Cecilia Steyn
Appearances
Last Podcast On The Left
Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Well, Cecilia, ever ready with an answer, shouted that this was war. They were all living in the end times, and how dare Marcel question her while Pastor Reg was actively plotting to kill people just like Cecilia who just wanted to escape the clutches of Satanism.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Well, to justify the murder, Cecilia cited the Old Testament, saying that God had told David to murder women and children. This was either a misinterpretation of the passage on Cecilia's part, or more likely, a willful distortion. But in the end, it was what finally worked. We got everyone on board.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yes.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Absolutely. What's important? Well, either that or, you know, she's a 14-year-old girl. What is she going to do? What's she going to do?
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I don't think Marcel had gone on the first murder.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
She definitely knew it was up. But she's not really in a position to argue. Oh, yeah. What's important to keep in mind about all this, though, is that even though Electus Pradeus were a small group, not everyone knew about the murders. See, it's not like they were all living on a compound together, nor was this a day-to-day cult where people lived a lifestyle based around the leader's teachings.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
It's strange. I tried listening to some Afrikaans today to see if I could maybe say some Afrikaans phrases. Couldn't even penetrate it. Couldn't even come close. Try one. Wow.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Instead, this was a cult comprised of meetings, get-togethers, and hangouts. So if they wanted to keep some members in the dark about the murderous side of the cult, all they had to do was not include them on the planning committee.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
It's exactly what it was. Exactly. They showed up once a week for a meeting.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And they didn't know that there were three meetings in between the last meeting in which they were planning the murder of a pastor. Now, Zach Valentine had already proved himself to be a capable and enthusiastic killer. But after Michaela had balked at committing murder herself, it showed Cecilia that the rest of them could use a little practice before going into the next mission.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
So they procured a pig's head and Cecilia made her followers practice murder in her bedroom of all fucking places by stabbing the pig's head with knives and burying axes into its skull.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I mean, who knows?
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Got some taps.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah. But, I mean, really, it's not subtle at all because she's telling them, like, you have to get good at murder, so you have to stab this pig's head. But then it's how she does it.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
When Cecilia felt that everyone was ready, the plan to kill Pastor Reg Ben Dixon was put into motion. Zach Valentine and LaRue Stain, Marinda's teenage son, made a call to Ben Dixon's home to make an appointment for spiritual counseling. Ben Dixon readily agreed and made plans to meet at a coffee shop called Mug and Bean the next Monday afternoon.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Of course. Ed Larson, how are you, sir?
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But just before the meeting, Zach canceled the appointment. The whole thing was just a ruse, I think, to check Ben Dixon's schedule and specifically to see when his wife would be out of the house. Just to fucking laugh at him.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And somehow they learned that Mrs. Ben Dixon came home late on Mondays. So they chose the following Monday to kill Pastor Reg. But killing Pastor Reg was only part of the game here. To ratchet up the fear, Electus Perdeus used their burner phones to once again pose as satanic witches.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And they began texting the members of Overcomers Through Christ that a pastor was going to die and there was nothing they could do about it. No one told the pastor? Well, that's the thing. Growing even more bold, they texted Rhea and told her specifically to say her goodbyes to Pastor Red.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Incredibly, though, for reasons I can't understand, nobody seemed to warn Reg, or if they did, Reg didn't or couldn't do anything to protect himself. Because as we're going to get into later, the South African police, not great at their jobs.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Really not great at their jobs.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Please release me from this life. And so, on their second outing involving murder, Zach Valentine once again took the Tex Watson role and led Miranda Stain and her 14-year-old daughter, Marcel, on a mission to brutally murder a pastor.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Again, the crew wore wigs. Zach had a long, luxurious red wig, while Marinda wore a short, black bob wig.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Miranda's a fucking piece of work. We're going to get there. The difference this time was that they also had police uniforms that belonged to Cecilia's husband, whose role as a cop will play a big part later on in this story.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
So, armed with axes and knives, Zack, Miranda, and Marcel drove to Pastor Reg's housing complex and stopped at the security gate. Using a burner phone, Miranda called Pastor Reg and told him that they were police who had questions about the murders of Natasha Berger and Joy Boonsayer. The very murders they themselves had committed. Oh. Pastor Reg, of course, buzzed them in.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
We have to immediately dig ourselves out of a hole. And we're recording this on Halloween.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But since it would look weird if there was a 14-year-old police officer in tow, Marcel Stain was crouched down behind the car. And when Marinda and Zach pulled in, Marcel crept in after them. She would not participate, but she would witness the entire ordeal to come.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
So, after chatting about the phony murder investigation for just a few minutes, Zach walked up behind the 72-year-old pastor and smashed in Reg's skull with his weapon. Zach then stood over Ben Dixon's prone body and chopped his head over and over again with an axe. But while... It's casual. Respectful. On a violin. Don't worry about it. Old joke. Yeah.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But while he was doing it, Miranda joined in and proved herself to be just as bloodthirsty and aggressive as Zach. She stabbed him in the chest and stomach 13 times and kept doing it until Pastor Reg's blood stopped pumping. They then left Reg's body in his own flower bed and fled the scene covered in blood.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I have listened to the Monster Mash twice today. Once on the radio and once by myself on my own volition. Have you listened to the Monster Mash yet? Yes, I did.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Big fences. Well, these are housing complexes. They're not apartment complexes. In South Africa, think of it as a gated community. And those are really tall walls.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah, and really, like, the most noise you're going to hear from Pastor Edge is, like, right when the fucking axe, you know, goes into his skull. Yeah, that was it. Yeah, he wasn't conscious for the rest of it.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Getting back into their rental car, which I'd imagine had to be cleaned quite thoroughly before they returned it. I don't know. I don't know if these guys are super conscientious renters. They drove to a pre-planned location where Michaela Valentine was waiting with another car.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
The murder crew then changed clothes and headed home, throwing their bloody garments and their murder weapons out of the car window on their way back to Kruger's Dorp. Michaela, meanwhile, asked the crew to recount all the gory details, like how long did it take him to die? What kind of weapons did you use? How many times did you stab him?
