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E279: The Tromp Family
2.2k Plays15 days ago
In late August 2016, the Tromp family of Silvan, Victoria—Mark, Jacoba, and their three adult children—suddenly fled their successful berry farm and thriving businesses without phones, wallets, or passports. Over the next week, their strange journey would stretch hundreds of miles across Australia, leaving behind a trail of abandoned cars, disoriented wanderings, and desperate pleas for help. What could drive a close-knit, hardworking family to believe they were being hunted? Was it paranoia, environmental toxins, or a rare psychological condition known as folie à deux—shared psychosis? The case gripped the nation of Australia, making headlines worldwide, and even now it leaves more questions than answers. Why did some family members resist the delusion while others collapsed under its weight? And most haunting of all—could something like this happen to any of us?
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Transcript
Introduction of Unusual Phenomena
00:00:00
Speaker
When I talk to my students about literature and life, one of the things that always fascinates them is the power of the human mind. Not just in the inspirational sense that grit and determination can push someone to achieve greatness, but in the haunting, fragile sense of what happens when the mind convinces us of something that isn't really there.
00:00:26
Speaker
We talk about the 18 people in Leroy, New York, who not that long ago, in 2011, began developing sudden, uncontrollable tics.
00:00:38
Speaker
Otherwise healthy individuals, 17 of which were high school students and 16 of those 17 were teenage girls, who began exhibiting Tourette's-like symptoms seemingly overnight.
00:00:53
Speaker
Doctors couldn't pinpoint one physical cause. Instead, they pointed to the psychological. Stress, anxiety, even social contagion.
00:01:04
Speaker
In other words, mass psychogenic illness or mass hysteria. Or I'll tell them about pseudosiesis. And that's when a woman believes so completely that she is pregnant, that her body follows along.
00:01:21
Speaker
Her abdomen swells. Her hormones shift. She lactates. Her body mimics the process of creating life. But there's no baby.
00:01:33
Speaker
The mind alone commands the body, and the body obeys. History is full of these strange echoes of the mind's power.
00:01:44
Speaker
In 1518, dozens of people in Strasbourg danced themselves to exhaustion and even death in what became known as the Dancing Plague of 1518.
00:01:57
Speaker
Some blamed ergot fungus on rye bread. Others believed it was mass hysteria. Either way, the streets filled with writhing bodies because of something that began not with muscle or bone, but with the brain.
00:02:13
Speaker
It's crazy what our minds can convince us of. The miraculous, the terrifying, the unexplainable. And that's what brings me to our story today. Was our case this week a matter of shared psychosis or something else entirely?
Meet the Hosts and Cold Cases Introduction
00:02:30
Speaker
This is the case of the Trump family.
00:03:08
Speaker
Welcome to Coffee and Cases, where we like our coffee hot and our cases cold. My name is Allison Williams. And my name is Maggie Dameron. We will be telling stories each week in the hopes that someone out there with any information concerning the cases will take those tips to law enforcement so justice and closure can be brought to these families.
00:03:27
Speaker
With each case, we encourage you to continue in the conversation on our Facebook page Coffee in Cases podcast, because as we all know, conversation helps to keep the missing person in the public consciousness, helping keep their memories alive.
00:03:40
Speaker
So sit back, sip your coffee, and listen to what's brewing this week.
Life of the Tromp Family
00:03:45
Speaker
Sleuth Hounds, our case this week takes us across the world to Australia, to a quiet little town called Sylvan in the Yarra Valley of Victoria. It's It's a place defined by rolling hills, fertile soil, and rows of crops that thrive under long hours of sunlight.
00:04:06
Speaker
Farming communities like Sylvan are tight-knit. Everyone knows one another. You wave to your neighbor on the tractor. You borrow a tool from the farm down the road. And when something happens out of the ordinary, the whole valley talks about it.
00:04:22
Speaker
The Tromps, T-R-O-M-P-S, had lived here for about a decade. They weren't outsiders. They'd moved from nearby Macclesfield and had established themselves as hardworking farmers and business owners.
00:04:37
Speaker
On their property, they ran a successful 18-acre redcurrant berry farm. Not the kind of farm where you just pull weeds and hope for a good season. No, the Tromps were ambitious.
