← American Nightmares - Gardens of Evil: Inside The Zion Society Cult
American Nightmares - Gardens of Evil: Inside The Zion Society Cult
CLOSER LOOK, E3 - Understanding The Why and How
00:47:07
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- [00:01]
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Mike King
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Mike King
Next up, love stories. Are they all they're cracked up to be?
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- [01:05]
Mike King
I need to begin this episode with something that's stayed with me for a really long time. When this case first broke, I was relieved that Arvin Shreve confessed that he told his followers to come in and that in all, 12 predators ended up convicted. At the time, it felt like a real victory, and in some ways, it was. Many of the children had already been treated harshly by defense attorneys during those preliminary hearings. So the guilty pleas spared the children from being forced back onto those witness stands to relive some of the memories that would haunt them throughout their lives. What happened mattered then, and it still matters now. But over the years, I've not been able to shake the feeling that Arvin Shreve may have been playing a longer game, even if it ultimately backfired on him.
- [02:00]
Ron Van Beekum
After Arvin spoke to us that night, Jackie and I had a sleepless night and we decided that we were going to move. So we talked about how we were going to do that. And I remember that Arvin had said that he had wanted to develop or purchase that entire block where he could have women come and stay and start to develop his society, I guess his Zion society and his sexual way of life. See, we wanted no part of it, but we knew that our house was one of his prime homes that he had discussed. So I went over to Arvind's house, I think the next day or the next, and spoke with him, expressed to him that what he had told us was not all right with us and was not of my beliefs and teachings, to which he tried to tell us that it was celestial law and not this carnal law that we live here on Earth. Anyways, I told him that we were moving and that he had an opportunity to buy his. Our house if he wanted to. A couple days later, he got back with me, said that he was going to purchase the home for the price that I'd asked. When I said okay, he last thing he said to me, he says, you know, Ron, you really can't hurt me anymore, so there's really not much you can do to me. But I fear for my children. Don't hurt my kids. And I said, I don't know what that means. I've never hurt your family. And he said, well, I think you do know what that means. You can't hurt me, but you can definitely hurt my kids. But I could still remember Arvin and his meek little voice. Only this time, he seemed more stern, more upset. And it wasn't the good old arvin that for 19 months, 18, 19, 20 months, that we'd learned to know who he was. He wasn't that gentle, kind, loving little old man that we had come to like until then. And then we really started to see the fangs, or the whatever you want to call it, come out. And he started to portray who he really was was.
- [04:17]
Mike King
When he was first arrested, he asked for an attorney. Then he changed course. He confessed and later directed his followers to come in and plead guilty. Looking back, I think he understood exactly how this might appear in the public and that he might appear cooperative, remorseful, even protective of the children, though I don't believe that he cared about them one bit. One moment from Shreve's confession has stayed with me. After admitting to more than 30 sexual assaults against children, Shreve casually said that the children were the ones encouraging the sexual activity. That arrogance still bothers me. In fact, it still angers me. And when he later asked me to stand next to him while he was being sentenced by the judge after pleading guilty to four felony assaults against children, I came to see that differently, too. I believe he was still trying to manage the room, still trying to leave an impression that he was cooperative, repentant, rehabilitated, and somehow misunderstood. By securing guilty pleas from the Zion Society members, they avoided something else as well. They never had to sit in an open courtroom and face the full testimony about what they had done to these children. The dozens of witnesses who would have testified never had the chance to place their accounts fully into the public record. And the story never came out in court with the full that it might otherwise have carried. So while Arvin Shreve and his followers were known publicly as convicted child predators, the full extent of the harm that they caused remained largely hidden. They entered prison, Shreve would die in prison, and the others would eventually earn parole without the public ever hearing the whole story. Inside prison, Shreve tried to rewrite his history, recasting himself as a misunderstood religious leader. And for a while, it may have worked. But then Andrea and Amber came forward. They were trying to make sense of the memories that they couldn't reconcile. They wanted help understanding what happened to them, and they wanted a voice. Through this podcast and through my book, Deceived the