puzzled because they come in, she's like, she didn't ever want to show anybody the change, so what she would do is go away, right? And then she'd go into another room and come back and says, I'm all done being a werewolf now. I just changed and I changed back. And then she'd be like, wow. And then another time she fell asleep in the bed, right? And they all fell asleep. They were supposed to be watching her. She' said, oh, I'm going to change into a werewolf tonight. They all fell asleep. She woke up in the night and then she, apparently she turned into a werewolf and then came back. And the way she proved it all is that there was, I mean this, a single hair in the bed. And she said, see, that was when I turned into a werewolf. Meanwhile, you got a bunch of fucking. You have the flimsiest What I even call a set of hair. You have a crown of hair. It looks like. Honestly, it's a bloomin onion. She has a bloomin onion on her head. It's just loose ass, broken ass, fucking weird crispy ants.

[Ed Larson]

I'll tell you what, you want to convince someone you're a werewolf while they were asleep? Shit on the floor.

[Marcus Parks]

Her hair.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Seriously, her hair. If you ate her hair, it would be 1800 calories.

[Marcus Parks]

But when it came to the powers Cecilia claimed to still have, she said that she could travel through the astral realm, which is how she was able to know so much about what was happening all over the world at any given time. Amongst other places, Cecilia said that she could travel to the moon.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Whoa, the moon? You could go all the way to the moon? You bet. I go to the moon every Thursday. Oh, no way. What did I go to the moon? It's cold. That's true. Yes.

[Ed Larson]

The devil's cheese.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, instead of being married to just some cop, Cecilia said that she was really married to Satan.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yep.

[Marcus Parks]

And had proof in writing as.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey, don't tie him fucking down like that.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, as a bride of Satan, it was her task to open the gates of hell on Earth and bring about extreme chaos.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Cool.

[Marcus Parks]

To her credit, though, she may not have opened the gates of hell. She definitely caused extreme chaos.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Cecilia claimed to be the most powerful witch in all of Krugersdorp, which is batting the minor leagues a bit if she really was a massively powerful satanic witch. To put it into perspective, it's like being the most powerful witch in San Bernardino.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey, you don't. I'm not messing with these San Bernardin.

[Ed Larson]

Serious San Bernardino witches we really need.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's the wrong town. It's the wrong town I went to. No, no, no, no.

[Ed Larson]

You think they got witches?

[Marcus Parks]

You know, I actually looked around and I started thinking it's like Fresno. Uh, I'm not fucking with Fresno. I'm definitely not with Bakersfield, you know, whoever it is.

[Henry Zabrowski]

San Jose.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You're the best witch in San Jose. Mostly you just make very good, like I want to say langua.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, San Jose is pretty, but that's. It's a little too big. Too big.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Like if to Oregon, the most powerful witch in Ben.

[Marcus Parks]

Actually, I'd say the most power. I've already mentioned it once, but it's similar in size. It's the most powerful witch in Abilene, Texas.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Very much so.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah, that's. That's about what it would be like, compromise reached. But Because Cecilia was such a powerful witch, her name itself was full of demonic power. So she insisted that everyone simply call her C instead of Cecilia. He couldn't say the name Cecilia, but.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Don'T you spell it out wrong. It's just the letter I don't want you putting out here or look or taste, because I'm too powerful of a.

[Ed Larson]

Jackie was here.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's what it is.

[Marcus Parks]

When Cecilia turned her back on Satan, she claimed her life became very dangerous. When she wasn't under constant attack from Satan's supernatural forces, witches were constantly bothering her to try and bring her back into Satan's fold. The danger, Cecilia said, was that she would be murdered if she didn't go back because she knew too much about the workings of the Satanic church's inner circles.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But then why do they want her back? No, they keep trying to get her back.

[Marcus Parks]

None of it makes sense. That's the thing, is it's perfect. It's purposefully confusing because remember that this.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Is all being fed to Ria over a very short period of time.

[Marcus Parks]

It's like two hangout sessions.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

All of this is told her. Told her over two hangout sessions.

[Henry Zabrowski]

She's just downloading all this information. And these guys, guys are. That's why, like, this is the first one of these in terms of a cult, like normally we have. I actually feel in last podcast and left, we came really good and got around to the idea of realizing, like having sympathy with members of cults.

