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Susan and Tony Alamo (How I Escaped My Cult)
94 Plays13 days ago
Welcome back to the Mothers of All Crime! This week discussion is centered around an episode of "How I Escaped My Cult" on Hulu featuring Susan and Tony Alamo.
Listener discretion is advised.
May contain explicit language and unfounded accusations.
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Mothers of All Crime'
00:00:22
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Mothers of All Crime. This is a podcast where we deep dive into mothers involved in infamous crimes and scandals. I'm Monica and this is Crystal.
Discussion on 'How I Escaped My Cult'
00:00:51
Speaker
Welcome back to the Mothers of All Crime. This week we're going to be talking about Tony and Susan Alamo. Yeah, so How I Escaped My Cult, the series came out on Hulu.
00:01:03
Speaker
So we're going to work our way through each of the episodes that cover different cults and groups and they take a storyline from each of them.
00:01:14
Speaker
And the first episode is Tony and Susan Alamo. And I had heard of this group before, but they're not a super popular one.
00:01:26
Speaker
And having an entire episode and two survivors really tell their story, it brought it back into the light, I think. And I think people are going to start digging into it more because this group is also still active, even though both of their founders are dead.
00:01:45
Speaker
Ooh, I do always love when active cult or group is like, is it's still going on when the documentary is happening. h Then it's it's over, you know?
00:01:59
Speaker
like It's very different. You know that there's active members right now as you're watching it. Right. And what I think for that's crazy is like you have other groups like the FODs, for an example, because I know they talk about that at some point in the series.
00:02:14
Speaker
Mm-hmm. theyre They just get a new prophet. don't... From my understanding, and i if anyone knows, correct me if I'm wrong, there is no more leader. They're just still following Tony. And Tony's dead.
00:02:28
Speaker
Tony's been dead. Like... So who's in charge? Like, i I don't... I can't figure it out.
00:02:39
Speaker
and Maybe this is my chance. Maybe this is the chance that I can come infiltrate and have my own cult. Yeah.
00:02:47
Speaker
Well, sure. You just say that. I mean, you just come up with some sort of story and say that they sent you. Yeah. And everybody would like, wow, that's awesome. Susan came to me in a dream and told me that I needed to come lead you guys into the light.
00:03:03
Speaker
You know what? You could say you're the prophet. I am the prophet. Here we go. Let me tell you about your past prophets, shall we? Maybe you are. Exactly. you're They're going to like, wow, she has such deep knowledge of our church.
00:03:16
Speaker
Yeah. She had to have talked to Susan. She must be legit. Because that's how she would know all this.
00:03:23
Speaker
There is no other explanation. Yeah. Sounds like a vulnerable group to target.
Background of Susan and Tony Alamo
00:03:32
Speaker
Well, all right. So let's dive into the UAMO, shall we? um So sure neither of them are actually named Tony and Susan. So Susan was born Edith Opal Horn and Tony was born.
00:03:48
Speaker
ah I'm going to pronounce it wrong. So I apologize. Barney Laser Hoffman, I believe. And so they met and kind of... So Susan was married when they first met.
00:04:04
Speaker
She had been married twice. She had a daughter. She wanted to be an actress. And she realized that she was very charismatic. People liked her. And she met who we are now going to call Tony because i don't want to get confusing.
00:04:22
Speaker
When she met him while she was married... started seeing him divorced her husband and then got married with Tony. So not a great start.
00:04:35
Speaker
And her daughter has come out and done interviews. And i think she's wrote a book. I didn't get a chance to read it. um But I have listened to a couple of interviews with her. And she basically said her mother was a narcissist.
00:04:48
Speaker
Her mother was extremely abusive However, she was very intelligent. She was very creative. um And she started her own church.
00:05:01
Speaker
It was a Pentecostal-influenced church with very strong evangelism. So they were sending out people to recruit new young members as converts just on the street, bringing in more people to the church.
00:05:16
Speaker
And that was in the 1960s. So the church has been around for quite some time. And it grew.