their voice, along with many other survivors of the cult, is finally being heard. So here we are, 35 years later, and I'm still facing the same question. What is it that draws people into an orbit of a coercive cult leader like Arvind Shreve? How does a man like that recruit followers, hold their loyalty, and persuade seemingly intelligent people to set aside their own judgment and take part in wrongdoing? That's where I want to begin with this episode, because this one is about two things. First, how a cult leader can recruit, maintain control. How they can use fear, beliefs, and manipulation to get people to surrender to things more than they ever imagined they would. And second, how did the Zion Society take everything from the survivors? And why did they do it? Why did they take their safety, their identity, their voice, their memories? And still they failed to take the part of them that ultimately mattered the most. I'm Mike King, and this is Gardens of A Closer Look. Inside the Garden. Understanding the why and how. The Zion Society began with an evil that was disguised as faith. Arvind Shreve took something that should have been sacred. A person's belief in God, in conscience, in moral agency. And he twisted it into a tool of fear, obedience, and control. Zion should mean refuge, holiness, restoration, and joy. But under Arvind Shreve, it became a nightmare. The predatory pedophile would die in prison. His group would collapse. And the survivors, after years of pain and hard work, found healing. And they found their voices. They are the true victors in this story. The predators will simply fade into nothingness, the thing that they spent their lives trying to outrun. Most people rely on fridge filters or pitchers, but those don't remove the majority of harmful substances. And bottled water, well, that can contain microplast so what's the alternative? Aqua Tru. It's a countertop water purifier that's been tested and certified to remove 84 contaminants including chlorine, lead, PFAS and microplastics. And it's been patented in a four stage reverse osmosis system that goes far beyond standard filtration. And Aqua True has been featured in Business Insider and Popular Science and it was named the best countertop water filter by Good Housekeeping. 98% of the customers say their water tastes cleaner, safer and healthier. So head over to aquatrue.com now and get 20% off your purifier with Promo Code Nightmares. That's a Q U A T R U.com promo code nightmares. Aqua True comes with a 30 day best tasting water guarantee or your money back plus a one year warranty so you can try it risk free.
- [10:19]
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- [11:23]
Andrea
Well.
- [11:23]
Mike King
What stayed with me long after the criminal cases were over and the cult had been broken apart was a simple question that I couldn't let go of. How did these seemingly intelligent adults get drawn into the Zion Society? Now the children are a different matter. They didn't get to choose any of it. They went where their parents took them and they were forced to live inside of a world that they didn't build. That is they were forced to live there until the raid. But when it came to the adults, I kept coming back to the same question of how does something like this happen? How does a person slowly hand over judgment, relationships, money, conscience? How do they give Something like that to a leader like Arvind Shreve. And to help make sense of this, I met and I studied the work of Dr. Janya Lalich, one of the world's foremost experts on cults and coercive control. Her research has helped put language to what so many of us saw in this case, but struggled to explain. Much of what I learned from Dr. Lalich and cult experts like Rick Ross have helped guide my own theories. Dr. Lallich once remarked that cult leaders don't want projects. They want people who can contribute to the growth of the cult to run its businesses or manage its followers. That's what made the cult especially dangerous. It didn't present coercion as coercion. It presented it as holiness. Religious language was used to recast submission as virtue, cruelty as correction, and exploitation as a divine order. And by the time the followers began to see the harm clearly, many of them had already been drawn into a closed system of belief that weakened independent thought and normalized the abuse. Now, before I go any further, I want to say this as clearly as I can. The Zion Society was not just a cluster of criminal acts. It was a coercive system built to control human lives. And it worked by eroding identities, controlling relationships, punishing resistance. All of this was meant to shield the man at the center of it, Arvind Shreve. And the damage that system caused. The damage that he caused was profound. When people think about cults, they usually think first about the visible markers, the strange rules, the fear, the punishment, the loyalty tests. But one of the most revealing tactics is quieter than that. It's the attack on the identity itself. High control groups strip people of objects, of routines, of relationships, and even the language that connects them to the life outside the group. That's not happen chance. It's strategic. Because memories and identities are often tied to sensory