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But it's most likely that Michaela was just feigning interest because she didn't want to get into trouble with Cecilia again for not being enthusiastic about murder.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But the person who had surprised themselves most that day was Marinda Stain. And it's important to note that this woman, the woman who had stabbed his pastor until his blood stopped pumping, she was still teaching high school English every weekday during this entire saga. Your English teacher loves murder.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
She later said that she loved the act of murder, that she felt a release afterward, an adrenaline rush that was both scary and exciting.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
It's a very frustrating job from what I'm told.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
She said that she didn't know it until she did it, but she'd been waiting her whole life to murder someone. Wow.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Well, she put it in a way that was appropriate for a teacher. Murdering Reg Ben Dixon was like taking an exam where you have all this tension beforehand, but after you write and pass it, there's a release that's very enjoyable.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And for me, hearing the school teacher talk about how much she loved murder really goes a long way towards explaining how normal people are able to participate in large-scale horrors like the Holocaust and other genocides.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
See, some people are like Michaela Valentine, who are immediately repulsed by killing no matter what the justification, but they basically go along to survive, which only encourages the people in the other group, people like Miranda Stain. See, people like Miranda would otherwise never murder someone unless they were given a righteous reason.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But when they finally do it, they find that they absolutely love it. In fact, the bar for justification just keeps getting lower, specifically because they want reasons to do it again and again. Now extrapolate those dynamics to millions of people, and you can start to understand how horrible things are committed by seemingly normal people on a fucking massive scale.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yes. Yeah. They would have moved on. Actually, if they would have stopped after the next four people, they wouldn't have gotten caught.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Oh, you're an avenging angel at that moment. You are a Christian soldier. An actual one.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And not only that, but you're good at it. Yeah. And you love it. So you're going to do it more because it makes you feel really fucking good.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Now, incredibly, the main suspect for the murder of Reggie Dixon was once again, Rhea Grunewald.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yes, this is a suspect for the brutal axe murder out in Johannesburg.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Well, they linked these murders because the murder of Regimen Dixon had all the hallmarks of the double murder committed by Electus Perdeus. Rhea, meanwhile, believed that all of this was the work of the Satanic Church, who was once again framing her for their own murders.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Now, Rhea completely refused to hear any other point of view as to what was going on that didn't involve Satanists. She did finally lawyer up after being accused of a third murder, but she almost immediately fired him when he scolded her for being so deeply involved in a lot of horseshit that was obviously ruining her life.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But when she fired her lawyer, her children, who had already had a strained relationship with her, they went no contact. Because like we're seeing today with people lost to the QAnon and MAGA cults, people like Rhea live in entirely separate realities that are impenetrable to those who don't believe.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Surprisingly, God's a Hufflepuff. It seems like Cecilia knew that she was in effect untouchable when it came to these murders, because the day after Pastor Reg was killed, one of her cultists left a pile of bloody meat on Rhea's doorstep.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
My God, this is a bloody episode. So when we last left the Electus Perdeus cult, they just committed a double murder on the command of their leader, Cecilia Staines.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
It was not, however, Reggie's flesh. Rather, it was the leftover brains from the pig's head that Electus Perdeus had used to practice murder. The very same pig's head that had been in the home of a police officer who was willfully turning a blind eye to everything happening around him.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. What? Who are you? Now, Rhea took this pile of pig's brains to the police, who amateurishly asked her to put it back where they found it so they could take pictures. They then searched her apartment, treating her like the prime suspect.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
They then accused her of being the one who sent the threatening text messages that were supposedly coming from Satanists. One woman operation.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Now, if I had to guess as to why the cops made Rhea their prime suspect, the only answer I can come up with is that the cops had created this story that Rhea wanted her satanic panic story to be true so badly that she was making it a reality herself by sending texts, faking threats, and murdering three people.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I know. Dude, it's going to get so much worse. And to that point, I can honestly, I can see why Rhea Grunewald thought that the satanic church had infiltrated the South African police.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But as we've said before, we must always be very careful to never confuse incompetence for malice. From what it seems to me, the South African police had somewhat the right idea, but the wrong person. Oh, yeah. And it could very well be that this confusion may have been deliberate because the more likely person in this scenario was, if you'll remember, married to one of their own.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I don't know how many of these fucking cops think that the cabal is real. That's true. They do think it's all real. Some of them do, some of them don't.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
That's a big part. Yeah, I mean, because that's the thing. You said that she is the person in the middle of all this. She's the link that connects all these together. But it's like they don't have the critical thinking or they don't have the gumption to go beyond that. It's like, oh, this person's in the middle of all of it? Nah, they probably did it. Let's fucking get her ass.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Nah, we don't need to. It's just...
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Now, as I said, Marinda Stane was absolutely invigorated by the murder of Regman Dixon, and she wanted more. But her son, LaRue, was understandably troubled that his mother had so fervently taken to killing.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I don't know why you have LaRue and Marcel. It's very French. But Marcel, she'd actually witnessed the murder of Ben Dixon. And she went the opposite direction and threw herself into schoolwork and total denial. Michaela Valentine, however, was having the hardest. Yeah, school and denial. Great college. Take you away from there.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Michaela Valentine, however, was having the hardest time accepting the turn that Electus Perdeus had taken. She tried overdosing on pills, but she survived and afterward told her mother that she was scared because other people who'd left Electus Perdeus had been killed. That some of the other murders that they think Electus Perdeus may have been responsible for.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And she also said that the police were starting to ask her questions that she couldn't answer out of fear for her own life. So we do know there was some investigation going on on the periphery of Electus Perdeus, but not enough.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Well, pushy fundamentalist church people, let's be fair here.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And as it turned out, Michaela had very good reason to be scared because Cecilia had already decided that it was time to start the inevitable purge from within that usually happens with violent cults. Well, usually always. Always, because you've got to take some of the dead leaves off.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Well, people start asking questions, and they start asking, like, well, this isn't what I signed up for. Always someone starts saying, like, this isn't what I signed up for. And if you want to keep moving forward, that person has to go away. But after you've already committed violent crimes, that person can only go away one way, and that's...