00:05:27
Speaker
However, ah Susan was not involved in it for very long. um She actually ended up being diagnosed with cancer um and ended up passing away in the 1980s from breast cancer.
00:05:46
Speaker
And one of the last things she told Tony, which I think is interesting, was to leave her church alone because he was going to wreck it.
00:06:00
Speaker
prophetic truly oh yeah which i do think this thing right it's kind of comical though too like you're this even back then in my opinion it was very culty ah it just got worse really with him but she was right like she as a narcissist could at least recognize that he she's like i'm bad i know that i'm bad but you're worse yeah Yet this is still a man that she marries, still a man that she loves, still a man that she brought around her family.
00:06:33
Speaker
So it's an interesting wonder where her lines would have been if she had stayed alive. What boundaries she may have put up if she have stayed with Tony. Because clearly she doesn't have a strong loyalty men.
00:06:52
Speaker
like Well, she's willing to get divorced. That's something we know. which Yeah, no there's a lot of rumors for infidelities on all marriages, but we don't we don't truly know. There's nothing confirming it.
00:07:05
Speaker
I don't doubt it. the I feel like when you're a charismatic psychopath, which is what she sounds to be, what she seems to be, it's it's not a big deal. If you have to leave this husband, if you have to move on, get a new husband, I think she was going to keep the cult.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yeah. but How it benefits her. I mean, despite, right. Despite many predictions that she was going to beat the cancer, she did not. Or the disease.
Tony's Leadership and Cult Practices
00:07:32
Speaker
She did not. And in the early days of the church, she was the preacher, which we don't see very often. Most of the time, it's the men with the supportive wife who backs him. This was the, the roles were reversed. She was the preacher. was the promoter.
00:07:49
Speaker
He was the one working on bringing people in. And I think like a lot of extreme groups, they really focused on the book of Revelations, which we've touched on before.
00:08:01
Speaker
Again, the doomsday book, as I like to call it. And there was an absolute right and an absolute wrong with them. There was no gray. There was no interpretation. It was this is straight from God. This is how it is You cannot question.
00:08:17
Speaker
Again, very culty.
00:08:21
Speaker
Super culty. Absolutely. i mean, that's what she was trying to do. Was have a cult. And I think she... Honestly, she did a great job. And it's... In her world, it's too bad she couldn't enjoy it.
00:08:34
Speaker
Because she did create something that was quite impressive.
00:08:41
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's very Gwen Shamblin. Ooh, good comparison. it reminds me of. Yeah. And then the tragic demise... Yeah. um so Although um they didn't keep Gwen's body on display, though.
00:08:59
Speaker
ah But so after her death, he, Tony moved his primary location to Arkansas and settled on a compound, which he designed to have a lot of cameras.
00:09:12
Speaker
It was a huge compound. And at this point, multi-generations were in the in the church. So... One of the main storylines is from Desiree and she was one of those second generation members because she was born straight in.
00:09:31
Speaker
And I think that's really where groups start getting great getting that credibility because you don't have to do half the work. When you bring new people in who are adults, you kind of have to train them to believe what you have and convince them it's the right thing.
00:09:50
Speaker
Versus if you're born into it, you don't know any better. You've never had experiences outside. So this is the reality. This is just right. And... and I think she touched on a lot that it was just normal.
00:10:07
Speaker
And it breaks my heart that this is a child's normal, particularly as we get into some of the things that happened to her.
00:10:18
Speaker
Yeah, that that is really sad. So starting with Desiree, early on she has a self-admitted lying problem as a little kid.
00:10:28
Speaker
And because of that, her mom was very concerned about her going to heaven. And the best way to help her get into heaven was for her to be around Tony more.
00:10:41
Speaker
Because i remember, Tony is... Papa, Tony is in charge. Tony is the closest thing they have to God. So if he's around your child, he's going to help bring her to heaven and set her straight. Because apparently what her parents were doing wasn't working in her mom's eyes.
