3 | Tree Time

Summary

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The Red Weather

Episode 3 | "Tree Time"

Release Date: February 4, 2026
Host: Ryder Strong (iHeartPodcasts)

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Episode Overview

In this episode of The Red Weather, Ryder Strong returns to his Northern California hometown to investigate the 1995 disappearance of Anna Trainor from the Tender Hearts commune. Episode 3 delves deep into the enigmatic commune—its origins, culture, rumors, and leadership under Elric Light. Ryder unpacks both local legend and hard evidence, challenging perceptions of what Tender Hearts was—commune, cult, or something entirely different—and how its misunderstood nature affected the investigation into Anna’s vanishing. The episode also weaves in personal reflections, quirky local color, and hard social truths from the 90s, ultimately raising new questions about the community, the investigation’s integrity, and lingering prejudices.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Revisiting the Night Anna Disappeared (02:15–03:13)

• Ryder gives a brief recap of Anna’s disappearance, highlighting the cult-like rumors and the alibi of the Tender Hearts’ adults.
• Early suspicions fell on Elric Light, the commune leader, as inconsistencies emerged in their alibi.

2. Elric Light: The Man, the Myth, the Tapes (03:13–06:27)

• Ryder listens to archival tapes of Elric Light, capturing his philosophical ramblings and personal confessions.

• Elric blends New Age sermonizing with candid admissions:

  "I've done bad things. You know what? I've done things. Just like you. Just like all of you. I sit and I pretend and pretend because I want to be that vision of what I know I am capable of being. So I pretend. I know I'm gonna do it again. I know I'm gonna do it again."
  — Elric Light [05:43]

• Despite searching for direct clues, Ryder notes these tapes reveal more about Elric’s character and worldview than about Anna.

3. Setting the Stage: Tender Hearts’ Reputation (07:45–13:25)

• Ryder recounts his return home, researching the case, and the local skepticism around Tender Hearts.

• The commune’s reputation, amplified by nudity—"skin bombing"—and confrontational interactions, led to it being seen as secretive and uncooperative with authorities.

  "If there was a confrontation or if someone walked onto the property, the women of Tender hearts liked to enact what they called a skin bombing."
  — Monica Tremblain [11:53]

• Casual nudity was part of West County culture, blending liberation and discomfort.

4. The Reality Behind “Cult” Status (13:25–17:49)

• Ryder meets historian Howard Tripp and explores records, uncovering that Tender Hearts was far smaller and less formalized than notorious communes.

• Elric’s lectures reveal a fondness for arcane, spiritual jargon (“sky mine,” “tree time”) and a keen desire not to be anyone’s guru.

  "No. I am not your guru. I am not anyone's savior."
  — Elric Light [16:30]

• The “tree time” concept illustrates Elric’s deep, sometimes appealingly strange, philosophical takes (19:02–19:53).

  "We're talking about 3,000 years. And in that context, what's a day? ... All of American history would happen before you were 8 years old."
  — Elric Light [19:23]

5. Debunking Myths: Commune or Cult? (20:47–24:40)

• Monica Tremblain clarifies: many cult tropes (“charismatic leader with wives,” etc.) are untrue; rumors were more about projecting fears than reality (20:56–21:23).

• Ryder discovers the commune started as a radical women’s shelter, reshaping his assumptions about Anna’s family and the Tender Hearts’ origins (24:51–27:03).

  "It grew out of a woman's shelter, really.”
  — Chris [24:51]

  "It was like a camp or a farm for women escaping domestic violence."
  — Chris [26:59]

6. The Double Layer of Deception (28:08–29:56)

• Tender Hearts, consciously or not, allowed rumors of cultishness to keep outsiders (especially men and law enforcement) at bay. This was both protective and isolating.

  "Allowing people to think they were a cult ensured that outsiders, men in particular, stayed away.”
  — Ryder Strong [28:58]

• Debate arises: was Elric a true believer or a conman? The tapes suggest sincerity, but local authorities remain unconvinced.

7. Money, Survival, and the Cannabis Connection (29:59–31:38)

• Economic survival led many local communities, including Tender Hearts, to grow marijuana.

• This raises the possibility that secrecy around drug-growing, not spiritual doctrine, was behind misleading law enforcement.

  "Hence the cannabis that was in the barn the night that Anna disappeared."
  — Ryder Strong [30:32]

8. Unpacking the Investigative Files (36:15–43:12)

• Ryder finally receives heavily redacted sheriff’s interview transcripts, including records of his own teenage statements.

• Role-playing with Chris, they dissect interrogation strategies and realize police harbored bias against Elric, focusing not just on drugs but (in coded language) on his sexuality.

  "Did you elder the code Red? ... Do you want answers? ... I want the truth. ... You can't handle the truth."
  — Chris & Ryder, jokingly recreating police badgering [40:13–40:19]

• It is revealed that Elric’s real alibi (he spent the night with a man in the East Bay) conflicted with his public persona and hurt his standing with both the community and within Tender Hearts itself.

9. Coming Out and Consequences (41:01–42:21)

• Monica confirms Elric was with his ex-boyfriend the night Anna disappeared; the “gay angle” was at the core of suspicion and shaming.

  "A polyamorous cult that wasn't poly or a cult. A pioneering feminist commune led by a gay man who didn't come out of the closet."
  — Ryder Strong [41:52]

• The deeply homophobic language from police records ("the swami turns out to be a faggot" – Maldonado [45:53]) is called out for its bigotry and impact on the investigation.