00:04:50
Speaker
Their fruit farm became one of the most successful in the region, supplying local markets and wholesalers, and they were known for their work ethic.
00:05:02
Speaker
But that wasn't all. Alongside the farm, the family ran an earth-moving business. Imagine the hours that went into both of those enterprises.
00:05:13
Speaker
Days that began before sunrise and ended well after dusk. Because farming doesn't give you weekends off, and neither does heavy machinery.
00:05:24
Speaker
The Tromps worked seven days a week together. And this place where they lived, you guys, is beautiful. I will show you pictures of their house, the fields surrounding it. It's a two-story with tons of windows to let in natural light.
00:05:44
Speaker
They're enclosed by trees by nature with farming around it. And the fields are luscious green.
00:05:55
Speaker
There are pictures of their youngest daughter riding her horse, through those fields. They did have horses on the property and their youngest daughter actually had equipment set up on the property as well where she could practice jumping and other riding skills.
00:06:15
Speaker
So let me tell you a little bit about the family. The patriarch was Mark Trump, 51 years old. He was a quiet man, not flashy, but respected as hardworking and reliable.
00:06:28
Speaker
He was the type of farmer who kept his head down, did the work, didn't stir up trouble. His father, George, described him as, quote, just a normal bloke like me, end quote.
00:06:41
Speaker
Mark's wife was Jacoba, nicknamed Kobe, who was 53. She was a partner in everything, in the farm, in the businesses, and in the family.
00:06:52
Speaker
Just like her husband, she was straight-laced. She didn't spend more than she could afford, no substance abuse issues, no affiliations with strange religious groups or cults,
00:07:03
Speaker
You'll see why I'm telling you this later. Just a normal woman who supported her family and was passionate about the family business, but was kind enough to stop by and talk with neighbors over a cup of tea.
00:07:16
Speaker
Mark and Kobe had three adult children. Rihanna, the oldest at 29, still lived at home and worked alongside her parents on the farm. Mitchell, 25, who also lived at home and worked on the Berry Farm.
00:07:31
Speaker
And Ella, who was the youngest at 22, who was perhaps the most independent. She's the one who adored her horses, and she often spoke on social media about them. But she also ran her own trucking company,
00:07:47
Speaker
providing trucks and drivers to farms in the Yarra Valley. And this is all in addition to also helping on the family farm. This was truly a family business.
00:07:59
Speaker
If you look at the family's Facebook pages from that time, you'll see comments about how close they all were, how everything revolved around the family unit. Their posts were full of references to long hours and teamwork and compliments to one another.
00:08:17
Speaker
Ella made a message to her brother Mitchell that he looked like a pro riding on a jet ski. Rihanna posted a picture and got compliments from both Ella and Mitchell.
00:08:28
Speaker
There are messages between each other below pictures thanking one another for hard work on various projects. There were no hints of looming trouble, no cryptic messages, and to neighbors and friends, the Trumps were ordinary.
00:08:44
Speaker
At the same time that maybe they were even a little bit enviable, because again, this is a family business.
The Tromps' Sudden Flee
00:08:51
Speaker
They're all so good at working together. They're just expanding their home at this time.
00:08:57
Speaker
Looking forward to the busy season in December, remember we're in Australia, where the demand for berries would spike. The house itself reflected the family's ambition. As I mentioned, they were in the middle of renovation, improving and expanding the already impressive property. And it was hard work, but the family was used to that.
00:09:21
Speaker
And then something shifted. In the final days of August 2016, unease began creeping into the Trump household.
00:09:34
Speaker
Later, Mitchell would describe it as a, quote, buildup of different, normal, everyday events, just pressure, end quote, that somehow twisted into paranoia.
00:09:50
Speaker
Mark and Jacoba became convinced that someone was after them, not just watching, but preparing to hurt them, to take their money, and maybe even to kill them.
00:10:03
Speaker
This wasn't idle worry. It became their reality. And so on Monday, August 29th, the Trump family made a decision that would baffle police, baffle the media, and all of Australia.