00:11:01
Speaker
And at eight years old, she was sent to live with him. Eight. And after about three months of living with Tony, he, who was 72 years old, might I add, he told her that they were going to get married.
00:11:19
Speaker
He performed the marriage ceremony between the two of them. And then, and I hate using this word, but it is how they described it in the documentary. He quote, consummated their marriage.
00:11:33
Speaker
Eight years old. Child rape. 72 years old. Yep. Child rape. 100%. um Disgusting. Pedophile. Oh, God. And it just, watching her talk about it, and you could see her even kind of cringe when she said it, because she did a really good job, and and in my opinion, of telling the story as she understood it at the time, which I think can be really hard to do.
00:12:04
Speaker
And watching it, you're like, oh my God. But then you remember she's talking about it. She's like, this was my understanding. To my understanding, just. is the past tense.
00:12:15
Speaker
Right. Right. This is how it was what to do. um And then the second storyline is Pebbles, which I love her name, who was brought into the compound as well and was Desiree's roommate and 13 years old.
00:12:38
Speaker
And at 13 years old, she also became a wife of Tony who, when they were married, keep in mind, she's a little bit older, she openly said that he raped her. and his response to her saying that was, how else are you going to learn to be a wife?
00:13:01
Speaker
Which, again, just the amount of anger when she started telling me, telling me, directly to me, um telling that story, i I just couldn't imagine the normality of that.
00:13:21
Speaker
And also, this was the first time... When you grew up in cult... Yeah, you grew up in a cult. But it's the first time that polygamy got brought up.
00:13:31
Speaker
Right. I mean, i love that this is his interpretation of what Susan wanted for the church. Yeah. To extremely, extremely young polygamous wives.
00:13:42
Speaker
Yeah, because so I did a little digging and nothing that she ever spoke to was in reference to polygamy. I think this was his opportunity to be like, I'm going to get what I want because now there's no one to stop me.
00:13:58
Speaker
Like, unfortunately, Susan indirectly gave him the authority to the congregation. So they respected what he said. And because of that, now that she's gone, there was no one to challenge what he said was right or wrong.
00:14:16
Speaker
And he took over being preacher.
00:14:20
Speaker
yeah
00:14:22
Speaker
yikes so with that he it is believed to have 14 wives and they aren't sure of all the ages when they were taken but at least five of them ah were underage when they got married and not just like a year or two like young again 8 13 under yuck it yeah um Yes.
00:14:48
Speaker
Young children. Yeah. Young, little, and used scripture to best support this. Pre-pubescent. Pre-pubescent. um Pedophilia at its finest.
00:15:01
Speaker
Well, when you get to interpret ah things however you want and you get to make all of the rules, everyone's very susceptible to your whims. And his whims were, of course, terrible,
00:15:14
Speaker
But he was able to just have complete control to the point where he just as other people's young daughters living in his house, acting as as his wife. And it's so normalized.
00:15:26
Speaker
Yeah.
Desiree's Escape and Legal Actions
00:15:27
Speaker
Yeah, and he also was quite smart, so I will give him that, where he never legally married any of them. So from a legal perspective, he never violated any polygamy laws.
00:15:40
Speaker
And in kind of reading between the lines during the documentary, it doesn't seem that this aspect of his life was extremely public.
00:15:52
Speaker
It was kind of kept in the compound where... I think if people really sat down and started to think about it, they might have put things together.
00:16:03
Speaker
But that's part of being in a cult, right? You don't have the option of free thought. And right never openly was like, this is my wife. It was all inside the home.
00:16:18
Speaker
He was the one performing these marriage ceremonies. And when he would go into the church, it would be very... Different conversations. So what he was saying in the home and outside the home were different.
00:16:33
Speaker
Then to top off the creepy, he was also taking sexual photos of all of his wives and keeping them. So we're going to add child pornography on top of it.
00:16:46
Speaker
I will say one common theme I've really noticed with all of these religious extremists that are also pedophiles is is they keep meticulous records.