cues, to meaningful objects, keepsakes, even a doll. Those items help a person remember who they are, what they valued at one time, and where they felt belonging. Coercive systems try to disconnect those reminders and replace them with. With new loyalties, new relationships, and their own view on everything. Andrea was pulled from the home where she lived with her parents and her family, with their permission, and placed into the children's dormitory of the Zion Society cult. She was only 10 years old, and they'd only been there for a few days. But that's where the grooming really took hold. That's where she began to be shaped by the cult's ideology, taught what to think, how to behave and eventually how to see herself through the group's religious lens instead of her own. And that really matters, because the cult wasn't just trying to control Andrea's behavior. It was working to control her identity. And it used religious language to make that control sound righteous, like surrendering pieces of herself that somehow that was what God wanted. Well, that is how these systems work. They take something sacred, like faith or obedience, spiritual longing, and they use it as a way to twist the child or the adult's mind, to cooperate in their own erasure of what they knew before and now believe. I want to share with you a comment from Andrea, but I want to point something important out. The preteen years are when kids start figuring out who they are in very normal and everyday ways. It's through their friends, the school they go to, clothing, hobbies, sports, music, crushes. The little creative choices that may not seem like much to adults are really big to a kid. That's how a young person starts building a sense of self. They start figuring out what they like, who they want to be, how they're gonna fit inside the world. And within days of moving in, her parents put her in another home, under the control of other women who began to teach her the cult's ideology.
- [16:52]
Andrea
It was my first experience ever being around classmates and socializing with kids. And so it was my first opportunity to, like, have a female friend or to have a crush on a boy, or to care what I wore and be worried about people thought. And so I had started to develop an interest in an identity as a. As a. Almost a teenager or soon to be teenager. And I remember having fun playing soccer and being in competitive sports. I'd never experienced those things because I'd never left our tiny town of paradise and I'd never gone to school. So I was having a very, I mean, crucial experience of socialization and developing an identity that was cut dramatically short as soon as we met those people. Well, I had been sewing since I was a child, so I was always sewing or making something for myself or altering clothing. And I did have a pair of jeans that I sewed myself to be taped with skinny jeans. And I remembered, like, I was a skinny little 11 or 12 year old, but I loved having them and just feeling like I was cool because I had a fun sense of style of the time. I was never introduced to any type of clothing that was hip or of the time. And mostly what I wore was just from garage sales. So looking back at photographs, I just look like a forlorn Child with random clothing.
- [18:31]
Mike King
When Andrea was moved into the cult, the control began immediately. The women stripped away everything that Andrea had that reminded her of who she was apart from the cult. And again, taking her possessions wasn't presented as cruelty in her case. It was dressed up in the language of obedience and spiritual submission.
- [18:58]
Andrea
Well, when the women of the group kidnapped me from my parents rental 10 minutes away when I was moved into the neighborhood, I had a belief that my things would go with me. And so I had, you know, a collection of Norman Rockwell prints that I was super excited about and I was going to get them framed and I had some mementos from childhood and, you know, my jeans, my clothes, and the woman that was there to, you know, pack me up and move me over the neighborhood just told me that I wouldn't need any of those things where we were going. And I, you know, I kind of just accepted it at that moment, knowing that God is the more important thing. But I don't know at what point. It wasn't in that moment, but it was definitely soon after all of my belongings that I thought that I was taking recently just completely disappeared. So any sense of identity or self or any momentos of nostalgia or identity just were wiped clean from my life.
- [20:03]
Mike King
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- [21:15]
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- [21:55]
Mike King
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- [22:26]
Mike King
Those kinds of moves by the cult leaders was never about organization or simplicity. It was all about control. And it was about cutting Andrea off from the reminders of who she had been, what she'd loved, what she hoped for. They severed her connection to her family and to the world that existed outside of the group. It was a time of confusion, pain, humiliation and sadness. And Andrea takes it one step further because she doesn't just talk about what was lost. She explains what the loss truly meant to her.
