Jaycee Dugard’s formal education effectively ended at the time of her kidnapping. Dugard’s two daughters never attended school. A source close to the investigation told the press, “Some type of brainwashing clearly occurred.” Similar to the situation of Elizabeth Smart, Duggard seemed physically able to escape. “There were moments in the 18 years when she could have called attention to who she was. She hadn’t forgotten her real identity. In fact, she remembers a remarkable amount about her old life,” a source told the press. But like Elizabeth Smart and Patty Hearst, the same source attributed “mind games” as the cause of Dugard’s inaction and seeming inability to escape. “It sounds simplistic, but the real prison was her brain,” a source told reporters.422
Phillip Garrido, like Brian Mitchell, had a female accomplice. Her name was Nancy Bocanegra, and she married Phillip Garrido in Leavenworth, Kansas, when he was still an inmate in prison. Garrido served eleven years for the kidnapping and rape of his previous victim. He was released in 1988. Nancy Garrido was with her husband when he kidnapped Jaycee Dugard, and she was criminally charged like Wanda Barzee, Mitchell’s accomplice. Nancy Garrido was also a certified nurse assistant, which probably explains how Phillip Garrido managed to deliver two babies and provide some level of medical care for Dugard and her children, without seeing doctors.423 Garrido’s brother, Ron, described Nancy Garrido as “a robot.” He said in an interview, “She would do anything he asked her to…It’s no different from [Charles] Manson.”424
Many who knew Phillip Garrido gave him the nickname “creepy Phil,” but examining psychologists found him to be “very coherent.” He owned a print shop, where Jaycee Dugard and her children worked. Customers described the mother and daughters as “polite” and “well mannered,” though one customer commented, “Obviously, there was some brainwashing going on.” Dugard went by the name “Alissa,” and her two children were called “Angel” and “Starlet.” “They were not dressed like average teenage girls. They were dressed very conservatively,” one print shop customer remarked.425 Phillip Garrido later told police, “We raised them right. They don’t know anything bad about the world.”426
Like Brian Mitchell, Garrido believed he was special and chosen by God. He was prone to rant about his religious beliefs and at times gave “impromptu sermons.” Garrido once blogged, “The Creator has given me the ability to speak in the tongues of angels.” He would also talk about government conspiracies and “mind control.”427 One day when Garrido was handing out flyers announcing a religious event on the University of California’s Berkeley campus, he came to the attention of authorities.428 He was accompanied by Dugard’s two minor children, and police were concerned. They said the girls seemed “robotic” and that Garrido was “very controlling.”429 Police talked with Garrido and decided to run a background check on him, which revealed his criminal history. Garrido was still on parole, and his parole officer interviewed him. That interview also included Nancy Garrido, and Jaycee Dugard attended it with her two children. After the interview Phillip and Nancy Garrido were arrested. According to the sheriff, the couple “had information only the kidnappers could have known.”430
Phillip Garrido was ultimately sentenced to 431 years in prison.431 He is housed in the Corcoran California State Prison’s Protective Housing Unit, the same unit that holds Charles Manson. Officials don’t believe Garrido or Manson would be safe living in the general prison population.432
Nancy Garrido was sentenced to thirty-six years to life in prison.433 She is housed at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla.434Jaycee Dugard was reunited with her family, but her stepfather said, “We don’t know if she’ll ever be able to recover from this.”435 Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, observed, “Despite the 18 years that have been lost, despite the theft of Jaycee’s childhood, she’s alive. She’s young, and she has hope for the future.”436 The state of California paid Jaycee Dugard $20 million dollars in an out-of-court settlement for repeated mistakes by parole agents who were responsible for Phillip Garrido. Dugard now lives in seclusion with her two teenage daughters. She says, “I want my girls to have a normal life as much as possible. I think in time as they get older, they’ll know how to deal with it better, and that would be the time that we would come out.” Jaycee Dugard has had no contact with Phillip and Nancy Garrido since their arrest.437
2010—The Arrest of Goel Ratzon
“Nothing like this has ever happened before in Israel,” said Menachem Vagashil, deputy director-general of the Ministry of Welfare and Social Services. The Israeli official referred to a coordinated team of 150 social workers, child welfare officers, and experts who took part in the six-month undercover investigation that ended with the arrest of fifty-nine-year-old cult leader Goel Ratzon in Tel Aviv for suspected sex crimes.438 In January 2010 police raided three apartments Ratzon used and found seventeen women and thirty-nine children. Ratzon claimed that he had fathered eighty-nine children by more than thirty women.