00:16:57
Speaker
Yes. They document everything. They have pictures, they have logs, they have buy binders of stuff. It's... It's in every case, I feel like. I feel like that's a thing in general with pedophiles, but certainly with these religious, especially Mormon leading, it's it's the earth the need to document everything is yeah such an interesting compulsion. Because it's obviously, you don't want to get in trouble for this. it's not You're not announcing it to everyone because you know you shouldn't be doing it, but yet you can't even help yourself but to create evidence.
00:17:33
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And he also, just like Susan, was extremely physically abusive to a lot of people. And if he didn't do it, he made someone else.
00:17:45
Speaker
So in the circumstance when he was beating these children, he would say things like, this hurts me more than you, which is so manipulative. And also what we see consistent, right? Like, well, I wouldn't have done it if you didn't do X, Y, Z.
00:18:03
Speaker
Because that doesn't that shouldn't matter. Like, no matter how it is, you should never physically assault someone because you're upset. But he took it to a different level. He would then convince people to physically abuse and have physical punishments from a parent onto to a child.
00:18:28
Speaker
on his behalf. So for example, one of Desiree's stories was that she had a diary that was found and it was talking about things that were happening in the home, things happening to her.
00:18:43
Speaker
the abuse, the rape, the... how her feelings were that she wanted to leave. And Tony took the diary, ripped out all the pages that were incriminating for him, but still had pages of talking about Desiree having sex and depicting her kind of like a whore.
00:19:06
Speaker
He then gave the book to her father, told her father that he had to beat her, basically, because of these comments and how horrible it was breaking down that family dynamic so now as a child you feel like you're even more alone you have nowhere way to turn if you can't help turn to your parents who else is going to help you
00:19:32
Speaker
no one they were so vulnerable Yeah, it was these two girls, you could just tell as they were watching it, just so broken listening to some of it and absolutely terrified.
00:19:46
Speaker
um It was constant of fear. And Desiree started talking about her escape and she did it in the middle of the night. And because of that,
00:20:00
Speaker
Again, you had to orchestrate it. She did have an aunt who helped her outside the group. But without that, I don't know if she ever would have been able to leave. And as a result, he then became more angry to the rest of his wives, becoming more damaging, more aggressive.
00:20:19
Speaker
And he then took all these girls to church in front of the congregation what I don't want to say had a list, but went down the things that he could be prosecuted for or accused of now that because he was doing damage control i need to discredit this girl before she starts making accusations and he went up and had apparently had all of these girls line up and he would say have i ever beaten you and they were trained to answer no have i ever raped you they trained to answer no and
00:20:56
Speaker
Regardless of the truth, it was they knew better than to say something because them saying something would have been way worse than just saying, nope, i'm going to say whatever you want me to say.
00:21:11
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And Desiree had no intention of originally saying anything to police, but her aunt kind of made the point of her younger sister was about to turn nine And her mom was talking about sending her to Tony.
00:21:31
Speaker
And because of her experience, she knew exactly what was going to happen. And she didn't want her sister experiencing the same thing that she experienced. So she did end up talking to the police.
00:21:43
Speaker
Little did she know, the police already had eyes on Tony for many, many years. um Which does give a little bit of confidence, right? That they were already vaguely aware of what was happening, just not to what extent.
00:22:00
Speaker
because yeah well this wasn't new behavior for tony right because 94 he had already gone to jail for four years um for basically having a criminal enterprise he had 15 million dollars of unpaid taxes and went to jail ran the cult behind the bars like nothing was happening and came back and his group was there waiting and devoted
00:22:32
Speaker
Those are some loyal fans. Yeah. um Well, what that was interesting is like Jeff's is trying to run FLDS still from behind bars, but his response was, i'm going to make it really hard on my flock per se.
00:22:52
Speaker
And he put in new rules and restrictions so that his group feels kind of like he does right in prison. But everywhere I saw it for Tony, it was just kind of status quo until he got out.
00:23:06
Speaker
And I'm wondering if that's because he knew he had a four years in the grand scheme of things is not a long time. Versus Jeff's, he consciously knows he's never getting out.