10. The End of Tender Hearts & Communal Longing (42:32–44:51)

• After Elric’s outing and the shrinking of the commune, Tender Hearts dissolved and the land passed into limbo.

• Ryder and Chris debate the merits and dreams of communal living, revealing nostalgia and skepticism.

  "Sounds pretty great to me. And I don't think I'm alone. ... most of us want something different."
  — Ryder Strong [44:36–44:51]

11. Aftermath: Searching for Next Steps (44:53–47:51)

• Elric, after years of retreat, died in 2001.
• A new lead emerges: local dealer “Sparks” leaves a voicemail teasing inside information on Anna’s disappearance and the flawed investigation.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Elric Light, on façade and confession:
  "I sit and I pretend and pretend because I want to be that vision of what I know I am capable of being. So I pretend. I know I'm gonna do it again." [05:43]
• On “Tree Time” and time’s scale:
  "We're talking about 3,000 years. ... All of American history would happen before you were 8 years old." [19:23]
• Monica Tremblain, on rumors vs. reality:
  "Oh yes, absolutely... Except none of what you actually just said was actually true. Those are all lies." [20:56]
• Ryder, on the core of Tender Hearts:
  "It grew out of a woman's shelter, really." [24:51]
• Roleplaying deconstructing police bias:
  "You can't handle the truth." [40:19]
• Ryder, on the dual deception:
  "They let that deception stand, but they were also deceived from within." [41:52]
• Explicit police homophobia in records:
  "Rm what do you know? The swami turns out to be a faggot." — Maldonado [45:53]

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Timestamped Highlights

• 02:15–03:13: Recap of Anna’s disappearance.
• 03:13–06:27: Introduction to Elric Light via tapes.
• 11:53: Introduction to “skin bombing” and local communal oddities.
• 15:10–16:37: Examining Elric’s doctrine and “anti-guru” stance.
• 19:02–19:53: Explaining “tree time.”
• 24:51–27:03: Revelation of Tender Hearts’ origins as a women’s shelter.
• 40:13–41:01: Learning the implications of the secret alibi.
• 45:53: Direct quote displaying police bias.
• 47:11: New lead surfaces via Sparks’ voicemail.

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Final Thoughts

This episode peels back layers of myth and prejudice to find the real story of Tender Hearts, exposing both the radical roots and the human foibles of those involved. Ryder’s deepening understanding recasts Anna’s disappearance against a backdrop of social stigma and misunderstanding—and frames new lines of inquiry about how homophobia, rumor, and survival intersected in this vanished community.

As the investigation continues, the personal, social, and historical stakes are raised—not just for Ryder, but for the lingering questions about Anna Trainor’s fate.

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If you haven’t listened, this summary guides you through the intrigue, character portraits, and shifting truths at the heart of Anna’s disappearance and Tender Hearts’ enigmatic story.

Transcript

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[Narrator/Host]

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[Ryder Strong]

Terms the Red Weather is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons or events reflects the adaptation of real publicly available materials for creative and legal reasons. The content of this podcast is the sole responsibility of Red Weather, LLC and does not reflect the views or responsibilities of iHeartMedia or its affiliates. Previously on the Red Weather. In 1995, my neighbor Anna Traynor disappeared from a commune. So this guy was called the Father or something creepy like that? Very much polyamory, kind of like, dude has a bunch of wives kind of thing. I was with Anna's sister Willow that night.

[Monica Tremblain (Reporter)]

If you were on the Tender Hearts property, then none of the adults were there.

[Ryder Strong]

They were all on the sunrise seance hike. Yeah.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

It was only a few days before their Tender Hearts alibi fell apart.

[Ryder Strong]

What are you saying? That they weren't at the seance?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Not all of them.

[Elric Light]

Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. I have tucked myself into a little space by the woodshed, out of the rain. I think it's a perfect place and a perfect time for a ramble.

[Ryder Strong]

This is Elric Light, AKA Eric Lidsky, the man who founded a commune next to me when I was a kid.

[Elric Light]

Anyone here that's living with us on the this beautiful homestead here in Sevastopol will tell you I'm very particular about my spots. I am a big believer that there are positive spots and that there are not so positive spots.

[Ryder Strong]

These were recorded sometime between 1988 and 1992 while he walked in the woods or sat in meadows, places I might have been roaming around in, too. Me and Willow, take this with you.

[Elric Light]

Pass it along to these people if you can. And many of these people that we're discussing with hardened hearts aren't ready to hear the message. And that's fine. Sometimes it's enough to deliver the message.

[Ryder Strong]

But between the lectures or sermons, there are human moments that are really specific.

[Elric Light]

There's an owl. I've named him Jabberwocky.

[Ryder Strong]

And sometimes bizarre.

[Elric Light]

Why do I rock my sleeve? Why do I rock myself to sleep? Do I rock myself to sleep at night? What's the difference?

[Ryder Strong]

I kept listening, waiting for something. I'm not sure what. It's not like he was suddenly going to start talking about human sacrifice or mention Anna Trainor. In fact, he doesn't mention any names.

[Elric Light]

Let it fall, let it fall Let it fall Let it fall Let it fall and be free, be free.

[Ryder Strong]

But his commitment is intense. And sometimes the line between A sermon. And something more personal gets blurry.

[Elric Light]

I've done bad things. You know what? I've done things. Just like you. Just like all of you. I sit and I pretend and pretend because I want to be that vision of what I know I am capable of being. So I pretend. I know I'm gonna do it again. I know I'm gonna do it again. I'm gonna do it again. And I'm gonna do it again. I'm gonna do it again. I'm gonna do it again.