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah. So Cecilia did what she did best, and she began manipulating the other members, essentially committing murder by gossip. Playing heavy on the sunk cost fallacy, Cecilia told the others that if Michaela left Electus Perdeus, then she'd probably go to the cops. And if she went to the cops, then the cult would go to jail.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And if the cult went to jail, then that was endgame for all those American orphans.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And that would make the three murders that they'd already committed totally meaningless. So what's another murder? The most flabbergasting part of this is that Zach Valentine, Michaela's husband, he was immediately on board with killing his wife. Hot dog.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah, definitely. So at this point, he believed that it was his destiny to marry Cecilia. I know. So by murdering his wife, he was one step closer to greatness. And then I can see the secrets. Of the hair gel. What's under that windbreaker? I'm going to know soon enough.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
No, she's the one that chases the lot lizards away.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And so, when Michaela inevitably confided in her husband and told him that they should maybe think about leaving the murder cult, he decided then and there that it was only a matter of time.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
On October 3rd, 2012, about two months after Pastor Red was killed, Michaela told Electus Perdeus that she was leaving. I'm putting in my two weeks. And as soon as Michaela left the room, Cecilia told her kill crew that they had an obvious mission ahead of them.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah, they might have. Some people think it might be 15, 16, somewhere around there. Why not just admit it? Because they were saying they weren't guilty of any of them. They were trying to get away with it.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But as opposed to their other intricately planned murders, this one was going to be relatively simple. Actually, now that I say it, this isn't relatively simple at all. There's a whole, everything has this fucking Byzantine network of fucking plans within plans upon it.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
That's very true.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
The plan was to send Miranda and Marcel into Zach and Michaela's house to kill Michaela and trash the house to make it look like a robbery gone wrong. That's the simple part. Zach, meanwhile, was set to meet a real estate agent under the auspice of selling his home. And when they walked into Zach's house to find Michaela's dead body, Zach could be like, oh, no, they murdered my wife.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Oh, no, what happened? And you have to practice that. Have you guys practiced that?
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And imagine not. And so, at 8 a.m. on October 4th, the very next day after Michaela told Electus Perdeus that she was leaving, Miranda and her 14-year-old daughter, Marcel, drove to Zach and Michaela's house with a 14-inch serrated knife and a hammer. Now tell me, do you want the hammer? Or do you want the knife, honey?
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I think they liked it. It's that whole, like, make it witchy thing. Like, if the weapons are just simple, it looks horrible.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Well, Cecilia had told Electus Perdeus that if they killed a member of their former group, Overcomers Through Christ, they would be saving a group of fictitious orphans in America who were being killed en masse because the Overcomers Through Christ were praying for them and activating the death curses that had been placed on their souls. Got it?
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I think they knew. They'd show later on they know exactly where to get weapons.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah, I think they just wanted it to be like a horror movie. I think they wanted it to be like a horror movie. You want as much blood as possible.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Oh, yeah. Well, for Zach's part, he made sure to drug Michaela's coffee before leaving for work to make sure that the murder would be an easy one. And so, just after Zach gave the signal to Miranda and Marcel when he was on the way out of the house that Michaela was passed out, the murder crew walked inside.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
When the mother and daughter found Michaela fast asleep, Marinda, hungry for another murder, she bashed Michaela's head with a hammer, working herself into a frenzy. She soon switched to the knife, stabbing and slashing Michaela over and over again, all in front of her 14-year-old daughter. But, as we all know from Ed Kemper, it's far harder to kill someone without a gun than you might think.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And Michaela woke up in the midst of being murdered. All she could get out was the word Marinda, to which Marinda said... I'm going to murder you now! But as Michaela mumbled out a prayer in a drugged stupor, Miranda remembered that Cecilia had requested that the teenage Marcel participate in the murder as well.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Miranda handed her daughter the knife and told her to stab Michaela, but Marcel only gave it a half-hearted attempt, claiming that the knife wouldn't go in. Unfazed, Miranda said that it was all right because she was almost finished anyway. And after taking the knife back, Miranda stabbed Michaela over and over again until both the prayers and the blood spurts ended.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
In all, Michaela Valentine was stabbed 64 times, which does sort of negate the whole robbery gone wrong angle.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I can take it. It's definitely more grace than my dad gave me when we tried fixing the fucking lawnmower.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
After Michaela died, Miranda and Marcel wrapped the body in a heated blanket because Cecilia had told them that heating up the body would cause it to decay quicker and the time of death would be harder to determine.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
In staying with the original plan, Miranda took all the valuables from the home, then went back to Cecilia's apartment where they all sat around watching DVDs with LaRue. I mean, it's just incredible to think that they just sat there watching movies after committing an 8 a.m. murder on a Thursday.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I looked up what movies were really big that year. I'd say Pitch Perfect.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Or 21 Jump Street, either one. Both fun.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Mm-hmm. But while the murder crew were hanging out at Cecilia's, Zach Valentine had to complete his part of the plan. At 2 p.m., about six hours after his wife was murdered, Zach showed up to his house with the real estate agent, a woman named Estelle Schiette, who was there to take photos for a listing and show the house to some potential buyers that afternoon.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
All right. But as absolutely ridiculous as that sounds when you boil it down to its essence, the first murders committed by Electus Perdeus were scary enough to make Rhea Grunewald shudder the overcomers through Christ because she fully believed that one of her people had been murdered by satanic witches.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And so when Zach and Estelle parked in the garage, Zach made a big show of saying that his wife was at home before they headed inside.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
The house, however, was dark, and Zach kept calling out, hello, my love, over and over again until they finally found Michaela's body. Zach, of course, gave it the perfunctory, oh, no.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And Estelle called the police. Zach, meanwhile, went to the kitchen to get some juice because he was diabetic and seeing the body of your murdered wife apparently dropped your blood sugar. It's good to know. Yeah. Zach then called his father while they waited for the cops. But after hanging up, Zach asked Estelle, quote, this is what Estelle said that he asked her.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Well, dumbfounded. And realistic. Dumbfounded, Estelle told Zach that she'd already canceled the appointment. Damn, dude. That's fast.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