Goel Ratzon’s female followers were expected to observe restrictions regarding communication, associations, diet, and personal conduct, which were explicitly set down within a written rulebook, including fines for infractions.439 One rule specifically stipulated, “No conversation is permitted in rooms other than the living room.”440 The children all had the name Goel, which means “savior” in Hebrew. And they were taught to kiss Ratzon’s feet whenever he visited.441
Ratzon called his polygamist family a “cooperative.”442 He sent the women out to work, while others stayed at home as caregivers and did housekeeping.443 A neighbor described them as “isolated” and said, “They never say hello, and always bow their heads if you go by. One mother would take seven kids to school, [and] then go to work. Another would stay at home with the smaller ones. When Goel would arrive he would get out of his car like he was a king, and they would run behind him carrying bags, clothes, even furniture.”444
In a televised documentary before the police raid, Goel Ratzon claimed to be “perfect” and said, “I have everything a woman wants, all the qualities a woman wants. I give women the attention they want. It’s made of many things, but fortunately, I have everything.” Women in the group tattooed his image on their bodies with words such as “Goel Ratzon, my love forever” and “To Goel, with love.” A Kabbalah teacher and supposed healer, Ratzon took on supernatural significance to his followers. One woman in the group claimed, “He’s the Messiah that everyone talks about. The day he decides to reveal himself, this country will see it.”445 Private investigator Asher Wizman said Ratzon preyed on troubled young women. Once they were within the group, those women invited sisters, cousins, and friends to join. Ratzon was also known to recruit within Tel Aviv shopping malls.446
The woman who finally exposed Goel Ratzon and his crimes to police said, “I was in that house from the age of 5. I had no freedom of choice.” At nineteen she began to have doubts, but didn’t finally run away until she was twenty-two. “He started to disgust me. I couldn’t stand his smell and his caresses made me shudder,” she said.447 Inbar Yehezkeli-Blilious, legal consultant for the Association of Rape Crisis Centers in Israel explained, “Ratzon put pressure on his wives and they submitted because he had the status of a guru…Even if these women agreed to the actions, they did it because of the illusion of special powers they attributed to the man. From past experience, they probably knew of the harm being done to their girls, but lacked the strength to object.”448 Dr. Hanita Zimrin, founder and director of the Israel Association for Child Protection, told the press, “This was not a normal family. The children were educated to worship a man and prevented from growing up in a normal environment, and each of their mothers was a victim. They grew up in an environment both emotionally and developmentally harmful.”449
A twenty-five-page indictment in February 2010 charged Goel Ratzon with “rape, sodomy, molestation and enslavement.”450 In spring 2010 an Israeli judge ruled that Ratzon woul
d remain in custody until all court proceedings against him had concluded. “[Ratzon] poses a great danger in every possible way. Thus I believe there is no other alternative,” Judge Hayuta Kochan wrote in her decision.451 Ratzon was subsequently sentenced to 30 years in prison.452
The wives of Goel Ratzon and his children began a lengthy process of rehabilitative treatment. Gabi Zohar, a social worker with years of experience caring for cult victims, talked about the “brainwashing” Ratzon’s victims went through and advised, “Family members should help the victims build a new reality, meet new friends, and create a new life. It is a difficult task, which requires a lot of patience.”453 One former Ratzon follower, adjusting to her new life, said, “Today, I’m free to wear jeans, talk to my parents, meet friends, buy myself a cup of coffee without getting Goel’s permission.”454
In 2011 the Welfare Ministry of Israel called for legislation concerning cults. An official task force report also recommended focused public education about cults, intervention, and rehabilitative services concerning the problem and suggested a national cult hotline.455
2011—Peter Lucas Moses Jr. and the “Black Hebrews” murders
In June 2011 cult leader Peter Lucas Moses Jr. was charged, along with six of his followers, in the death of Antoinetta Yvonne McKoy, who had been reported missing months earlier.456 Twenty-seven-year-old Moses led a small, obscure group called the “Black Hebrews,” which included less than a dozen African-American adults, excluding children.457 Moses and his followers claimed they were the descendants of ancient tribes of Israel458 and reportedly believed a coming race war would end with black domination.459 The group practiced polygamy, and the women had sexual relations with Moses. They lived together in a rented house in Durham, North Carolina. The women were treated as wives, and Moses fathered seven of the eight children who lived with the group.460 Women and children in the group called Moses “Lord” and reportedly feared him.461
A former member informed police that one of the women, Antoinetta McKoy, had tried to run away from the group, but two members had brought her back. Moses then beat McKoy throughout the day462 and handed a handgun to Vania Sisk, ordering her to kill McKoy.463 Two of Moses’s women buried the body, which was found after the group had vacated the rental property.