[Ryder Strong]

When I went home to look into Anna's disappearance, I knew I was gonna have to learn as much as I could about Elric and the collective he ran called Tender Hearts. Since Anna lived there before she vanished in 1995, I figured things would get a little New Agey, spiritual, a little hippy dippy. But I never expected what I did find. I am actor and filmmaker. Writer. Strong. This is the red weather.

[Elric Light]

Sam.

[Ryder Strong]

Okay, let's try this again. I was a week into going back to my hometown and researching Anna's case. I was still mostly just playing catch up to the investigation. I am calling from my parents landline, so ID doesn't come up. Sheriff Maldonado, who had led that investigation back in 1995, told me that things would make more sense if I got access to the official case file. Hello? Hi, this is Ryder Strong. I'm calling again for Grace Loughlin and the current sheriff. Grace Loughlin had promised to share transcripts of some witness interviews, but I hadn't heard back from her for days, and the people in her office didn't seem to have time for me.

[Narrator/Host]

Everything's in storage, so it's not easy.

[Elric Light]

We have one building for the whole county.

[Ryder Strong]

You're Madeline.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

You're Madeline.

[Ryder Strong]

My buddy Chris was helping me.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

You're like every housewife with a Facebook page who's playing Internet sleuth.

[Ryder Strong]

She's got a theory. So why don't I, you know, even if it's a complete nothing burger, why don't I bring him a pager?

[Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser]

Okay.

[Ryder Strong]

So you're gonna go to the sheriff.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

With a busted pager that your dead dog buried?

[Ryder Strong]

I knew Chris was right. I had already admitted to the cops that I had lied to them when I was 15. And so if I was ever gonna get their help in learning about the case, I had to play it cool. Going back over the details about that night, I really begun to think that Anna's boyfriend Mick had something to do with her disappearance. But then, after talking to Maldonado, it was Becoming clear that the sheriff's department was way more interested in Tender Hearts and its leader, Elric Light. But as far as I knew, the night Anna disappeared, all the adults of Tenderhearts had hiked up to Mount St. Helena for a sunrise seance.

[Monica Tremblain (Reporter)]

Right, except for Elric.

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, so you knew this too?

[Monica Tremblain (Reporter)]

Yeah, almost immediately.

[Ryder Strong]

Monica Tremblain was reporting for the press Democrat in 1995.

[Monica Tremblain (Reporter)]

It was only a few days after Anna was missing that the seance story, it fell apart. A few of the women came forward.

[Ryder Strong]

So where was he? And what did that mean for the investigation? And who were Tender Hearts in the first place? When I started interviewing friends, I quickly realized I knew very little about their alternative living situations. Orion's commune had failed almost immediately. The community kind of got a little more contentious and a little more distance and kind of factioned off. You know, my mom describes it kind of just like, you know, not really lasting. There are a lot of strong personalities out there, you know, people who want to get away from it all, I think, have some strong reasons sometimes. And I didn't realize that my friend Cole's parents actually met when his dad was handing out pamphlets for a cult in San Francisco. I don't think it lasted. It didn't last in its like, hey, let's build a spaceship form much into the 80s. It was called Stel, and they had a charismatic leader that was quite questionable, but the plan was to build a spaceship to. To escape the end of the world in 2004. Obviously it came and gone, but I'm pretty sure it kind of folded up when it realized that rocket building was hard. I'm just assuming. I'm just assuming that, like, a bunch of people out in Kornfields just realized their limitation about building a rocket. The Tenderhearts weren't that unusual for the area, but of course, once Anna disappeared, there were a lot of questions about them.

[Monica Tremblain (Reporter)]

A big part of the problem was they were just secretive. They didn't want to talk to the cops. I mean, they didn't trust anybody, but they really didn't trust authority figures.

[Ryder Strong]

They had been targeted before by Maldonado, specifically.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Yeah, yeah. We had them up on a few violations. They had a problem with one of their neighbors. Had to do with a truck or something.

[Monica Tremblain (Reporter)]

There was some argument over noise, and they took the tires off a neighbor's tractor.

[Ryder Strong]

That escalated to some incidents with animals.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

They had llamas.

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, that's right. I remember them. Yeah.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Well, some of those llamas would get out, and then they'd get Sick.

[Ryder Strong]

At some point, there were accusations about poisoning.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Well, I just remember, you gotta understand, I get out there and I'm just, I'm there to calm the situation, you know, cool it down a little bit. But you got a group of women, very, very angry women, and they're, they're topless. Some of them were even butt naked.

[Monica Tremblain (Reporter)]

If there was a confrontation or if someone walked onto the property, the women of Tender hearts liked to enact what they called a skin bombing.

[Ryder Strong]

They'd go out naked. I kind of love that. It was a very specific, non violent tactic.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

It throws you off, you know, puts you on guard. And I'm not talking about it in a good way.

[Ryder Strong]

One thing about growing up in west county, if. If there was ever a gathering of some sort, there was always at least one person naked. A lot of confusing messages. A lot of it was like, you know, people are swimming or, you know, like you had a pool and people, you know, we were in the hot tub or the pool or whatever. My parents, friends were definitely hippies and of the casually nude variety when there was any call for it. It was part of the culture, a general belief in who needs clothes, be natural. It wasn't threatening or anything, but still as casual as I think the adults wanted it to be. When you're a kid, you could never not notice it. If Willow and I went to that, like, main area, the kind of deck that wasn't finished with the boards laid on the ground, there might be someone.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Naked because they had an outdoor shower that was right there.