By 4.30, both the police and the trauma counselor were on the scene. But the counselor was also surprised when he heard Zach laughing and chatting with his parents on the phone.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Likewise, the police were surprised when Zach asked them how long they were going to be carting his wife away. Wow. Because he was worried about the cats. Yeah. Had to feed the cats. They get sad. This was a question he asked multiple times to many people at the scene.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And his almost eager desire to return to the scene of his wife's murder was seen as strange, to say the least. Zach even joked to Estelle that because she was supposed to take pictures of the house. So he turns to her as the police are taking pictures of the crime scene.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Is he Rob Schneider? You know, that's the thing is that sometimes, you know, like dark comedy, that's just how you deal with it.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Gallows humor. Just jokes. It's how you deal with the murder of your wife immediately after it happens.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Saying nothing would have been better. Yeah. Yeah. That's what these people always do. They always get really chatty because they're nervous. So they get chatty, but they're not feeling anything, so they forget themselves. They're not good actors.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Now, all of this behavior was extremely suspicious, and the ominous feeling at the scene only grew when police discovered two assassination kits under Zach and Michaela's bed that included a pair of gloves, a balaclava, cable ties, knives, strangling wire, and a handgun. No, it's our whole ISIS role-playing thing.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
She's President Georgina Bush.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
That's like the thing that you put over your face to hide your face. Yeah, ski mask.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Balaclava. Yeah. Zach, however, wasn't questioned or taken into custody. He was left at home, and that night, instead of sleeping on the couch, he just flipped over the bloody mattress where his wife had been killed, and he slept just fine on the other side.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
No, flip over the mattress. Now, concerning cult relations here, there were still people that were not firmly in either Cecilia or Rhea's camp. Melanie van der Merwe, for example, she was still talking to both of them, and she told Rhea that Michaela Valentine had been murdered. Again, Rhea had the right idea, but the wrong motivation.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
She immediately thought that Cecilia was responsible, and the death of Michaela Valentine also put together some pieces in Rhea's mind that made her think that Cecilia was also probably behind the death of Natasha Berger and Pastor Regbin Dixon.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
What she got wrong, though, was that she believed that Cecilia was collaborating with the satanic church but was acting alone, while everyone else in Electus Perdeus were completely innocent. In other words, her insane worldview was completely distorting reality and was preventing her from seeing what was really happening.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
She's already broken off. Well, that's the thing is that with Rhea Grunewald, I don't even know if you could consider it necessarily brainwashing because she was already on that tip to begin with. She already believed that Satanists were running the world and were hiding behind every corner. Rhea just fucking pulled her further in.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Well, I think it's also because she can't believe that the other people on Electus Perdeus are cult members because she's still seeing them as lost sheep. Right.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
No, she's actually closer than they are.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Cecilia, meanwhile, was telling the members of Electus Perdeus who weren't involved in Michaela's murder that it was the overcomers who'd killed her. Everyone knew, however, that it wasn't a coincidence that Michaela had been killed the day after she left.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And they took note that whether it was the other members of Electus Perdeus or the satanic church itself who did the deed, death was the consequence of disobeying Cecilia.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Going even deeper into that concept, Miranda directly told her children, Marcel and LaRue, that if they ever told anyone what happened or if they tried to run away, then she would kill them herself, just like she'd murdered people twice before.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
It's a Bill Cosby joke.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Now some of the people who would... Oh, I know.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Now, some of the people who had just a foot in the door of this cult were shocked enough by Michaela's murder that they slowly began backing away. But they never fully left after seeing what had happened to Michaela. See, while cult member Amber Dupree's was initially drawn closer into the cult by the murder of Natasha Berger, she now began to realize that Cecilia was the real danger here.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
So she limited herself to weekly meetings to keep up appearances.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Like, Perdeus? She goes to Mass on Sundays, but not on Wednesday nights. I get it. But Amber's boyfriend, James Vermock, he started spending more time with the cult after the murder of Michaela Valentine, and he became closer to Zach, possibly out of some sense of sympathy for the death of Zach's wife.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But once Vermock came closer, Cecilia started grooming him for the murder crew by giving her a knife from her personal collection. This, it was said, this was how you knew that Cecilia liked you. But as far as their next murder victim went, the logical choice was Rhea Grunewald. Oh, yeah.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But as I said earlier, Cecilia had painted herself into a corner when she said that Rhea couldn't be killed lest Cecilia die as well due to their so-called maternal bond.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And then what sounds like what Candace... Cecilia just pulled her further in.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But Cecilia still wanted to hurt Rhea as badly as she possibly could. So it was finally time to take it to the highest level. Electus Perdeus decided to murder Rhea's son, Joshua.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Now, for justification for murdering Rhea's son, Cecilia once more returned to the orphans, who had pretty much become priority number one for Electus Perdeus.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
No, these are orphans that had been sent to a special orphanage because their Satanist parents had abandoned them because they didn't want the kids to grow up in Satanism.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
All right. Well, Cecilia said that she was having visions that the satanic church was using someone to target the safety of the orphans, and that someone was Joshua Grunewald. For Joshua's part, he was very much just some guy working at a tech company who had, at best, a frayed relationship with his insane mother, being the only one of Rhea's children who still spoke to her.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Ironically, Rhea Grunewald was also the main suspect in the double murder because police had interpreted the overcomers through Christ literature found in the murder victim's home as a cult material and therefore concluded that overcomers through Christ were a secret occult group and Rhea was a closet Satanist. God, I love that.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And he spoke to her sporadically at that.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah, yeah. You get involved in a murder plot. But when Cecilia named Joshua as their target, the only one who pushed back was James Vermock. He had been called into the inner circle for this one, but was apparently unaware of all the murders Electus Perdeus had committed previously.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
You're telling me we're going to murder someone?