- [23:04]
Andrea
It was very confusing actually, because I at the time felt some sort of pride in having a sense of self and caring about things and investing my energy into things and being excited about creativity and beautifying my environment. And so when I was told that none of that mattered, I remember it being upsetting and hard. But I was willing to accept it as okay because of what God wanted. Because remember, that was the number one thing on my mind because of my 12 years of prior training from my mother. So I was just willing to do that because that was the number one thing. Even if my Norman Rockwell pictures were number two, but still number one since he's gone and he didn't want me to have them and that was a little confusing. To understand what was wrong with them or what was wrong with my other belongings, clearly understand that it was just a way of wiping away any sense that I have of my future life or future self or attachment to the family.
- [24:04]
Mike King
Well, what Andrea is describing is the destruction of who she was. The objects weren't necessarily valuable, they weren't expensive, they weren't rare. But they held great value to Andrea because they connected her to her family, to her Memories to the identity that she had that was developing. The theft of these things gave the cult complete control, the control that they wanted. And it prevented things that they didn't want, like a reminder of life outside of the cult or any hope of an independent future. The cult wanted to define everything for her moving forward. They would tell her what was good or evil, what was holy or sinful, what mattered and what didn't. And the one thing that mattered was strict obedience. And this is what makes Andrea's story so important, because it's one of the clearest examples in the entire case of how cult leaders tried to erase not just possessions, but one's identity. And they did it while using religious language to make that erasure sound like it was somehow virtue. Back in episode one, you met Ron and Jackie Van Beekum. They lived through the early years of the Zion Society cult. They got out, and they rebuilt their lives. Years later, Ron became an Ogden city police officer. And that's where this story took an unexpected turn for me, because I was actually Ron Van Beekum's field training officer during his rookie year. At the time, I had no idea that Ron had any connection to the Zion Society. In fact, I didn't even know the cult had existed at that point in my life. But when I look back on it now, I think about the remarkable path that Ron and Jackie have traveled. They lived through coercive control, through manipulations, through spiritual abuse. They lived through a time of deep confusion. Years later, I worked alongside Jackie. I watched Ron build an honorable law enforcement career. They became my friends over the years. What became clear over that time was that they had built a life defined by courage, by service, by their marriage, their family, their moral clarity. All of that came after they left the Zion Society. You know, that's one of the reasons I wanted them in this closing episode. Their story reflects both the injury and their agency. The culture damaged their lives deeply, but it didn't get the final word. In episode seven, you heard Arvind Shreve speaking from prison to a room full of police investigators during a training seminar that I was conducting on ritual crime.
- [26:56]
Don Lee
And that's what would have solved an awful lot of problems in the past. And you're going to be facing an awful lot of these communities. Maybe one more point. Do we have the time that I can make one brief point? If we see properly the economic situation which is shaping up in the world, we may be in for an economic squeeze in this country before it's over with. What does that mean in Relationship to groups, people tend to band together. When you've got economic problems, you think you've got groups. Now, if this thing tightens, wait till you see what happens.
- [27:38]
Mike King
I used that same audio clip years later when I was visiting with Ron and Jackie Van Beekham about this podcast. I wanted to understand what it would be like for them to hear Arvin Shrie's voice once again after all those years. When they heard him speak, I could see the discomfort rising. So I stopped the recording after just a few seconds. Even though Ron and Jackie had done nothing wrong, and even though they had built a strong and healthy life afterward, hearing the leader's voice once again brought back to the surface feelings that they, and certainly I did not expect. The reaction was immediate. It was physical, it was emotional. It showed in a very human way how deeply coercive control can lodge itself in our memories. Trauma can come from words that are spoken, from settings or sounds, and it can come rushing back before the mind can even process what happened. That's the kind of thing I saw in Ron and Jackie. And it reminded me that even decades later, the residual of controlling systems can still surface in an instance. Not because the survivor's weak, but because it happened to them. And it was real.