[Ryder Strong]

That's why I always felt like it was a little weird. But I didn't feel like I could say it was weird, you know, because.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

If you did, you would be lame.

[Ryder Strong]

But beyond the skin bombing and fights with neighbors, I wanted to know what they were all about. I found a historian who specializes in intentional communities, which I learned is the newer preferred term for a commune.

[Elric Light]

Hello.

[Ryder Strong]

Hi. Come on in. Oh, great, thanks. Howard Tripp is the author of two books. Countertopia, which covers the communities of the 1960s and 70s, and west of Eden, which chronicles the rise and fall of small religious sects in the area.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

I hope you don't mind, my little friends. You're all right with that?

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, yeah, look at that. Howard's other hobby is ants. Yeah. So how long have you been farming them?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

It's been. I mean, it's been over a decade.

[Ryder Strong]

He has an entire wall of his house that is a series of ant farms, or as I learned, they're called.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Formicaria, one of the things I've always been fascinated by. Simul. Chemicals.

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, like, that's like pheromones, right? Right, Exactly.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

But you're talking about how an individual ant senses the world around them. The perception of what's real, what's happening. It can be altered completely.

[Ryder Strong]

Like a drug.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Even more than that. It's their. Their actual sense of reality. It's not. You'll have, like, a colony, right? They get invaded and they start working for another species. They don't even know why. And they're just as happy.

[Ryder Strong]

They just want to do it.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

It's wild.

[Ryder Strong]

Tripp had researched Tender Hearts for his books, but they ultimately didn't make the cut.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Well, if we're talking about the major communities from Sonoma County, Headwinds, Morningstar, the farm before they went to Tennessee, you're talking about. These are much bigger operations. Groups that were formalized in ways that Tender Hearts, they can never really get it together.

[Ryder Strong]

Well, how many people were in it?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

It was like, 20.

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, wow.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Yeah, Very small.

[Ryder Strong]

But then for your second book, wouldn't they have counted as a spiritual group?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Yeah, you would think that's. That's the $64,000 question, isn't it?

[Ryder Strong]

Meaning, were they even technically a religion? Did they have a belief system?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

I know. I know what this looks like. Please don't judge.

[Ryder Strong]

Trip has an entire guest house behind his main house. It's full of books and papers.

[Elric Light]

Okay.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Here are some of Elric's newsletters.

[Ryder Strong]

Cool.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

We have these signs they put up.

[Ryder Strong]

Yeah.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

And there are tapes of this lecture series.

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, wait. What? Really? Recordings? Yeah.

[Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser]

Yeah, that's.

[Elric Light]

I have.

[Ryder Strong]

Somewhere. Oh, my God, I would love to hear those. Which is how I got 10 hours of Elric Light talking.

[Elric Light]

Well, let's just jump into it. We'll start with our invocation, as we always do. I am of the Earth. From the Earth I burn with a fire inside that I promise to maintain with a thick skin and a tender heart.

[Ryder Strong]

I actually found the tapes kind of soothing. There's definitely a lot of jargon. Elric liked to make up his own terms.

[Elric Light]

This is what we might call sky. Mine is not the only direct locus. And arrive at the choiceless awareness.

[Ryder Strong]

Elric is earnest, thoughtful.

[Elric Light]

We can absorb energetic facts by existing in. In what Castaneda would call the kernel of non ordinary reality.

[Ryder Strong]

And he goes out of his way to reject his own authority.

[Elric Light]

No. I am not your guru. I am not anyone's savior.

[Ryder Strong]

One of the most exciting moments is when he gets frustrated with his recording equipment.

[Elric Light]

My ankles burst. Under the weight of ill consumed. Mother fucking damn it.

[Ryder Strong]

Really.

[Elric Light]

My mic was off the whole time. My ankles burst under the weight of ill conceived compulsions and I lose. I limped my way like the hurried hare past Alice into Wonderland, where only those with thrones and axes reigned. What are you living for? Where are you going? Late. Late, Always late. For what? For what? For what? It's not real. None of it is real. You have been tricked. You've been lied to.

[Ryder Strong]

This section, like when he says he's going to do it again, feels raw, emotional and personal. But otherwise, for 10 tapes, Elric is a teacher. He stays abstract and philosophical. A unique worldview does evolve. A metaphysics. He's inspired a little by Krishnamurti and a lot by Carlos Castaneda. There's this belief in the positive power of psychedelic drugs and something he calls tree time, which begins with the story of him being high on mescaline.

[Elric Light]

Minutes can feel like hours, seconds could be a lifetime.

[Ryder Strong]

But it gets somewhere kind of interesting.

[Elric Light]

A baby cries. She cries if she's hungry or scared. And in that moment she might think this feeling will never end. But as we grow, we grow into a different time consciousness.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Oh my gosh. So time moves faster as you get older.

[Elric Light]

Listen, if you, if you consider human life and you put it on the scale of the Sempervirens, that's what he called redwoods.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Of course he did.

[Ryder Strong]

That's from their scientific name or their Latin binomial sequoia, sempervirence.

[Elric Light]

We're talking about 3,000 years. And in that context, what's a day? What's a day? What's a year in tree time? Seasons last three days. All of American history would happen before you were 8 years old. A child would, would be born, grow to be 12 in the span of a summer vacation.