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I mean, jeez. Well, James spoke to Cecilia alone and suggested that maybe, as Christians... wasn't murder kind of wrong? Like, sort of a biggie? Oh, no. First mistake. But Cecilia pulled out the Old Testament once again, saying that God ordered murder all the time, so why shouldn't she do the same if it was justified, which it always was?
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Nah, you know what they do. They like to pick and choose the shit that they like and put it to the new.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Now, James was somewhat convinced, but still struggled to understand why they were allowed to break the First Commandment so willy-nilly. But he nevertheless agreed to put a tracking device on Rhea's car so they could find Joshua. Now, the plan to kill Joshua was to call him where he worked, a place called Internet Solutions, and tell him that he needed to come out to fix their Wi-Fi.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Because their Wi-Fi wasn't working, you've got to come out and fix it. Well, you know, yeah, okay. Sure, but... But Joshua was a systems engineer. Yeah, I don't do Wi-Fi installation. You're talking to the cable company. Well, he kept referring them to IT because the company did do, they were called Internet Solutions.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
They were like an IP, like they were an internet company back before it all got bundled in with cable.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Have you? Well, he kept referring them to IT, no matter how irate they became in their constant calls. He's like, I'm sorry. It's not my job. I don't know why you keep calling me and asking me to do this. This isn't my job. I don't do this. Yeah. When this plan didn't work, the cult decided to just follow Joshua until no one was around.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
They'd jump him, throw him in the trunk of the car, stab him to death, and bury his body.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
In preparation, Cecilia even had LaRue pre-dig graves in three locations, one of which would be chosen depending on the location of the murder. You never want to be too far away from an open hole.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
The truth is that she's the closest, she's the most occultest person of all of them. Well, she's the expert. But that's the thing, is that absolutely nobody had any idea what was really going on except the leader of Electus Perdeus, Cecilia Stane, who was proving to be a master manipulator on a level that is nearly inconceivable.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Finally, they decided to contact Joshua Grunewald directly through Zach Valentine, who used his job as an insurance agent as an excuse to contact Joshua so he could sell him life insurance.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Joshua actually agreed and set up a meeting with Zach outside of his workplace. At that meeting, just like they'd done with Natasha Berger, Zach pumped him for intel that could be used to work up a better murder plan.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Well, because you've got to get the information so no one else is around. Meanwhile, in a risky attempt to get James Vermock fully on board, Cecilia bragged to him about how she got Zach to murder Pastor Reg Ben Dixon with an axe. Zach then said, oh yeah, I totally murdered that guy with an axe.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
This confession, however, had the opposite effect on James Vermont.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah, it freaked him the fuck out.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
We're killing people. Yep. Vermak, however, did not go to the police immediately because he, like many people in these types of realities, was able to hold two opposing ideas in his head at the same time. He believed Cecilia when she said that the police were working for her, so he couldn't go to them for that reason.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But he also believed that the police were working for the satanic church, meaning that he thought he had nowhere to go with the information he was given. So after calming down and realizing that he would die if he pushed back any further, he pretended like he was gung ho for the murder of Joshua Grunewald while also trying to figure out how to escape the cult.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah. Just fucking keep driving. But the problem with that was with these people in this worldview is that they believe that they can get you anywhere. No matter where you go, they're going to be able to find you and they're going to get you.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Well, no. But you're applying logic to this thing. You can't apply logic to this thing at all. To none of this. It's cognitive dissonance at its best. They're holding a bunch of opposing ideas in their head that don't make any... I think it's cognitive dissonance at its worst.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Well, as far as why he was spending less time with Electus Perdeus, Vermak told Cecilia that he was really just under a lot of pressure at work.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah. He said he had to concentrate on that for the time being instead of their holy war against Satan. Hey, you know. Finally, though, Zach approached James and asked him if he was in or out regarding the murder of Joss Grunewald, telling Zach quite explicitly that if he was out, he was going to end up like Michaela. Cecilia then told him the exact same thing.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
In way too deep, James said, sure, totally in for murder. Just say when. I'll move the numbers meeting to Friday. Yeah. Behind their backs, though, James confided to a friend from work named Justice Ramashia about the whole situation and asked him how he thought they could prevent Joshua's murder, not to mention his own.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Justice, who's an incredible work friend. Yeah, that is a very trusted co-worker. He came up with a plan. Now, it's a little confusing, but James Vermaak.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
It does seem so. It's the fourth highest murder rate in the world. Now, it's a little confusing, but James Vermont convinced Electus Perdeus that because his friend Justice was an undocumented immigrant, he could be the one to kill Joshua Grumwald. And then he'd just disappear. And Zach agreed.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Entirely foreign. Zach agreed, but when he gave Justice the gun and a payout, Justice just disappeared and nobody got killed.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Take the money and run. Good for you, dude. Way to go, man. Weirdly though, Cecilia didn't immediately follow up on the plan to kill Joshua. Instead, they just sort of sat on it.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I like his name. It's like you trust people and just... Break your heart. Break your heart. Every time. But them sitting on it gave James the time to build up the courage to finally go to the police. He told them everything he knew, which included direct confessions to multiple murders and two credible threats for future murders. And so James was set up with a wire.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And next time he visited the cult, he recorded not only full confessions to the murders of Natasha Berger, Joy Boonsayer, Regbin Dixon, and Michaela Valentine, but also the future plan to one day get around to maybe killing Josh Grunewald.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Good work, Marcus. You know, you'd think that would be the end of the story, that James would return to the cops with the recordings and the Electus Perdeus cult will be arrested immediately. And bing, bang, boom. We got this weird story of a Christian cult who pretended to be Satanist and killed four people. Oh, my God. What a great series. But that's not at all what happened.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