[Marcus Parks]

Sure.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because, you know, a lot of times it's just looking for something better. It's looking for. For connection. There's many myriads of ways normal people end up in cults, but something like this, where these people really there. There's something about. Maybe it's just I. And I don't want to put my full anti religion bias in there, but there's something about this idea that I'm chosen. I have these superpowers. I have to show the world the power of my superpowers of Christ and this woman needs me. Which is literally what she then keyed into.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes. And behind everything was Cecilia's father, the fiendish, malevolent, wicked Mr. Brad.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes, yes. Would you know, I just. Boris hall season tickets to Six Flags. We can go whenever we want, except for the big time summer holiday, most devilish. And Saturdays, of course.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, as far as I can tell, this was all told to Rhea Gruenwald during the first two times that she and Cecilia met. And sometime after the second meeting, Cecilia called Rhea using a different Voice to tell Rhea that Cecilia was in trouble. Hey, buddy.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey, it's Ria. Somebody else. She's all sorts of screwed up.

[Marcus Parks]

Aurea dropped what she was doing and raced to Cecilia's apartment.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Someone needs me.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Where she found Cecilia lying on her bed with red welts covering her back. According to cecilia, the wicked Mr. Brand had dropped by to punish her for telling satanic secrets. This only served to bond Ria and Cecilia further. From that point on, if Ria wasn't doing enrichment weeks with overcoming through Christ, she was spending her time with Cecilia. Cecilia's husband, meanwhile, just stayed out of it completely, at least for the time being.

[Ed Larson]

Just happy to play his games.

[Marcus Parks]

He really is.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's just like it's the only spouse of a murderer that I'm like, oh, he knew nothing of all of them. That man purposely sat with noise canceling headphones. He was becoming a nothing in the other room.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, no. He absolutely. Every time they came over, every time Cecilia's friends came over, they either went straight into Cecilia's room or he would leave the room altogether. He's like, I want nothing to do with this. I want absolutely nothing to do with this bullshit. But in order to really hook Rhea, Cecilia upped the stagecraft to flesh out the world she was creating. And this is where she's honestly a fucking genius. One day, Rhea arrived at Cecilia's house to find that Cecilia's child had blistered on her hand. Cecilia claimed that Mr. Brand had come over and pressed the child's hands onto a hot stove to punish Cecilia for refusing to return to Satan.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes. Then he used all the ice.

[Marcus Parks]

After that, Cecilia got ahold of a bunch of burner phones so she could send Rhea threatening text messages that were supposedly from a whole series of witches in Satan's service.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And all this made Ria. Rhea so fucking wet. Like, that's the thing. All this.

[Ed Larson]

She loved it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

She loves this.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. These messages would threaten both Rhea and Cecilia with murder, saying that there was nothing either of them could do to stop it. But to keep her off balance, Cecilia would also send messages from these numbers praising her for resisting Satan. I wish I could be like Cecilia. I wish I could get out. One number supposedly belonged to the Andrea character Cecilia created, who kept sending Rhea messages about how terrified she was that her children were going to sacrificed. Another number claimed to be Elise, Cecilia's fake mother. Here's an example of a text from Elise, who told Rhea that Satan communicated with Cecilia in her dreams.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Her eyes are broken and there's something There I haven't seen before. And if I can see it, the witches can too. So if you can help, please say so. She can't bear any more of this. You know that, right? She keeps saying she's okay, but she's not okay. And Mr. Brand won't stop.

[Marcus Parks]

And as far as Ria is concerned, that's from a Satanic high witch.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Sexy. Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

You gotta call your satanic witches. You can't just deal a text.