[Ryder Strong]

What is dude talking about? Time perception. He's scaling a human life up to a redwood trees. And look, I did the math. Of course you did the math, he's actually right. If you take 100 years average human or the best human lifespan, and you stretch that over 3,000, it's 30 times. So one hour is 30 hours. Just over a day, that's 1.25 days. And yes, a month would go by in a day. Winter would last three days. So all of his comparisons are exactly right.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

You need a break.

[Ryder Strong]

Probably, yeah.

[Elric Light]

Imagine wisdom at that scale, the insight.

[Monica Tremblain (Reporter)]

From the outside, it looked like your classic guru cult situation.

[Ryder Strong]

Yeah, well, I mean, it fits all the tropes, right?

[Monica Tremblain (Reporter)]

Oh yes, absolutely.

[Ryder Strong]

You got the charismatic leader. He's got a new spiritual take on life and he. He runs off. He has a bunch of wives.

[Monica Tremblain (Reporter)]

Right, right, right, right. Except none of that. None of what you actually just said was actually true. Those are all lies.

[Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures hey.

[Ryder Strong]

This is US Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull and I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull. As athletes, our lives are about having a clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust. So when it came to getting the best mortgage, we chose PennyMac. PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA and you learn more at pennymac.com PennyMac Loan Services, LLC equal housing lender NMLS ID 35953 licensed by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act. Conditions and restrictions may apply.

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[Narrator/Host]

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[Ryder Strong]

When I started this podcast, one of my main questions about Tender Hearts, which was kind of naive, was was it a commune or was it a cult? It turns out neither and those categories are kind of fuzzy to begin with.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Yeah, I look at ideas later on. It's not how it started.

[Ryder Strong]

It turns out Tender Hearts didn't begin as a religion or a political political movement or even a philosophy.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

It grew out of a woman's shelter, really.

[Ryder Strong]

Before he founded Tender Hearts, Eric Litsky was an employee of the Pavilion House. Pavilion was at the forefront of a wave of shelters that sprung up in the late 70s with what was then a pretty radical idea that women might need their own place, a designated shelter away from men.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Elric. He helped run the whole thing until 85, 86.

[Ryder Strong]

They were your classic San Francisco liberals, in your face and aggressive.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Elric got into trouble with the city officials.

[Elric Light]

Four protesters were arrested today outside City hall amidst ongoing tensions between the City Council and the Pavilion House.

[Ryder Strong]

The distinction between a homeless shelter and a domestic violence center was a blurry line that was still being worked out. And in the early 80s, the owners of Pavilion wanted to expand the shelter by allowing men to join. But for some of the women and Elric, this was anathema. It was a split in the Pavilion organization. There was Elric on one side and the owners and city officials on the other. Around the same time, Elric came into some money.

[Monica Tremblain (Reporter)]

The assumption is that maybe one of his parents or perhaps grandparents passed away, but nobody knows for sure.

[Ryder Strong]

So he pulled up steak, left the city and bought 50 acres in West Sonoma county, the 50 acres right next to my parents. And so the women were.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

He got them all from the shelter. He invited them personally and their kids to come live off the land.

[Ryder Strong]

Besides Anna and Willow, there were only a few other kids. I remember a boy named Josiah and a girl named Frances and maybe one more. We called them grommets. I felt antagonized by.

[Elric Light]

By them.

[Ryder Strong]

I felt like they were actively annoying to us. I think we might have just been hating on younger kids. They were wild, right? I mean, you know, it was like they were just kind of roaming free. And they were a pack. Like, I definitely remember it being a pack. It was like just a group of, like, loud, dirty kids, like, and they had attitude like, they were. They were strong, basically, as like, an outdoor version of a women's shelter.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Yeah, it was like a camp or a farm for women escaping domestic violence.

[Ryder Strong]

Everything I learned about Tender Hearts, but especially this, made it even more important that I get in touch with Anna and Willow's mom, Lainey. I'd always thought of her as some sort of new age countercultural seeker, but if she came from a women's shelter in San Francisco, if she was escaping an abusive situation and brought her daughters to raise them in the woods, that's a very different person. Lainey, hi, it's Ryder Strong. How are you? I hope you're doing all right. For weeks, I'd left messages. Weirdly, this new understanding of the Tender Hearts was more radical and ahead of its time than any of Elric's professed insights, like tree time or Directylo Locust. He was actually creating what nowadays you would call a safe space for women, but we didn't know any of that. Anybody local just saw a polygamous cult. And interestingly, Elric and the women let that happen.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

So these, if you can see, they would post these all around town.

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, wow. Elric started spreading his teachings. So I'm looking at. There's a drawing of a kind of elephant. Elephant plant person. What else?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

What do you see?

[Ryder Strong]

All right, well, there's text.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

No, look closer. What are you missing?

[Ryder Strong]

I don't know. What is it?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

It's a lotus position.

[Ryder Strong]

Oh, yeah. All right, so it says you are a goddess. Gaia, Shakti, Terra, Isis. What do you see? All around the world, Women of sounder minds and tender hearts. Insight isn't oriental, nor is it western. Elric light offers only the sacred and the universal, the divine feminine. Oh, wow. And then there's an address and a telephone number.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Yeah, you had People.

[Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser]

You had people subscribing from all across the country.

[Ryder Strong]

Like how many?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Like hundreds, maybe thousands.

[Ryder Strong]

But locally, the postings made them notorious. And there were times when they could have easily spoken out. But they let the rumors spread, which is actually a brilliant way to keep people out of your business. Like skin bombing. Allowing people to think they were a cult and ensured that outsiders, men in particular, stayed away. So the question is, did Elric believe this stuff?