00:23:20
Speaker
Sure, but he he is still running it from prison. Yeah, I'm talking more of, like, restrictions. Like, Tony just kind of is all right, keep going the way you're going versus Jeff's you no longer can have, okay like, relations. You can't have toys. You can't eat certain things anymore. yeah There's no more baby. Yeah, like that's true. Things like that. Jeff's got way stricter while he yeah while he's been in prison.
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know. Tony's not as into the religion stuff though. I feel like that's true. i think that seems to be secondary for him. Yeah.
00:23:56
Speaker
Cause I think Susan was into the religion. I think that's part of why she started it. I think she did believe versus Tony. I think he just like, he's just a tag along. Yeah. He's like, if it's going to support the creepy shit that I want to do I'll find some Bible verses.
00:24:12
Speaker
Sounds great. He's, he's father God. You know what I mean? Where it's like, yeah, that is important. You could interchange them. Yeah, whatever. But it's just because she passed and he acted like she wanted him to take over, which we've seen in other cults before, that someone close to the person who passes away is like, well, this is what they wanted.
00:24:35
Speaker
yeah was it she seemed kind of unsure about that actually right like anyone close to her actually highly disagrees yeah they're like you're actually gonna sabotage the whole thing with your perversions because she knew oh she'd absolutely there's no way she couldn't have there's no way she knew um which makes her terrible too Yeah, and I think it makes, if she was still alive, I think it would have, she would have been held just as responsible for all of this behavior because you're actively knowingly participating and making excuses for him.
00:25:14
Speaker
um Well, I do think it really ramped up, though, in openness when she passed away.
Tony's Trial and Impact
00:25:19
Speaker
Yeah. um But I would, I think that she knew about his proclivities for sure.
00:25:26
Speaker
And she just handed him all of this power and all of these fans, followers, whatever they're called, for this. Devotees. Yeah.
00:25:38
Speaker
Yeah. um What's the name for a person in a cult? Just a cult member? I think it depends on the religion, right? Like, I know the the flock is there a lot. The group, the members.
00:25:50
Speaker
Tony's flock. Tony's flock. The members. Tony's flock. I like that.
00:25:58
Speaker
But because of all of her help, I couldn't find. So depending on what you read, there was a three year investigation and there was a six year investigation. So it kind of depends on how you're what article you read or the documentary versus news or whatever the case is. Either way, not a short one.
00:26:19
Speaker
um And the police ended up raiding the compound. And to their surprise, the only found inside the home was women. There were no guns.
00:26:30
Speaker
There was no porn. Nothing. Um... But that's because Tony was tipped off. And right to the best of my ability, I could not figure out what the tip was, who the tip was, who the tip was suspected of from being.
00:26:52
Speaker
um Which is Which, I don't know. andla It's weird with me that we have this whole series. There's a whole investigation. There was a trial, we'll get to it in a second.
00:27:04
Speaker
Yet nobody has a single suspicion on who the tip was.
00:27:09
Speaker
Just doesn't sit well with me. i It's just a secret. it's Susan from beyond the grave. The godly interactions. um But yeah, so he took three of his wives and went on the run.
00:27:25
Speaker
And while he was leaving, he told all of the other women to get rid of the evidence. And they got rid of everything. Anything incriminating to him. And this is his next steps, which, God, the confidence of some of these leaders just baffles me endlessly.
00:27:47
Speaker
Tony started calling news stations and giving interviews about his group about his decisions saying things like well mary was inseminated at 10 or 12 so it's fine with what i'm doing sir yeah yeah and the fact that he was reaching out to these like normally it's news people trying to be like hey talk to us tell us your side like he was the one deliberately so confident That he a he was never going to get caught, but B, that it was okay that he was calling news stations.
00:28:27
Speaker
Yeah, that's literally mind-blowing. The Delulu at its highest. Delulu old man. Yeah, but you know, after five days of all these calls and his travels...