- [29:00]
Jackie Van Beekum
It got my gut big time. It just brought back nothing good. It did not bring back anything good. It just brought back just. I don't know how to explain it, Mike. I don't know how to explain it. It wasn't a good feeling.
- [29:17]
Mike King
And that is what makes the next moment so important, because Ron and Jackie had already done the hard work of building a life outside of the cult's control. But healing doesn't always erase the emotional force of a trigger.
- [29:33]
David
Just the hearing his voice gave me anger, gave me fear, gave me like, oh, I mean, it was like, it's him again. You know, it was almost like it was. It was scary because it's like.
- [29:48]
Ron Van Beekum
And you kind of get emotional a
- [29:50]
David
little bit because you're like, oh, my heck, 30 years later, there's that voice. And it was. It was scary and it was fearful and it was anger and it was like hatred, but yet. Same thing, though. But then you look at it and say, the man is so. And that I immediately knew that the man was so evil. And I. Then I got the feeling that I'm just glad where we're at. But when I first heard that voice, it was almost like I almost started to cry. And it almost ended up then. It was like the anger and the hatred. Oh, hatred's A pretty. And it was all these emotions build up. And I think the biggest thing that hit me was the voice. I was like, that's that voice. That's that voice that pounded on us for a year and a half of nothing but bs and it's like, he's still here. It's still that voice. And it was, it was, it was a shock. It was like, oh my gosh, you know?
- [30:50]
Mike King
And
- [30:53]
Unnamed Survivor (possibly Jackie or another survivor)
the first time we heard that voice of Arvin's again after so many years, it was a horrible feeling. I got sick to my stomach. It felt like the blood was draining out of my body. Just a horrible feeling. Couldn't keep the tears back. They were tears of, I guess, happy that what we felt and got out and tears for other people that were there and so thankful we got out of there. I hope I will not never have to deal with Arvin again, but obviously I won't. He's just an evil man. He always was. And it. I. I don't like him at all.
- [31:34]
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- [32:10]
Mike King
And this is where the survivors of the Zion Society teach the rest of us something important. Because they moved forward and they built productive, meaningful lives in spite of the evil designs that set out to hurt them. For some, that strength came through years of therapy. For others, it grew through deeper relationships with their faith tradition. And for many, it came through some combination of therapy and time. Loving companions who knew when to listen and when does just be present.
- [32:44]
David
And I think you even caught on it a little bit because I think you turned it off rather quickly and said, well, we don't need to play that much more because you might have. I don't know if you saw the shock in our faces or what we saw, but it was just an emotional. Almost an emotional breakdown. But it was also thankful but just hearing that voice and seeing that because I hadn't seen him and heard him in 30 years. And then all of a sudden I see that and like all of a sudden I'll came back to day one and right from the beginning thinking oh, my gosh. How did we, how did we fall for that?
- [33:19]
Jackie Van Beekum
It kind of like, shut it. That was the final chapter. We knew he was gone. He's dead, he's gone. I think that was the end and
- [33:28]
David
you can't hurt us anymore.
- [33:30]
Jackie Van Beekum
That was just kind of shut down, that era.
- [33:38]
David
And, you know, and I thought I could handle everything. And I. And, you know, I probably could have listened to more of it, but it wasn't necessary. But just hearing that voice again, I just thought, holy smokes. 30 years later, that's. That his. It's that voice.
- [33:53]
Mike King
But we won.
- [33:54]
David
We won.
- [33:54]
Jackie Van Beekum
We won.
- [33:55]
Mike King
You do.
- [33:55]
Jackie Van Beekum
They've lost. We won.
- [33:58]
David
So grateful. And for Jackie, because she was. She started the conversation and I'm so thankful for her to say, Ron, what are we doing?