[Henry Zabrowski]

I just feel like at some point you're like, do you really? Do we need this in writing? I feel like there's a lot of Satanist secrets that are all just kind of willy nilly shot all over the place. It feels like maybe if they're coming for you, they should technically come for them and come for us.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Now this doesn't make any sense coming from a high priestess of Satan. No, but that's part of the point.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Cecilia was trying to confuse Rhea on every level. And it's very important to remember that Rhea wasn't looking at all this like a bothersome, if elaborate prank. As far as she was concerned, she was in direct contact with agents of Satan in their most evil form. People who sacrifice and eat babies several times a year in their unholy rituals.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But I'll have them know, me and my team of saviors, we're going to overcome all over those ritual babies. We're going to overcome all over these witches, we're going to overcome all of these devils, we're going to overcome and come and overcome and overcome, and we're going to leave them dripping with the power of Christ.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, while Cecilia did make Ria's world unbearable, terrifying, she also confirmed every awful thing that Rhea had ever suspected.

[Henry Zabrowski]

She's so happy. My life has purpose.

[Marcus Parks]

There really was a Satanic cabal which made Rhea's life far more interesting and made her group, Overcomers Through Christ that much more important.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, they used to be just a bunch of in a conference room. Now they are fighting the devil themselves.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Now Ria, of course, couldn't keep Cecilia to herself forever. In late 2007, Rhea introduced Cecilia to Candace Riovis, who had designed the logo for Over Over Overcomers Through Christ.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Now you can see here what I did is it's a O for Overcomers. And then the T, that's like a crucifix, that's what Christ died on. And the C here, that's for Christ. Very creative, Candace, very good.

[Marcus Parks]

But Candace and Cecilia hit it off and soon became lovers and before long, Cecilia told Candace her story about being a reformed Satanist. And just like Rhea, Candace believed every single thing Cecilia told her.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Poor, poor Candace. Poor Candace also said that she had. What's the term as that what the thing when you got. When you're pathological, when you freaking have to be with somebody.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, codependent.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. She said that she had codependent problems. And she and her. There's something about her like. Have you ever seen Cecilia talk?

[Marcus Parks]

No.

[Henry Zabrowski]

In footage of her talking you can tell exactly what this type of person is. You know, somebody who does a thing. I can't stand over familiarity. When people are overly familiar with me, my first thing is get the fuck away from me. Right. That freaks me out this. But it sometimes has an opposite effect on people like that are codependent. Candace viewed. Cecilia did the thing where she's like, I don't believe in small talk. We're gonna talk all about my horrible memories. And then Candace was like, oh my God, that's amazing. You know what I mean? Like so excited to hear about your trauma. Because then you get closer.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Ed Larson]

It's much better than talking about the weather.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, yeah. Cuz the weather sometimes kills you.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Especially in South Africa.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes. That's the things where Ria held a maternal role. Candace was in a romantic position and both of them were convinced they needed to save Cecilia. What's interesting though is that Candace and Rhea hardly ever spoke to each other, nor did they talk to each other about Cecilia, at least in the beginning.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's cuz they were jealous. And I'm actually pretty certain that Ria and Cecilia slept together as well.

[Marcus Parks]

You think so?

[Henry Zabrowski]

She floated. Cecilia floated that Ria and her slept together. And Ria said obviously not because she had to, but I have a feeling a little bit of fucking scissoring was going on in that fucking department. And I'm not talking about making graphs now.

[Marcus Parks]

Eventually Rhea Grunewald brought the rest of the Overcomers through Christ into the game. And soon enough the so called Satanic High holidays became big events for the group. Because of Cecilia on Vnacht or Samhain or what have you, the Overcomers would all gather at Cecilia Cecilia's apartment to sing and pray while playing Christian music in the background. And this was all while Cecilia put on an intense hour long performance.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Honestly, this must have been so cool. This must have like seeing the boss in that little like off Broadway, you know we did that like the 800 seater.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Like she would put on hours long fake possessions.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. Well they weren't necessarily possessions, they were attacks. See, before things would kick off, the Overcomers believed that they needed to prevent demons from entering Cecilia body. So they would plug her up by putting their hands over her nose, mouth, ears, vagina and butthole.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes, I said butthole. You don't think the stinkiest mouth ain't the perfect resting place for the devil himself?

[Ed Larson]

Now, is she naked during all this?

[Marcus Parks]

No, she's doing over the clothes. Big old.

[Ed Larson]

Well, then you're not really covering it. You gotta get in there.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, you see, you dumbass man. Is that what. What I have them do is take two fingers and press the fabric of my pants up into my butthole like a stopper. And they would do the same for my pussy hole.