00:28:41
Speaker
He the motorhome broke down in Arizona. And because of all of these interviews, the police were just tracking where he was going. He was on a phone. Like, again, the smartest criminals never get caught.
00:28:55
Speaker
So I don't care how smart you are. if you're making phone calls, you're an idiot. Like lose the cell phones. in You may have had a chance.
00:29:05
Speaker
But yeah, they you have a phone. You're on the grid. Right. And he's just like, nah, it's gonna be fine. So when they showed up at the motel, he was like, no, I'm just gonna go outside and talk to them. Like thinking that he again could just better than everybody talk his way out of this.
00:29:22
Speaker
There was no way in hell that was going to happen.
00:29:27
Speaker
So they arrested him at the motel with in the presence of his wives, quote, quote. um They searched him, arrested him and then charged him with 10 counts of child sex abuse.
00:29:43
Speaker
which very well deserved oh 100% well deserved I do think it could have been higher and I think they wanted it to be higher but unfortunately because of the tip and all the ah destruction of everything else those were just the air iron clawed clad excuse me uh charges that they could do But it was all kind of resting on Desiree because she was the, she ended up contacting a lot of the wives and talking to them and convincing them to be involved in the prosecution. She convinced eight other women to stand up, tell their truth.
00:30:24
Speaker
And, but here's the thing, if she didn't, you know, all of the rest of the women have done it. And, and she did. Definitely. ah It was, it's so impressive because i think,
00:30:36
Speaker
having Being so young and dealing with that is is even more impressive. um Any person who has to go to a trial, sit in front of their accused, as well as a jury, a judge, being questioned about everything, the gallery, and then talking about one some of the most traumatic things in your life is...
00:31:03
Speaker
It's horrifying. It's hard. its I'm so impressed with the men and women that are able to do it. um And from the different testimonies in the the episode, she did amazing.
00:31:18
Speaker
And I think that was really healing for her to a degree. hope so. Yeah. And like you're able to find – like people believe you, right? Like having that guilty verdict that he did get on all counts –
00:31:35
Speaker
really it validates not that you need validation but it's ah it's nice to know when your whole life you're told it's your fault that it's not and they uh the defense attorney really went after her and was kind of like you're doing this to get money and you're just trying to extort him because of all the money he has blah blah blah and I don't know. Every time that a defense attorney goes on attack to the victim's character that I've noticed and that we've talked about, it always backfires. I don't know why they still do it.
00:32:14
Speaker
i feel like it's a really bad look, but sometimes when you don't have anything else, right you just have to say something. Like what other else but there no other option, right?
00:32:25
Speaker
there's nothing else it's like unjustifiable there's no case to make for him the attorney probably feels sick to their stomach even defending him think that they just have to throw something at the wall and hope it sticks right particularly because he's already admitted to it if I can convince one juror that this girl is just lying then it'll be worth it yeah But nope. ah Guilty. All counts. 175 years in prison.
00:32:53
Speaker
Which is like a comical number for someone who's already in their 70s. Really for anybody. But yeah, definitely in your 70s. Oh, right? Like, hey, just in case you are right that you are going to live forever.
00:33:10
Speaker
Just in case.
00:33:13
Speaker
For real. Well, you can't say 25 to life with someone who's going to live forever. Right. let's make it specific because we're not going to house him for 500 years either. Yeah. don't you get out And it, and again, the confidence of him, because as he was going to the cop car, he's, and I had to replay this because I wanted to actually make sure that I have it.
00:33:34
Speaker
He yelled while getting put in the back of the car after his trial, just another one of the prophets going to jail for the gospel.
00:33:44
Speaker
The gospel that I don't even think he believes in. Definitely not. But he fancs fancies himself like a Joseph Smith. He fancies himself like a hero for his people.
00:33:56
Speaker
And he does get a lot of positive reinforcement from his... cult members he does which has inflated his ego terribly yeah the cults still exist they still support him um he did die in 2017 but in what what's so hard is you have cult members who literally are now disowning their own child for talking out or speaking out i should say And like Desiree's mom still is in the group, still believes in the Ilano cause and watched her daughter say all these horrible things.