- [34:09]
Mike King
Well, what I've learned is that when a trigger affects someone, it doesn't mean every memory is going to come back in perfect order or in complete detail. Trauma memories are often fragmented, sensory, emotionally charged. And that's not a flaw. Rather, it's a well recognized feature of how overwhelmingly these experiences are stored and then later recalled. What the trigger tells us is that the experience was likely real and that it carries fear, helplessness, coercion, or domination cues that hold real emotional weight. That is why the questions people sometimes ask survivors of why didn't you say more? Or how could you still be reacting like that? Now? They miss the point. Destructive control systems work by confusing and isolating and overwhelming the people inside of them, especially with children. And that brings me to Amber, the first survivor I heard from the woman that you met in episode one, who emailed me asking if I could help her make sense of the memories that were beginning to surface in her mind. Now, if Andrea showed us anything about the identity cues and how they can strip away things that are so important to them, or if Ron and Jackie showed us how a familiar cue can stir up buried fears decades later, Amber's story is going to tell us something even more intimate. A handmade Raggedy Ann doll that meant far more than most people would ever imagine. Because this is where I want to share one of the most personal stories in this entire series for me, Amber, Don Lee and a Raggedy Ann doll. Now, I know some of you listening right now might be thinking, why is this guy spending so much time talking about a doll? And it's a fair question on the surface because it can sound like a small detail, but it wasn't, not in this story and certainly not for Amber. So stick with me for a moment because this is about much more than a doll story. It's about identity, comfort, attachment, and what a doll can mean to a child who lost everything and how it helped them feel safe, seen and loved. For a child living with instability, with hunger or emotional neglect and confusion and fear, a single object like a dollar can become a lifeline. Not because children are simplistic, but because they're adaptive. They find a place to put love and places to share their grief, especially when the adults around them are not protecting them. Months before the cult took hold of her life, Amber received a handmade Raggedy Ann doll during a period of time when her family was struggling, moving place to place, at times living out of their car. They lacked heat in their home. They didn't have electricity, and they barely had enough food to eat. And one day, a wrapped gift appeared on the front stoop of their battered apartment. I asked my wife to read Amber's account of that special day.
- [37:34]
Amber Don Lee
One afternoon when our family came home, we saw a package sitting on our front porch. Well, my sisters and I ran to see what it was. I picked it up and ran inside with it. My mother struck a match and lit the kerosene lamp that we had. Yes, our electricity had been turned off again. There was a little note, scotch taped to the package that said, to Amber, from someone who loves you. I was giddy. I tore the package open and found a box wrapped in Christmas paper. But it wasn't December. Well, I very carefully opened the box and saw the most beautiful handmade Raggedy Ann doll. She had black yarn hair, which I felt was just for me because I had black hair. I wondered, how did this person know that I was always self conscious about having dark hair. My sisters were blond and and I wanted to look like my family, but I didn't. That doll looked like me. She had blue eyes and wore a dress made out of shiny satin with an apron and even lace bloomers underneath. I couldn't believe it. I searched all over the doll for a clue as to who may have given it to me, but there just wasn't one. And there was just a heart made of string on her chest. Just a simple red heart. To say I was overjoyed with her is an understatement. She was the best thing that could have possibly happened to me at that time. I asked my stepmother if she thought my real mom could have left her for me. And all she said was, no, and I'm your real mom. I corrected myself and told her I meant my biological mom. All she said was, your Biological mom was a drug addict. My dad had been watching me, and he got up to leave the room and said, isn't it fantastic? Well, I was smiling, laughing, and crying all at once with happiness. And everything in my life at that moment felt perfect and whole. I had no idea who'd given me that gift, but it was just perfect. And at the perfect time. I had spent so many nights crying myself to sleep, but that night, I didn't. I held that doll close and thought, someone loved me enough to do this for. For me. Somebody really loved me. This kindness affected me so deeply because I had always felt different and lost, uncomfortable in my own skin. That doll filled an empty space inside.
- [40:55]
Mike King
Well, in the months that followed the raid on the Zion Society cult, I interviewed Amber in another state where she was living. She had been moved there by the cult to get her away from any influence that law enforcement might have over her. It had been about six months of separation from the cult, but still, she held tightly to the indoctrination, refusing to tell me anything that happened to her in the Northwoods subdivision. But even then, one detail slipped through, and I recorded it in my investigative report, not because it helped solve the crime, but mainly because it broke my heart. Amber told me about losing her doll after moving into the Zion Society.