[Elric Light]

No.

[Ryder Strong]

No, really. For his part, Maldonado is adamant.

[Elric Light]

No.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

No. A con is a con is a con. You lie to make your money, you lie to cover your tracks, and you just keep on lying.

[Ryder Strong]

But when I listen to the tapes, Elric seems earnest to me.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

He was definitely having some kind of experience out there in the woods.

[Elric Light]

Right.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Probably started with secular intentions to live together on a farm. And then Elric started reflecting on things. He starts thinking, rearranging places in his mind and having new ideas that he has to share.

[Ryder Strong]

But there was a pressing issue.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

It's really common among these intentional communities. Unless you have a donation or, best case, a tithing system that everyone agrees on.

[Ryder Strong]

Right. Someone has to pay the bills for the Tender Hearts. At first, that meant getting jobs. Lainey Laney worked at Safeway. What? I can't. No. Our friend Connor, who lives in England, remembered this. I can't even imagine her. Yeah, I know, I know. But I swear I remember seeing her.

[Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser]

In a reflective vest in the parking.

[Ryder Strong]

Lot, like collecting carts. But the jobs weren't enough. And so Tender Hearts did what most everyone in Sonoma county did in the 90s.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

I mean, I would say in Sonoma, Mendocino, Humboldt, maybe 30, 40%. Almost half of the communities are funded by weird.

[Ryder Strong]

Hence the cannabis that was in the barn the night that Anna disappeared. And it was all just sitting in that barn. This opened up a whole new avenue. Because if Elric was lying to the cops about where he was that night, was he trying to protect the fact that he was growing marijuana?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

When do you guys want dinner?

[Ryder Strong]

30, 45 minutes?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Thank you, Lynn.

[Ryder Strong]

Could Anna have been killed because of.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Like a drug thing?

[Ryder Strong]

I mean, it's just weed. That was a huge deal back then. He's right. This was the era of camp.

[Narrator/Host]

It's a scene that is reminiscent of those you see in war zones. But this is California and the enemies are marijuana growers.

[Ryder Strong]

Camp was the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, a multi agency task force that launched in 1983. They were a paramilitary organization with helicopters and machine guns. Guns. They were hardcore. So does that mean that people were smoking pot around us, does that mean that they would have been smoking pot from Dender Hearts? Undoubtedly.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Undoubtedly.

[Ryder Strong]

All right, so then who were. I mean, some. We know somebody who bought weed from them or sold for them.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Right?

[Ryder Strong]

Like, do we know any drug dealers? I mean, do you remember anybody?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Shilo does. Shilo. Shilo.

[Ryder Strong]

We're trying to remember who sold the weed back in the day. I feel like there was an older guy. God, it was like. It was like. There was Jim. He wasn't a drug dealer. I don't think so, no. But there was a guy who was always hanging out at the Hess Building.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

He had like a battery nickname, like the Energizer Bunny or something.

[Ryder Strong]

That's copper talk. He is not a drug dealer. Well, it was like that motorcycle. No, no, no. That guy was totally just. Who was the guy? No, there was a guy.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

He had like. No, no, not a name like that. Like a DJ name. And used to sell to all the skater kids. Remember Rip Hits was a thing?

[Ryder Strong]

Yes, Sparks. Yes, Sparks. There's no way that was his name. That was not his name.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

But that's what they called him. That's what we called him.

[Ryder Strong]

Do you think we could find him? I mean, how could we find him?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

I could find him. I think I could find him.

[Ryder Strong]

So the other day when I told you about Willow burning the weed, is this what you meant when you said that the tender hearts weren't all kumbaya and butterflies?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

They were always alive, Just a front. This was a criminal drug dealing operation.

[Ryder Strong]

That's true, but a little reductive because when I finally got the transcripts of Elric's interrogations, I realized Maldonado wasn't giving me the whole story.

[Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser]

Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to a to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S P500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio that's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures hey.

[Ryder Strong]

This is US Olympic gold medalist Tara Davis Woodhull and I'm US Paralympic gold medalist Hunter Woodhull.

[Narrator/Host]

As athletes, our lives are about having.

[Ryder Strong]

A clear path and a team that you can absolutely trust. So when it came to getting the best mortgage, we chose PennyMac. PennyMac is proud to be the official mortgage provider of Team USA and you learn more at pennymac.com PennyMac Loan Services, LLC equal housing lender NMLS ID 35953 licensed by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation under the California Residential Mortgage Lending Act.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Conditions and restrictions may apply Now I'd.

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[Narrator/Host]

Is more of the same. Like another round of golf played from a channel with 247 coverage, another look at the garden and the deer as they pick their way through it, another Taco Tuesday followed by a Whatever's in the Fridge Wednesday. And to get more of the same, all we need is a little help with adaptable care plans from qualified compassionate caregivers matched to your family's needs. Home Instead can help you and your passions stay home no matter what's on your horizon. Visit Home Instead online for a Better. What's next?

[Ryder Strong]

Chris? Yeah, they're here. I got an email from Sheriff Laughlin with a PDF attachment. They had a watermark across every page. R. Strong. And they were a total mess. The names were hard to figure out because everyone was designated by their initials.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Oh, okay. So RM Seems like he's the one in charge.

[Ryder Strong]

That's Maldonado.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

I had two main guys working with me. It would have been Carrillo. He headed up anything with grow operations or substances. He was kind of like our vice squad.