00:34:36
Speaker
If that doesn't wake you up, I don't know what would.
00:34:41
Speaker
Probably nothing can because she'd have to like reconsider every decision she's ever made. and it's too hard. It's too much. So and all you just have to stick to your guns and not deal with it, basically. You were the reason that you sent your daughter to a pedophile.
00:34:58
Speaker
Like, I think but grasping and coming to terms with that would also be inconceivable. Like, if if she, she probably doubled down.
00:35:09
Speaker
And I think it was, this has to be truth, because if not, what did I do? i can't imagine living with that.
00:35:23
Speaker
Yeah, i it's it's really It's really crazy. I can't imagine. Yeah, and so the only other thing here was there was a damages issue to be paid to the wives in a total of $1 billion. Yeah.
00:35:48
Speaker
Hmm. Which. Okay. Good number. Good round number. Good number. 14 wives. um um It's one of those things is like the money doesn't make it go away. The money doesn't make it better. does It doesn't make you heal. Yeah.
00:36:02
Speaker
But it definitely can take the load off because these kids basically are coming out of something with absolutely nothing. The clothes on their back is what they have. And you know they don't have an education. You know they don't have like any kind of skills.
00:36:20
Speaker
So i hopefully that will help them kind of be a little bit more able to adjust to I don't want to say the real world, but but mainstream, I guess.
00:36:37
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, did they actually get the money, though? I was just trying to think. I i didn't have a note on that, but let's see.
00:36:47
Speaker
Because I don't know if he had a bill billion dollars. I mean, maybe. I hope they got it. They definitely deserved it. Yeah. I know that the ah compound was sold.
00:37:01
Speaker
So that was probably a pretty penny. Yeah. yeah According to AI. they didn't get the Even if they didn't get the full billion, I hope they got everything that was there. Yeah.
00:37:18
Speaker
Yeah. So it looks like according to AI with zero checking, $525 million dollars was paid in punitive damages to seven of the women ah who were abused by Tony as children.
00:37:34
Speaker
And it is the largest civil awarding in Arkansas history.
00:37:40
Speaker
Obviously much less than $1 billion, but pretty good number still. And yes more than I thought it would be. So, all right. Yeah, I'm wondering if ah in that, in Arkansas specifically, if they only awarded it to those who were child brides and not all of his wives. Because he, from my understanding, there were a few that were not children when he married them.
00:38:07
Speaker
Though he married them against their will, they were technically adults. um And I'm guessing that would be the other seven women that didn't receive settlement from Arkansas.
00:38:20
Speaker
Probably. Probably. I mean, i still think they should be compensated, but they probably got a lot less, if anything. Yeah, and it looks like because the church originally was started in California and moved to Arkansas, that's where the billion dollars came from is because it was a – like the values and the properties in California could be valued up to a billion dollars. So it seems like they probably wanted everything to be sold off and then distributed.
00:38:54
Speaker
But again, that's from a quick read sure and zero vetting. um But again, you had the attorneys that got paid out, the plaintiffs, the victims, probably back taxes that he just never paid because, you know, he's so good at paying those.
Current Status and Cult Exposure
00:39:15
Speaker
Yeah, this guy, huge drain. Yeah. Just owed so much back taxes, owed people so many millions and billions of dollars.
00:39:26
Speaker
And i don't know. What a monster. Yeah. And I think that he's one that was a little quieter, which I thought was interesting. As the episode's going, they really had some complex stories.
00:39:42
Speaker
But... particularly for the topics that you and I cover and the documentaries that we watch and the podcasts we listen to, the fact that Tony is not and Susan are not more widely talked about is very surprising.
00:39:57
Speaker
And this was the episode one, which I really liked, that they did something that was very traumatic, very intense, and But a little less known bringing the publicity to it, particularly with it being active still, i think I think was a really good choice and also very interesting.