- [41:40]
Amber
Well, that dollar symbolized a lot for me. She was a mother, father. She was a protector. She was my secret keeper. I was living in a very traumatic existence because of the choices of the adults around me. So I found a lot of solace in that doll. And also, I was, you know, with the emotional abuse that I also had, I felt very worthless. And to have something that came just for me with for no reason was, you know, just not even knowing who it could be. It kept me more open to somebody out there does love me. I don't know who, but somebody loves me. So if something abusive happened to me again, instead of pulling that abuse more inside, I was able to go to my doll and be like, well, it's okay, because somebody loves me.
- [42:44]
Mike King
Now, From a legal standpoint, the doll didn't prove any elements of a crime, and it certainly didn't warrant inclusion in my report. But as an investigator, a human, a dad, her story revealed the environment of control that she was in, how power was being used, and how these predators stripped their followers of their identities. The doll was part of Amber's emotional world, and it became a part of mine. At that moment, I noted the description of the doll. In fact, back then, I even wrote down the color of hair Black. The design of the dress and the special stitching that was on the message on it. All of this sat in my police report for 30 plus years.
- [43:31]
Amber
So. And, you know, I cried a lot of tears into that doll and, you know, took her with me on a lot of journeys and. And then we were, you know, in the. In the group and Because I had such an attachment to my doll and I was, you know, intended to be a prophet's wife as a child, they took my doll away from me so that I could not have any worldly or outside connections. They called them a carnal connection, which meant that the devil was. And the adversary and everything was in. Symbolized in my doll, which that's not what it was for me. It was quite the opposite. So that was the time when I really, you know, I lost a lot of faith. You know, went into a very deep and defiant depression.
- [44:30]
Mike King
Well, just a few years ago, Amber told me that Carla had stripped that doll from her as she spoke about that horrifying memory that stirred up my memory of my earlier police report. I couldn't shake the story from my mind, so I decided that I would find that doll for her. At least I would try to find that doll. In my research, I learned that the Raggedy Ann doll company had gone out of business. And after searching online for weeks, I was resigned that I might never find a doll that matched the description that Amber gave of her special doll. Sure, there were plenty of red headed dolls, but. But not the one that Amber had described. Well, after weeks of additional research, I discovered the name of a woman who had once worked for the Raggedy Ann Company as a seamstress. I shared Amber's story with her, along with a laundry list of details. The dark hair, the style, the look, the feel of what Amber remembered. The seamstress's name was Lucille. She wanted to help. And several months later, I received a package in the mail with a beautiful doll and a tender note. What you're about to hear is what happened when this handmade Raggedy Ann doll was delivered to Amber, and it wasn't by me. I actually asked one of the other child survivors of the Zion Society cult to deliver the doll to Amber.
- [46:04]
Don Lee
Okay, so we're doing this little video. This is for Mike King.
- [46:08]
Mike King
He what?
- [46:09]
Don Lee
He had a gift that he wanted to present to you.
- [46:12]
Andrea
What?
- [46:13]
Don Lee
And asked us to record.
- [46:14]
Unnamed Survivor (possibly Jackie or another survivor)
No way.
- [46:16]
Amber
Are you serious? No.
- [46:20]
Mike King
Oh, my gosh.
- [46:20]
Amber
I wasn't. I didn't even pay attention to what this was you were carrying around. I know. I didn't have to come up with any answer. She didn't even.
- [46:28]
Don Lee
Yes, she is famous.
- [46:35]
Amber
No way. No way, no way, no way. I have chills. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. It's just like her. God, I thought, I'm an ugly cry. Oh, my. This one looks just exactly like her. Thank you. There's a letter from the woman that
- [47:01]
Unnamed Survivor (possibly Jackie or another survivor)
made it in there.
- [47:02]
Amber
The dress is exactly like the. Oh, my God. I like.
- [47:06]
Mike King
I reached out to that seamstress after Amber opened the package, and I thanked her. Just a few days ago, I contacted her and asked her if she would read what she wrote to Amber so that I could include it in this podcast. This is the note that she tucked inside the box next to Raggedy Ann.