[Ed Larson]

Cecilia, you're not an overcomer, you're an oversharer.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, you bet.

[Henry Zabrowski]

But once the end of the performance came, I was overcome it.

[Marcus Parks]

But at around 11pm, Cecilia would start jerking around and screaming. She would make bizarre sounds of pain while blood bubbled out of her mouth. According to Cecilia, this was because witches had forced her soul to leave her body via astral projection to the location where that High Holiday satanic ritual was taking place.

[Henry Zabrowski]

At that time, it was taking place in Delaware.

[Ed Larson]

How is she making blood come out of her mouth?

[Marcus Parks]

We'll get to that in a second. Cecilia's soul would bond with a kidnapped child that was being sacrificed on an altar somewhere in Krugersdorp. And the Overcomers believed that if they prayed hard enough, they could save both Cecilia and the child. They also believed that if they failed, Cecilia would die right in front of them. And of course, the child would die as well.

[Ed Larson]

Cecilia, you're breaking my heart.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, you know.

[Marcus Parks]

But around midnight, Cecilia would suddenly become calm and announce that her soul had returned to her body.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We did it, y'all.

[Marcus Parks]

She'd then clean up the blood that had bubbled out of her mouth and would tell everyone to leave, making sure to add that they better be prepared for the next High Holiday.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's me, Jackson, satanic janitor. And I gotta say, I'm getting too old for this shit.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, the thing that a lot of these Overcomers would point to is something that couldn't be explained was the incredible amount of blood that would come out of Cecilia's mouth during her spiritual attacks. How, they would ask, could someone spontaneously make themselves bleed from their mouth in the volume that Cecilia did without cutting or biting herself? Well, the answer is more cheap dumb tricks.

[Henry Zabrowski]

The key here is dumb tricks. You would really be surprised. I think the audience would really be surprised how much confidence can sell things. And if you're in the throes of the cell already, where you have the whole thing going on, people don't want to see.

[Marcus Parks]

That's the biggest thing about it, is that people are. You would be very surprised at what people won't see. If they don't want to see, they.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Don'T want to see you scamming them. But I feel, because Candace started talking about this, even herself, that on some level she wondered, what is happening here?

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, it's almost like when people play along with hypnotists.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, according to Cecilia's ex girlfriend, Candace, Cecilia would take a surgical glove and cut the finger off. She would then draw her own blood with a syringe and fill each finger. She'd then tie off the finger and then put the blood balloon in her mouth.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, it's like Murder Fist.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And except she used real blood.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Hey, man, that makes us posters, I guess.

[Marcus Parks]

No, it just makes all of you very sticky. All the high fructose corn syrup.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes, it did, Cairo.

[Marcus Parks]

Love you, miss you. Well, later, when she felt like having a satanic fit and needed an extra push, she would pop one of the fingers of blood with her teeth, which would enable her to spit a large amount of blood. That seemed to prove that satanic witches were attacking her organs.

[Henry Zabrowski]

And of course.

[Marcus Parks]

And I've seen videos of it, it looks fucking terrifying.

[Henry Zabrowski]

She does a good job. It is also a group of them all going like. Cause they all go do the tongue prayers on you. And they're all having a great time.

[Ed Larson]

Does she have a blood balloon in her mouth? Like the whole, like, speech?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, that's the thing is that she goes quiet. It's like she'll. She'll go very quiet.

[Henry Zabrowski]

She sits. She sits and she kind of sits and she sits silently. Then she lays down rigid. Then the attack starts, but she can't.

[Marcus Parks]

Talk because her soul has left her body.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Eddie, you idiot.

[Ed Larson]

I'm so stupid. So consistently stupid.

[Marcus Parks]

All this sounds absolutely crazy. And it is.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

But Cecilia was just getting started. One by one, she was starting to draw more people from the overcomers to her side. They believed in her bravery. They worshiped it. But more importantly, they trusted her inside knowledge of the occult.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It also made them. I'm gonna go on a limb and just say feel cool.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Because Cecilia because became the star of otc. Yeah, but you gotta forget that too. It's like within this, she's getting what we talked about, this positive Validation. She is getting people all being like, oh, my God, Cecilia, we care so much about you. Oh my God, Cecilia, what's wrong with you? And in that, she turned the whole organization on its head because the entire thing became about her.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

So we talked about Candace and Rhea. How many Overcomers are there at this point?