00:40:19
Speaker
It blows my mind that there's active members like that is the craziest part. Yeah. Because what are they following now? no one. Right. I think it's just his teachings at this point um that they're keeping on the church of what he taught and what he believed and the practices.
00:40:43
Speaker
And it doesn't seem that the polygamy was... wide stream i think it was just him so that's where it gets complicated because a lot of the polygamists that we talk about are it's part of the doctrine right the flds the aub b it's part of doctrine you need to be a polygamist versus here he was the polygamist but his followers shouldn't be or weren't
00:41:15
Speaker
It'd be curious if yeah one of the other ones tried to do that, if he would be supportive or if he would condemn the behavior.
00:41:27
Speaker
I don't know, but just the mental gymnastics to make that work where it's, it's okay for the leader to be polygamous and have child brides, but not no one else can do that. Right.
00:41:38
Speaker
It's just like a different total set out of different standards. Yeah, and we do see different standards ah for treatment, but not life, like, doctrine, right? Like, it's interesting in this one how he lived his life so differently, where he, at least, not that I condone it, but at least the ones that are...
00:42:04
Speaker
saying They at least practice what they preach. like Versus he's preaching one and not doing the other. That's, don't know. Add hypocrite to his list of credentials.
00:42:19
Speaker
Absolutely a hypocrite. Absolutely a pedophile. Absolutely ah power abuser. Awful. Yeah. and i think That's who ends up in charge of cults.
00:42:30
Speaker
Yeah, that's very true. And I think this is one example that i I do feel very comfortable using Pedophile for him because of the consistent prepubescent, right?
00:42:41
Speaker
And we had talked about right the some of the verbiage differences in the past and the prepubescent consistency for him.
00:42:54
Speaker
and is is just so strong and the attraction that went with that I think it's very so i i don't know I think it's fair to make that argument even without a psychiatric diagnosis
00:43:13
Speaker
yes but I think in general he was a predator and yeah it was the people that he had access to Yeah, because again, he had and teenagers, he had adults, he had children.
00:43:25
Speaker
he just, I think it was a power thing more than anything. Plus a sprinkle of sexual preference.
00:43:35
Speaker
Yeah. ah You know, a little bit of perversion, a little bit of a power complex, a little bit of a God complex.
00:43:43
Speaker
My wife's finally out of the picture. I can get a ah newer model that's eight years old. Yeah. And it would be interesting what would have happened if she was alive and where the church could have gone or what direction it would have gone to.
00:44:03
Speaker
Because if you look at pictures of them, like... they They did have very trendy looks like when they were popular. ah But he's not a knockout.
00:44:16
Speaker
However, he was 10 years younger than Susan. So he definitely, I think, may have saw an opportunity.
00:44:27
Speaker
But also I think she just liked the younger men. and It is interesting that like he went from someone who was 10 years older than him to to children.
00:44:40
Speaker
So it makes me think that why the children was always a secret. And then once he got what he wanted, he didn't have to be anymore.
00:44:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think it was a waiting game. And I think that he wanted ride on her coattails and get more power and money because of her.
00:45:00
Speaker
And then he could do whatever he wanted. Yep. But so that was episode one. um I'm excited to kind of go through this series. It seems like at least from episode one, they have some interesting...
00:45:16
Speaker
groups and stories that they're going to talk about rather than listen I love the FLDS I think they're fascinating but there is an influx with their information um so I'm kind of excited to see some of the the other groups that may come through it's a it's a lot of FLDS for sure which I feel like I've already just overly consumed.
00:45:42
Speaker
Yeah. I could use a little, a breath of fresh. Yeah. So this was a new one for us. Um, and I'm excited to see where this series goes. We'll keep you updated. Yeah, absolutely. And if you guys enjoy these type of discussions, if you'd like something else, if you have suggestions, we are open to them and you could contact us on Instagram or by email mothers of all crime And Facebook, YouTube.
00:46:12
Speaker
We got it all. We have it all. All righty. Till next week. Till next time.