- [47:25]
Lucille (Raggedy Ann doll seamstress)
Amber, I was asked to make this very special doll for you. I understand your feelings for your first doll. There's something almost magical about a handmade Raggedy Ann doll. I've been making them for 48 years. The girls I made them for in the 70s and 80s are now grandmothers and are ordering dolls, but they're granddaughters. I have loved to sew since I was a child, and I am 71 years old now and will continue to make dolls as long as I possibly can. Enjoy your doll, Lucille.
- [47:55]
Mike King
Lucille's message wasn't about replacing the past. It had nothing to do with that. It was about honoring what had been taken away from a little girl. It was about saying that I see that this matters. I believe it matters, and I want to help bring one small piece of that story full circle.
- [48:16]
Amber
She's exactly the same doll. Exactly the same doll. Her name is Christine Ann, which is like Raggedy Ann, but different. Yeah, so it's. It's like a full circle. You know, life is always going to end up okay. So, you know, it's also very symbolic of the things that were taken away from me, you know, as a child and in that group and in that cult from, you know, the abusers. And now I'm just. It's like taking back my life and being given a trophy for it. Feels good.
- [48:54]
Mike King
Oh, and that survivor who delivered the doll to Amber, it was the same girl who Amber had once burned with a curling iron when they were just children inside that abandoned system. That was Don's voice that you heard handing the gift to Amber. While Amber's husband filmed, the Zion Society tried to strip its followers of their identity. Arvin Shreve and those around him pressured families to trade safety for obedience. They stole childhoods through repeated sexual abuse, and they replaced agency with Fear. They took keepsakes and they tried to replace them with doomsday ideology. And most disturbing of all, they twisted an individual's trust in deity into submission to a predator. That's why this story was never about just one criminal leader doing terrible things. It was about a coercive system whose effects didn't end with the arrests. The survivors were left carrying a heavy burden as the memories would resurface at the worst possible times in their lives. But here's the other half of the story. The part the cult couldn't steal. It couldn't take away the survivor's ability to recognize the truth, to reclaim their lives, and to build for a positive future. The Zion Society couldn't take away the survivors courage to speak, and it can't extinguish the human need for love. Arvin Shreve couldn't take away the futures of these brave men and women who survived him. And this story is a reminder to all of us in the true crime community that we can spend way too much time centered on the offender and not enough time on the survivor. We explain the crime, we talk about timelines, we talk about the evidence and everything else that matters. But if we stop there, we risk leaving the offender at the center of the story. And they don't deserve that kind of attention. So I want to close this series by putting the survivors where they belong, at the center. In a text that I received from David, one of the surviving spouses that you heard from earlier in the podcast, he wrote, quote, mike, our conversations over the last 48 hours have helped me grow in ways that I can cannot define. Thank you. I came across a quote by the artist Terry St. Cloud. It fits so many in the Zion Society story. The quote was, she could never go back and make some of the details pretty. All she could do was move forward and make the whole beautiful. Folks, thanks for listening to Gardens of Evil, Inside the Zion Society Cult. If you're a survivor of abuse, I hope that this podcast has offered you some hope. If you need help, please reach out immediately. And if you know someone who's experiencing sexual violence, contact the Rape, Abuse and Incest national network. That's RAINN R A I N N.org or you can call the National Sexual assault hotline at 1-800-656-HOPE. Services are free. They're confidential and available 24 7. These final episodes of Gardens of Inside the Zion Society Cult were written, narrated and produced by me, Mike King. They're based on my book, an investigative memoir of the Zion Society Cult. I I hope that you'll continue to follow me on my podcast, Profiling Evil. You can find it anywhere you get podcasts. And I'd like you to know that I'm donating all of my proceeds from the book and this podcast to fund child advocacy efforts and to criminal justice scholarships. Executive producers are John Goforth and Jeremy Sinan. Gardens of Evil is a production of the Gamut Podcast Network.