[Elric Light]

He.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

And then I think I put Oren. Yeah, I put Bob Orin as my other lead.

[Ryder Strong]

She sent me, like, there's a couple interviews with a few different people. Look, this one is actually your neighbors. Then, dude, this is me. This is a transcript of me getting interviewed. No. Yes. Look, it's quote. No. We were at Connor's house. And Willow was with you? Yes. And you didn't hear anything? Not until the news. Connor's mom made us pancakes. And she told you about the fire? Yeah. Oh, my God. She put my interviews in here.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Who did?

[Ryder Strong]

Lachlan, the sheriff. She sent me my own transcripts.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

But why?

[Ryder Strong]

I don't know just what to say. You lied. We have a record of you lying.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Oh, this chick has it out for you.

[Ryder Strong]

She also didn't include any of the interviews with Mick Bowden. It was only me and Elric. It looks like there's four different ones here. Oh, here. The ceremony. Does that involve the kids? And he goes, no. They press him. Why not? Something you don't want them to see. And Elric says, absolutely not. Okay, now we got. We got three women, three of your women. Your women, by the way, on the record. And they say you weren't there at all. You let off the Blessing the Wind song or whatever it's called, and they didn't see you until Wednesday. At some points, Elric got defensive. There is nothing wrong with taking a hike to see a sunrise, is there? And Maldonado says, that depends. And Elric goes, how? There is nothing. Do you go to church? The other cop is like, I have no problem with the hike. And Elric, he's not letting it go. You go to a church and pray. You go into a building, we go outside. That's the difference. That's the only difference.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

I mean, it's a good point.

[Ryder Strong]

It's a great point.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

His dialogue definitely could use a punch up, though.

[Ryder Strong]

It's not dialogue. Wait, we. We should do this as a reading.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Yes.

[Ryder Strong]

We printed out two copies.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Yes. All right. I'm the cops?

[Ryder Strong]

Both of them. Of course.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

You don't act anymore, I'm going to.

[Ryder Strong]

Pick up the slack.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Brainwashing ladies is one thing, okay?

[Ryder Strong]

Why. Why are you doing a New York character?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Brainwashing the ladies is one thing, but the.

[Ryder Strong]

The kids, you get their checks, food stamps? Elric says I don't steal from kids.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

We had a ranch, Bob. When was that? A few years.

[Ryder Strong]

11 kids.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

11 kids and none of them was in school.

[Ryder Strong]

All of the Tender Hearts kids go to school. No electricity. Checks come in every month. And these kids are put out to the fields. It was. They were. Their balls come to life. These poor bastards coming in from the fields.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

What. What are they talking about?

[Ryder Strong]

Have no idea. Okay? They're talking about this like some situation where they arrested other people with a bunch of kids. It seems like they were trying to catch Elric admitting that Tender Hearts was making money off welfare. Then they start fishing about drugs.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Oh, here we go. Okay, this is. This is classic. Good cut, bad cut. Movement for the kill, right? Tell us about the guys in Jenna.

[Ryder Strong]

Yeah, tell us about the guys in Jenna.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

That Jenner is definitely drug stuff.

[Elric Light]

All right?

[Ryder Strong]

Elric says I don't know who you're talking to.

[Elric Light]

About.

[Ryder Strong]

Bam. This was definitely where they would slap the table. Just read it. I mean, please, if you weren't up the hill. I'm not saying I wasn't.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

We know you weren't. Why don't you tell us about tubas?

[Ryder Strong]

What? Down at Tubas, there's a guy named Delio. You know who I'm talking about? Delilah, sometimes. Delilah. Sometimes. If I talk to him, what's he.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Going to tell me? You don't know about Thursdays Atubas? The garden parties?

[Ryder Strong]

Where did part is? This is. Did you elder the code Red? All right, calm down. Do you want answers? I want the truth.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

You can't handle the truth.

[Ryder Strong]

Stop it, man. Elric isn't even talking anymore. This is. I don't know what all this garden party shit.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Oh, dude.

[Ryder Strong]

Uh. Oh, this is. That's sad. Damn it. Took some rereading and a bit of research, but Chris and I finally figured out what was going on. Tubers and garden parties were about bars and hookup spots in the area. The cops were fishing for Elric to admit something they had suspicions about. Not the weed dealing, not the fact that maybe he was lying about this whole cult that he was gay. Elric.

[Monica Tremblain (Reporter)]

So he did leave the seance. He went down to the East Bay where he met up with this man named Lucas Park.

[Ryder Strong]

Who was it? Turns out an ex boyfriend. In reality, this shouldn't be shocking. We're talking about an outspoken feminist political activist in the heart of a very liberal, very gay friendly city. Which is I guess exactly why there's something heart wrenching here. Elric could stand up for women, for counterculture, could be brave and outspoken about so much, but he was still crippled by shame and fear regarding his sexuality.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

How many of the women knew?

[Ryder Strong]

None of them.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

They knew he wasn't interested in them, but they figured it was all part of his vow of celibacy.

[Ryder Strong]

I actually heard this on the recordings. He talks about the power of intracourse.

[Elric Light]

Inter is between or among. Intra is within a contained entity.

[Ryder Strong]

Polyamorous cult that wasn't poly or a cult. A pioneering feminist commune led by a gay man who didn't come out of the closet. So the Tenderhearts were complicit in letting the world think they were something they weren't. This multi wife sex cult. They let that deception stand, but they were also deceived from within. And perhaps the most salient point for Maldonado in 1995 and for us now, Elric couldn't have killed Anna.