See, James Vermaak and his girlfriend Amber Dupree's were placed into witness protection. And Joshua Grunewald was contacted by the National Occult Unit and warned about a Satanist plot to kill him, albeit two weeks after James Vermaak turned in the tapes. They had to go through a lot of tapes. Yeah. Yeah.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But we do know that the information did make it through some pipeline because Joshua Grunewald was warned and he did move away as a result. And the other two were put into witness protection. Paperwork had to be filled up for that. Yeah. And later, police officers would claim that they had infiltrated the cult after they got the tapes. But there is no evidence of this claim at all.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Townhouse. Now, the kill crew on the double murder had been Zach Valentine and his wife, Michaela. And it was Cecilia's command that Michaela be the one to kill the intended target's neighbor, the neighbor that had been used as a decoy, if you'll remember. Michaela, however, couldn't go through with it because unlike her surprisingly ruthless husband, she was not a killer.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
From what it seemed, someone just made the whole thing go away.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And not only that, but the way that they've been positing it for years has actually created the very murder sprees that they were afraid of happening in the first place.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And Michelle remembers in Satanic Panic Shed.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I mean, I think it's... I think even that's too complicated.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
If I were to take a guess, I'd say that Cecilia's police officer husband finally took her aside and said... Listen here, Missy. All right, listen. All right, all right.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah, he probably, he minded, like, took her aside and said, hey, whole thing, whole cult thing's gone a little too far. Knock it off. Yeah. Because we can only cover up so many murders. That's what my dad had to do with my mom's quilt store.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
The only other explanation I can think of as to why the investigation went nowhere, even after full confessions, is Cecilia really was a satanic witch werewolf this whole time. You're right. She is. And that the South African police really were on the satanic payroll.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah, it was the absolute opposite.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But knowing what we know, corruption involving the thin blue line is a far more likely scenario, especially in South Africa. Now, perhaps because Cecilia was given a stern talking to, the cult never got around to murdering Joshua Grunewald. And besides, he had moved away and they couldn't find him anyway.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
The double murder actually greatly traumatized Michaela Valentine, who soon went full goth by dyeing her hair black, dressing in Hot Topic gear, wearing dark makeup, and falling deep into a gloomy depression.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
He had a very good idea when the occult crimes unit got a hold of him and said, hey, there's a cult that's planning to murder you. You better move. He's like, why won't they kill my mom? Well, partly it might be because Rhea Grunewald finally gave up her own personal crusade.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
After trying to work with the police to take down Cecilia and get nowhere, Rhea ran away to another town and started a new life under a new name. And understandably, her family never spoke to her again. Tria!
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And so, with no enemy to focus upon and therefore no more murders to order, Electus Pradeus basically did nothing except smoke meth and meet up to jabber at each other for hours on end for the next two years. I do have to remember that.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah. And just so everyone knows, we were contacted by many former meth users.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Good work. Very proud of you for getting through that. Very proud of you. But they told us that, yes, $400 a week on meth does indeed mean you're spending a lot of money on meth. You're doing a lot of meth.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah. And even if it's a group of people, they said, like, even if you get five people, $400 worth of meth, like, you can still invite another friend. Yeah. Yeah. But regardless, Zach eventually sold the home where Michaela was murdered and moved closer to Cecilia, while LaRue graduated high school and tried to live a normal life even though he still lived under his mother's thumb.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
LaRue worked as a salesperson for a furniture store called House and Home during the day and spent evenings as a bartender at Cecilia's favorite bar.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Zach Valentine.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I was so mistaken. A house has no electricity and you can commit many crimes there.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Zach Valentine, meanwhile, bought a new house, two BMWs, and a Mercedes-Benz. Living the life.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah, and this is all while he was still donating large sums of money to pay for the fictitious American orphans, while also paying for Cecilia's psychiatrist appointments, which must have been fucking wild.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah. And that's the thing is that she kept the orphan thing going constantly. Like, it was that whole two years, it's always like, hey, Zach, so where's the orphan payment for this month? Like, gotta keep those orphans alive.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
It does unravel. Yeah, and there have been many functional meth heads over the years. Yeah, Johnny Depp.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And it was Marion Barry.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But things started heating up again when a man named John Barnard moved in with Marinda sometime in 2014. Barnard worked at a local shop called Color Magic Printing, which was owned by a wealthy Krugersdorp couple named Peter and Joan Mayer. Barnard had known Cecilia since 2007, back when he was a meth dealer.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And he reconnected with Cecilia in 2013 when she started burning and selling bootleg DVDs.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And he soon after started sleeping with Miranda. Oh, yeah. Now, allegedly, Barnard had no knowledge of the four murders the cult had already committed when he was welcomed into the social circle. Because he was welcomed into the social circle first before he was welcomed into the cult itself. Two different things. Hmm.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Little did he know, though, that the cult was just getting started and still had seven murders to go. Yeah, dude, it's just kicking off. The rest of Electus Perdeus, meanwhile, kept going with their daily lives a little while longer. But everything changed when Zach got a little too confident. Hey, where do you think that confidence is going to go, dude?