[Marcus Parks]

I want to say there was like maybe 10.

[Henry Zabrowski]

No, it was bigger than.

[Marcus Parks]

Was it bigger than that?

[Henry Zabrowski]

It was Overcomers Through Christ was. Was. They had a board.

[Marcus Parks]

Her own cult is only like six people.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes, they had their own board, but it was mostly courses you paid to go take.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Maybe like 20.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yes.

[Ed Larson]

So it's like UCB.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Oh, very much so. Exactly the same.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Cecilia created a world for these people to exist within, a world that no one else could see or experience. And it was within that world, in the name of battling the Satanic church, that Cecilia would command and her followers to murder 11 people. And that is where we'll pick back up next week for the Cougarsdorp Cult Murders Part two.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This is thick.

[Marcus Parks]

This is really fucking thick. This is gonna be a three part series.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. Because the next stuff, like we.

[Ed Larson]

No one's heard of this really, out.

[Henry Zabrowski]

In America there's some coverage of it, but it's small.

[Ed Larson]

I never heard of this before.

[Henry Zabrowski]

This is. I was. I literally just stumbled upon this in a documentary. And I can't believe that we had not heard about the story, especially for how much satanic panic and we've covered all over the years. But this is very. I just find it. It's just getting thicker and honestly, it just gets dumber.

[Marcus Parks]

It does too.

[Henry Zabrowski]

It's that this is also one of those cases which actually we found a couple of times where there's something about the dumb ramping up the violence. Like there's something about those two. I don't know why we saw it with.

[Marcus Parks]

Most violence is very stupid or you.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Have to be kind of stupid to do it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

In many ways.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Ed Larson]

This happened between 2012 and 2016.

[Marcus Parks]

2000.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Well, the first murder were 2012. Was that 2012, the first series? The satanic murders were 2012.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

That's wild.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah. But this is brand new.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. 20. 2012. 2016.

[Henry Zabrowski]

So, hey, guys, if you're looking to start a satanic cult, there's still time.

[Marcus Parks]

Don't tell anyone. It's passe.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Life ain't over at 30.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zabrowski]

You can start a cult now. It's actually safer for you to start a satanic cult than have a child.

[Ed Larson]

All right, so think about that.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Go to patreon.com on the left. You can watch us yell and scream and flop about. You also can see us live on Tuesdays for last stream on the left. It's fun. It's good. You like it. You know that you do. Go to P on the left on all of the social horsemits.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, that's right.

[Henry Zabrowski]

For the fucking garbage.

[Ed Larson]

Europe, we are coming. We are overcoming to you.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We're overcoming the all of the wonderful countries.

[Marcus Parks]

We're just not coming to mainland Europe at all. We're going to the islands surrounding mainland Europe.

[Henry Zabrowski]

That's as good as.

[Marcus Parks]

That's as good as you're gonna get. Coming to London and Reykjavik. All you island people, we're coming to you.

[Henry Zabrowski]

We cannot wait. Go to lastpodcast on left dot com. You can get those tickets right there.

[Marcus Parks]

Los Angeles, Brooklyn, London and Iceland, we're gonna be coming. So come on out. Check out tickets. Last podcast on the left.com is where you can find it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

All right, we'll see you soon. Bye. And hail Satan. Who's been moving lying this whole time? Yeah, this has got nothing, cuz. You know what's funny about all this? Almost got nothing to do with Satan. Yeah, it's all God.

[Marcus Parks]

Yep, it really is, man.

[Ed Larson]

That's so impressive. You know what?

[Henry Zabrowski]

Scariest guy of all.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Unheed.

[Ed Larson]

I'm gonna hail Satan again.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Thank you. All right.

[Marcus Parks]

There you go.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. Yeah. Today he deserves it.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Yeah, he does.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. Give the respect he deserves.

[Henry Zabrowski]

Come on, kiss his butthole. All right. Be chosen.