[Monica Tremblain (Reporter)]

Well, I mean to confirm that Elric was with park all night and until the next morning. So first story was a lie. New alibi. It was solid.

[Ryder Strong]

And as for the tender hearts, yeah.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

That'S pretty much all she wrote. The women dwindled over the next year or so.

[Ryder Strong]

Elric left for months at a time and then there was nobody there anymore. The land itself eventually sold to one of our neighbors who has since passed away. So as far as I know, it's in some kind of probate limbo. Alright, here's a thought experiment. Okay. Tender hearts exist today, right? Are you in?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Hell yeah, dude.

[Ryder Strong]

Me and like 50 naked chicks running around the woods getting to know each other physically. Okay, not okay, do I get to have sex with Elric? Not Tender Hearts specifically, but just a communal situation where you're sharing resources and living off the land, raising your kids together.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Sounds like a nightmare.

[Ryder Strong]

Sounds pretty great to me. And I don't think I'm alone. Even with his own experience growing up on a failed one, Orion is optimistic. I mean, I feel like it's a little bit of coming full circle in a way. You know, I got very, very interested in some modern form of co living and you share resources, you have a shared garden and you have a shared kitchen, co working space for parties and whatever else. And it's like, seems pretty idyllic. So it feels Like, I'm kind of, like, trying to do what my parents sort of did, but better, right? Like, it's probably a classic, you know, thing that we all try to do to some degree at times, fix the mistakes that our parents made. Oh, stop. Think about the type of people who want in on this thing.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

They're not easygoing people.

[Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser]

They're not cool people.

[Ryder Strong]

No, they're vegans.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

They're social justice warriors.

[Ryder Strong]

But you also got independent critical thinkers, artists, pretentious, dirty drug addicts. Look at your boy Howard. Look at your boy Howard.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

You want to move in with him and his aunts? Yeah, you gotta live communally with him.

[Ryder Strong]

And his insects as well.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

No no, no.

[Ryder Strong]

Communism failed, but, like, socialism failed, Ryder, okay? There's a reason, dude. I mean, you ended up going to boarding school. What does that have to do with anything? Chris spent the second half of high school starting our junior year in New Jersey. At a boarding school. So didn't your mom send you there because, you know, you needed a different situation because you were being bullied?

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Oh, I would.

[Ryder Strong]

No, the bullied.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Stop.

[Ryder Strong]

That's not why I went there, okay? I'm just saying that the normal, all American, public school childhood parent didn't work out for you. So, you know, you needed something. You needed an alternative. And I think a lot of us do, most of us want something different.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

You're drinking the Kool Aid, man.

[Podcast Sponsor/Advertiser]

Go.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Go.

[Ryder Strong]

Live in tree time, in 1996, Elric left Sebastopol, went back to San Francisco.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

There were signs of some political involvement, some classes taught at some wellness centers and retreats.

[Ryder Strong]

But after Anna, he mostly vanished from the public.

[Elric Light]

Public. I like these moments when it's just you and I. Strange, stupid little medium of tape recording.

[Ryder Strong]

He died in 2001. Cancer. Hold on, what is this? After our dramatic reading, I was looking back over the transcripts. Look at that.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Ooh, who said that?

[Ryder Strong]

It was a single line quote. Rm what do you know? The swami turns out to be a faggot. That's Maldonado, man.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Oh, that's gross. Was that after he left the room or was that when he was still in the room?

[Ryder Strong]

I think it's after. I don't know what's worse, seeing that sentence, it suddenly brought into focus where the investigators were coming from. These are the people whose official job it was to find out what happened to Anna. They didn't like the tender hearts. They didn't like that they did drugs. They didn't like that Elric was gay. But none of those things on Their own are any real justification for suspicion. That sucks, man. That really sucks.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

And you're gonna go meet this guy?

[Ryder Strong]

I was. My last conversation with Maldonado before I got the transcripts. He agreed to meet me and walk me through the crime scene.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Why don't we meet out there at the property? We can have some strawberries from Andre's stand out there by Wagner. I'll show you what we found.

[Ryder Strong]

I didn't know what to think. Maldonado was being helpful. He was one of the few people who seemed like he actually cared that I was looking back at this case. And then, to make things worse, Chris got a voicemail. It was from Sparks.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Chris, what up, man? It's Davey H. Sparks McKnight back in the day. What time? What a time, brother. Anyway, yeah, I'll talk to Ryder. You know, I got stories. I got inside information. For real, though. You want to talk Anna Trainer, you got to talk about those. Detecting that Maldonado. Come on, man. Dude was a fool, but I got. I got some stuff for you. My boy. Oh, man, my boy Mick. You know, he was my boy, but damn, kid got a pass. You got a pass? Anyway, yeah, man, hit me up. Let's get a drink. I'll lay it all on you.

[Ryder Strong]

Peace. The Red Weather is an I Heart podcast podcast hosted by Ryder Strong. Sound engineering, editing and mixing by Bo Milus Produced by Tess Bartholomew executive producers at iHeartRadio, Trevor Young and Matt Frederick Associate producer, Bo Milus Original score by Kyle Morton. If you're enjoying the show, please remember to leave a review and rating. Thanks for listening.

[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

Janice Torres here and I'm Austin Hankowitz.

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We host the podcast Mind the Business, Small Business Success Stories, produced by Ruby Studio in partnership with Intuit QuickBooks.

[Narrator/Host]

We're back for season four to talk.

[Ryder Strong]

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[Chris (Ryder's friend)]

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