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
He quit his job as an insurance agent to start his own business called Entire Deity Trading. Yeah, man.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I know he moved to a different house. I don't know if he did. Along with LaRue, Zach tried breaking into the foreign exchange. Because he brought in LaRue, too. He's like, man, LaRue, you've got to quit your fucking job. You've got to come work with me at Insider Daily Exchange.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But as it turned out, both of them were terrible at the job. And Zach was soon losing his client's money as well as his own. Let's just say, you know, it can't always go up.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
With her cash cow now running dry, Cecilia started getting anxious about money. So she trotted out the old orphan chestnut one more time to get her people worked up again, saying that if they didn't get more money somehow, the orphans would fall prey to Satan.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
She's actually not a murderer. She did not commit murders.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Then they're back to God. Now, by this point, the cult was down to bare bones. The only OG members left were Zach, Miranda, and her two kids, LaRue and Marcel. But in order to get the information on a good target, she needed to bring John Barnard fully into the cult.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Now, as I said, Barnard worked for a company called Color Magic Printing, and having worked there for 19 years, he knew that the owners, Peter and Joe Meyer, were worth millions. And so, the Meyers became the next target of Electus Perdeus, so they could once again, ostensibly, send money to the satanic orphans.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yes. Now, the plan at the outset was not to kill the Myers, but to simply rob them. And that sort of intimidation game was a lot easier with a gun. So Cecilia used her connections to the local brothel, Elite 24, to find an illegal arms dealer. Through him, Electus Perdeus bought a .38 Special, several Glocks, a .303 hunting rifle, a shotgun, and a .22 revolver.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah, she did accidentally become a Satanist.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
She really has a special relationship with Jesus Christ. Each member of the cult was able to choose their own gun, but Cecilia insisted that each one of them give their weapon a name. Miranda, for example, chose the 38th special, named it Charlie. Cute. Yeah. Once the cult was armed, they began reconnaissance on the best way to rob Peter and Joan Meyer.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Their eventual plan was to visit the Meyer home disguised as officials from the Department of Trade and Industry because their inside man, John Barnard, had told Cecilia that the Meyers were wanting to build a water park. In South Africa.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But it is like, it's that weird thing of like, I dress how I feel inside. And she actually was. Oh yeah, of course.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
So posing as a government official named Gloria, Miranda cold called the Myers to offer financing to make their insane dream of a South African water park a reality.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
This call, however, was confusing to the Myers because they hadn't made their water park plans public. But maybe blinded by their own ambition, the Myers agreed to an appointment on November 19th, 2015. That meeting, however, had to be postponed when LaRue accidentally shot himself in the groin.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But when the meeting was rescheduled to November 24th, it was decided that the robbery team would be comprised of Miranda, Zach, and Marcel. Now, Miranda was able to bullshit quite well. During the meeting on the 24th, she kept the Meyers talking for 45 minutes, wherein Peter discussed his water park plans at length.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Cards on the table here. I'm actually in a cult. But... Mm-hmm. Smartly but fatally, the Myers declined the offer. Yeah. Now, the cult really did a song and dance for this one, even going so far as to fake and print out financing paperwork. God, they work so hard.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But when a second attempt at a scam failed, Miranda called Peter and insisted they meet at his home to try and work it out. Reluctantly, Peter agreed. And so at 5 p.m., Zach arrived at Peter's home with Marinda and Marcel with a plan to rob Peter and Joan Myers. See, the last time they'd been there, the cult noticed that the Myers had an empty pool.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
So their plan was to tie up Peter and Joan and throw them in the pool while they robbed the place.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But much to their surprise, the pool had been filled since their last visit.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
So the crew improvised. While Marinda made small talk, Zach looked around nervously for other options.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But when it became clear that their only way forward was brute force, Miranda pulled out her revolver and told Peter and Joan to get on the ground. They complied. And while Marcel tied up their hands and feet with cable ties, Miranda demanded that they hand over their cash and tell them where their safe was. Peter, truthfully, told them that they didn't have a safe.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And they didn't keep any cash in the house. You didn't do your recon correct. Yep. Then the situation very quickly devolved into a full clutter. Zach pulled out a knife and asked again. And when Peter didn't have an answer because he really didn't have a safe, Zach stabbed Joan Meyer.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Peter then started saying the Lord's Prayer because he knew all fuck were dead, which caused Zach to stab him over and over again.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I hate this stupid ass prayer. Surprisingly, though, the usually bloodthirsty Miranda asked Zach how he expected to find the safe if they killed the fucking hostages. But Zach was now deliriously homicidal.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And he started switching between the bodies, stabbing Peter, then stabbing Joan, then going back and forth again and again and again until both of them were dead. But at that moment, one of Peter's employees knocked on the door. Peter, unbeknownst to the cult, had asked one of his guys to join the meeting.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Michaela's change in demeanor, however, meant absolutely nothing to Cecilia Stane. In fact, Cecilia relished in the fact that she had convinced others to commit murders on her behalf, so she very quickly zeroed in on her next target. Now, it seems to me that part of Cecilia's game was completely perverting the beliefs of the people she manipulated.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I wonder if I could be a lifeguard. But Peter's guy had shown up late. When there was no answer at the door, he called Peter's cell. And for some reason, of all people, Marcel answered the phone.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
This girl, who is now 18 years old, improvised and told the police that Peter and his wife were fighting and things were a bit hectic at the house, so if he wouldn't mind, it'd probably be best if he came back later. The employee thought it was odd that this girl that he didn't know was imparting this information. But hey, man, it's my fucking boss and I don't care.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I'm getting the hell out of here. He did as he was told and he went home. In the end, though, after searching through the entire house, the cult came out of this double murder with the whopping sum of $40.30. Hard one. Needless to say, Cecilia was not happy when the crew returned to her apartment. Immediately, Cecilia started screaming at Zach for fucking up and killing two people for $40.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
It's important to note that Cecilia's police officer husband was in the apartment for all of this.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But even though the take was minuscule, Cecilia still honored the cuts, and John Barnard got $11.50 for selling out the people who'd given him a job for almost 20 years. They all then went to the casino to try to make something out of their paltry sums.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah, but Zach and John immediately lost their shares.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Marcel, however, turned her $10 into $115. Whoa! So there's some small celebration to be had. That's nice. Good for them. But it just so happened that Cecilia needed exactly $115 to pay for medication to treat her failing kidney.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah. So the money went right back to the leader. Wow. Now, the police were again no help in solving or even investigating the murder of Peter and Joan. And it's worth noting that things have not gotten any better in South Africa. Their murder clearance rate as of today is embarrassingly low. It's 12 percent. So, again, I wouldn't be too quick to ascribe conspiracy here.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