Police later learned that Jadon Higganbothan, Sisk’s four-year-old son, had also been slain. Authorities recovered and identified the child’s remains.464 Higganbothan was the only child within the group Moses hadn’t fathered. Moses, who reportedly has bipolar disorder, came to believe the child was gay, because his father was gay and because the child had hit another boy on the bottom. “Homosexuality was frowned on” by Moses and his followers, said Tracey Cline, district attorney.465 Moses took Jadon Higganbothan into a garage and shot him in the head. What happened next was reminiscent of 1 Mind Ministries; the boy’s lifeless body was stuffed into a suitcase and stored in the house until the odor caused Moses to have the remains buried.466
Willie Harris, the father of Lavonda Harris, one of the Black Hebrews charged with murder, told the media that Moses made communication difficult between his daughter and her family. After her arrest Harris spoke with his daughter and said she seemed “programmed.” “She was very withdrawn and very sad…She’s in denial about whether Moses had anything to do with the murders,” he said.467
In June 2012 Peter Lucas Moses Jr. entered a guilty plea to avoid the death penalty. He also agreed to testify against his followers.468 Moses was finally sentenced during June of 2013 and received two life terms in prison.469
Charges against two Black Hebrews, Sheila Moses and Sheilda Harris, were dropped, and the women were released from jail. Lavada Harris and Vania Sisk both entered guilty pleas, Sisk for second degree murder and Harris as an accessory after the fact of murder. Sisk was sentenced to two consecutive prison terms of fifteen to nineteen years each. Harris was sentenced to two consecutive terms of between six to eight years.470
In February 2013 LaRhonda Renee Smith pled guilty to second-degree murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy charges related to the deaths of Antoinetta McKoy and Jadon Higganbothan. Smith agreed to cooperate as a witness for the state but was sentenced to eleven to fifteen years in prison.471
The harm inflicted and the suffering endured in family cults have been horrendous and often seem unimaginable to the general public. For this reason they are often realized only through sensational media reports. But the fact that that this type of abuse exists is historically undeniable.
Within the larger context of destructive cults, the relatively small fraction that constitutes family cults is perhaps the most unsettling. This is because the leaders doing harm are parents. The idea of fathers—and in some cases, mothers—becoming cult leaders and using their parental power to physically, psychologically, and emotionally damage their children is a deeply disturbing reality. But what we can see through the case histories recorded in this chapter are the death and destruction family cults have wrought.
Parental rights have been repeatedly challenged in courts across the United States and around the world when the welfare of children is threatened and abuse allegations are investigated. The leaders of family cults have been criminally prosecuted and held legally accountable. These prosecutions have shocked communities when a family household within a residential neighborhood is exposed as a destructive cult.
CHAPTER 4
DEFINING A DESTRUCTIVE CULT
The definition of a cult has been debated, and it is frequently understood in a myriad of different ways from various perspectives. Many definitions have been offered over the years, including faith-based definitions derived from theology as well as behaviorally based models premised on interpersonal or group dynamics and structure. Some academics have tried to eliminate the word cult in favor of what they consider to be a more politically correct label, such as “new religious movements” (NRM).
Readers should understand, however, that many groups called “cults” aren’t based on religion. For example, as explained in a preceding chapter, the cult known as Synanon began as a substance-abuse rehabilitation community. The Symbionese Liberation Army was a political group, and MOVE was also based on both political beliefs and concerns about the environment.
To demonstrate how the term cult can be potentially understood in popular culture, consider its definition. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary offers a broad range of meaning.472
: formal religious veneration:
: a system of religious beliefs and ritual; also: its body of adherents
: a religion regarded as unorthodox or spurious; also: its body of adherents
: a system for the cure of disease based on dogma set forth by its promulgator
a: great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially: such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad
b: the object of such devotion
c: a usually small group of people characterized by such devotion
This dictionary definition could potentially include relatively benign organizations, fringe groups, fanatics, zealous devotees of the television series Star Trek (often called “Trekkies”), or even die-hard fans of the singer Elvis Presley. Some enthralled Elvis enthusiasts even established a church and this has been written about as a cultural phenomenon.473 But a dictionary definition simply conveys the status of a word. It doesn’t take into account research regarding the application of a word.
To define a destructive cult, distinctions are made based on behavior rather than on beliefs. A group may have seemingly unorthodox or spurious beliefs, but this fact doesn’t mean the group is harmful or intrinsically destructive.
As the previous accounts demonstrate, destructive cults deliberately mandate harm, which is then practiced systemically in the group. For example, consider faith healing groups such as the Followers of Christ or the General Assembly Church of the First Born, which prohibits professional medical treatment and prescri
bed medications. Other examples include the Children of God and polygamist groups, in which minor children have been sexually abused as part of their group beliefs and practice. There are also groups like the Brethren, commonly called the “Garbage Eaters,” led by Jim Roberts; these groups systematically demand family estrangement and relatively extreme social isolation. What all these groups have in common are mandated practices that do harm with corresponding demands for rigid conformity. This means that such groups by design, much like a machine, inherently and repeatedly produce the same destructive results.
As related in the previous historical profiles, the leaders of destructive cults appear in an array of incarnations, pitching everything from commercial schemes to racism. Cults have also been based on the premise of some form of meditation or yoga, therapy, martial arts, alternative healing, or philosophy. In addition splinter groups called “cults” have broken away from established religions such as Judaism, Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism, or Islam.
Psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton wrote the seminal book Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism,474 which has been used as a guide or template to explain the techniques cults use to recruit and retain members. In his book Lifton breaks down coercive persuasion in detail and explains its mechanics. Lifton also wrote a closely related paper, titled “Cult Formation,”475 that essentially condensed many of the attributes associated with destructive cults to three primary characteristics. These three criteria form what we can see as the nucleus of the definition for a destructive cult.
These three characteristic criteria are the following:
a charismatic leader who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose their power;
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