That low clearance rate could be why the children of Peter and Joe Meyer hired a private investigator to solve the case. Very quickly, the PI spotted a silver BMW on CCTV footage, and that BMW was quickly traced back to Zach Valentine because he'd finally fucked up. He'd forgotten to switch the plates.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Usually they always switch the license plates, but this time he just forgot because it was just supposed to be a robbery. It wasn't supposed to be a murder. In addition, they found an envelope with Miranda Stain's fingerprints at the scene. And both very strong pieces of evidence were handed over to the police.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Zach and Miranda were soon questioned and told the police that, yes, they had been at the Myers house the day they were murdered. Absolutely. But there was this other couple there that were crazy.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
For example, by this point, she'd convinced her fundamentalist Christian followers to bomb a prayer group, burn down a church, and murder a committed Christian that they all knew personally. Not to mention the murder of an innocent old lady.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Apparently, the cops were unaware that both of these people had been suspects in a series of brutal murders just two years before. The cops then called the employee who dropped by for the meeting that day, who told them about the call concerning the fabricated fight between Peter and Joan.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Finally, Peter's son positively identified Zach and Miranda as government officials, but the police apparently didn't make a single phone call to confirm or deny the claim. As a result, the cops let Zach and Marinda go and instead focused on Peter and Joan's children as the main suspects.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And there's just not a lot of... No, they have plenty of funding. And the cops are like super overwhelmed. I don't know. They just don't care, man.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
They just don't care. I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt here.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
The only thing the cops did with the cult members was schedule them for polygraphs the next month. But that also went nowhere. Because of this extreme, gross incompetence, five more people would die in what would be called the appointment murders, which is where we'll end our series on Electus Pradeus next week.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
importance they put upon these occult crimes and all like all of this it's like it's all just feeding itself in a miraculously stupid way yeah and that's the thing is that if we hadn't spent so much time giving context you'd be sitting there right now and wondering like how did this woman get these people to commit 11 murders yeah like you have to have the fucking insane context to really see how something like this can actually happen 12 murders if you include the plans for a nice water park yeah
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Oh, yeah. That's the thing. The first South African water park. What a loss to the world. The ninth wonder of the world it would have been. I want to go. Well, thank you. Yes, thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I spend a lot of time on these scripts.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah. He didn't do that. Think Satan. Also not real. Yeah. Exactly. So, sleep on that.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
That's good.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
You really?
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah?
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Stupid, I think, is the wrong word. Naive, I think, is a better word for it. I think they're naive. But that's the thing. Arrogant is very much the right word.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Ah, but they cannot come till Judgment Day. Why? Because. That's what he said. He could change it.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Well, after taking the manipulation to these heights, Cecilia decided to take the sacrilege to the highest level possible by convincing her followers to murder a retired pastor named Reg Ben Dixon.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
He's a murder victim. He got killed.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
No, in early August of 2012, Cecilia began telling the members of Electus Perdeus that Reg Bendiction was one of, quote, Rhea's people, which is how Cecilia now referred to Overcomers Through Christ. See, what she was doing here, she was separating their past lives.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
It's not like you were a part of Overcomers Through Christ and this is Overcomers Through Christ and we're going to kill this group that you were a part of. She gave them a different name. It's very, very important for the manipulation. Nomenclature, basically, when it comes to cults. Where does this lady learn all of this stuff? We've talked about it again and again. She's a reader. It is innate.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
There's something about human beings, a certain type of human being. All of us are naturally good at something. Everybody in the world is naturally good at something. You're just built for this one thing. Yeah, I'm good at eating pussy and playing basketball.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
That shows you. But some people just have this innate knowledge of how to be a cult leader and how to manipulate people and how to be a leader. You talk about a natural born leader, they're not always fucking quarterbacks. Sometimes they're Cecilia Stane. I'm looking for my Cecilia. And just as an aside, if you're wondering why they didn't just kill Rhea Grunewald, that answer is twofold.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Firstly, a big part of Cecilia's game during this time period in the cult's life cycle was torturing Rhea because Rhea had rejected Cecilia personally. It was just simple revenge. But the other reason had to do with a lie Cecilia had told years before.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
If you'll remember from the last episode, Cecilia had claimed that her biological mother had been ritualistically sacrificed in Cecilia's place because her former coven couldn't get to Cecilia for unspecified reasons. We don't need to specify reasons. It's just reason.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
But after that fictitious sacrifice, Cecilia told Rhea that Rhea had been granted maternal rights over Cecilia and all of her many multiple personalities. That meant somehow that if Rhea were to be killed, then Cecilia would also die.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Although I suppose the reason Cecilia gave as to why she didn't die when her mother died was because those maternal rights had been transferred before Cecilia's mother was sacrificed on the altar of Satan.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Kill you. Why would I kill you? You're so much fun.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah, like 40s, late 40s, early 50s, something like that.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah, an unhealthy 55.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Now concerning Electus Perdeus' next target, Pastor Reg Ben Dixon, nobody in the cult knew him personally, and it's a little unclear as to why Cecilia chose him in particular. It seems like Ben Dixon was merely convenient, because Cecilia was able to tell whatever story she wanted to about Reg.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
I'm the beholder, my friends. Welcome to the last podcast on the left. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with the South African Henry Zebrowski.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Well, the story that Cecilia told was that it was actually Pastor Reg who had led Rhea astray by stealing her sermons and perverting them to spread the message of Satan. And that was the real reason why the overcomers were now doing Satan's bidding.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yes.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Yeah, yeah. Go fuck yourself, God.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
And if they killed Reg, Cecilia posited, then maybe the Overcomers would return to the light, although there were no guarantees.
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Episode 596: The Krugersdorp Cult Murders Part III - Your English Teacher Loves Murder
Well, either way, Cecilia believed that it was worth a shot, so Electus Perdeus began planning the murder of a bona fide man of God. Damn! But not everyone was on board with Reg's murder. Marcel Stane, the 14-year-old daughter of the schoolteacher Marinda Stane, no relation to Cecilia, she vociferously questioned if it was right to murder a former pastor. The 14-year-old! Yeah.