00:10:19
Speaker
They fled their home. They left in Ella's Silver Peugeot, which is an SUV. The decision was abrupt, so abrupt that the doors of the farmhouse were left unlocked.
00:10:34
Speaker
Their other cars sat in the driveway with keys dangling in the ignitions. Inside the home, police would later find credit cards, passports, and mobile phones scattered about, along with piles and piles of financial documents that were neatly stacked, as though someone had been rifling through them methodically, but not haphazardly searching for something.
00:11:02
Speaker
This was not the departure of a family going on holiday. i don't normally, you know, look through my financial documents and leave them setting out in my home or forget to take my credit card and my passport.
00:11:15
Speaker
This seemed like an escape. The Trumps told their children that they needed to leave him immediately. There's no time to grab phones or wallets. In fact, they shouldn't.
00:11:26
Speaker
They needed to get away from technology, from surveillance, from any traceable way that whoever was coming for them could find them.
00:11:39
Speaker
And it's honestly unclear to me from the research whether the parents posited this journey as tech-free road trip holiday, since this was indeed kind of the last break as farmers that they would have before the busy berry season really started in December, or whether this trip were more urgent, whether they truly and fully expressed interest their concerns to their children. Like, we're unsafe here. We have to go now.
00:12:14
Speaker
But whichever it was, the Trump's son, Mitchell, quietly disobeyed. He did not leave his phone behind. He slipped his phone into his pocket, but he wouldn't keep it for long.
00:12:29
Speaker
About 32 kilometers, less than 20 miles into the trip near the town of Warburton, his parents noticed that he had his phone.
00:12:41
Speaker
I don't know if it lit up, if he wasn't thinking and pulled it out, if they heard it if... Someone thought he was acting suspicious or what, but they did realize that Mitchell had his phone, and at this moment, they forced him to throw it out the window.
00:12:59
Speaker
There went Mitchell's lifeline to the outside world, gone, and the road ahead stretched long. The family was driving north, far from the familiar orchards and valleys of Sylvan, and there would be many stops and many twists in the course of this journey.
00:13:21
Speaker
So for clarity's sake, let me walk you through a timeline of their trip.
Split and Individual Journeys
00:13:28
Speaker
Day one, Monday, August 29th. The family drove and drove, covering around 800 kilometers, around 500 miles, until they reached Bathurst, which is a town west of Sydney, Australia.
00:13:46
Speaker
They didn't stop to rest. They didn't contact anyone along the way. They had just kept moving. And by the time they reached Bathurst, cracks in the family unity were beginning to show.
00:14:00
Speaker
The children later reported that their parents were becoming more unreasonable and unbearable as the trip went on. Day two, Tuesday, August 30th, about 7 a.m., Mitchell decided he'd had enough.
00:14:17
Speaker
His parents' paranoia was intensifying. They were harder and harder to reason with, even more so than the day before. And Mitchell didn't believe that someone was after them, and he couldn't keep up the charade.
00:14:31
Speaker
He told his parents that he wanted to go home. In the suburb of Kelso, near Bathurst, Mitchell left the family. He began the long journey back, catching trains first to Sydney, then to Melbourne.
00:14:47
Speaker
And I'm curious, and I know that we likely won't ever know the answers, but I wonder how Mark and Jacoba felt about their son leaving. Like, did they put up a fight?
00:14:59
Speaker
Because if they felt like there was danger back home, Did they beg and plead for him to stay because otherwise he'd be walking right back into danger? Or did they think that splitting up was maybe a good idea because if someone were tracking them, maybe it would throw them off if they went in different directions?
00:15:19
Speaker
But then again, there's also safety in numbers, so you'd think they'd rather be together. You can see why I'm confused by this action. And then either Mitchell had his own money if he were acting alone, or his parents had to have given him money, implying their permission as well for him leaving, in order to fund that train trip home. Because remember, they had left all of their credit cards back at their house in Sylvan.
00:15:49
Speaker
For the first time, the Trump family was fractured. Four remained in the car, Mark, Jacoba, Rihanna, and Ella. Instead of turning back toward home, they pressed on.
00:16:03
Speaker
Their next stop was Janolan Caves, which is a well-known tourist destination deep in the Blue Mountains. If you believe you're being followed, though, here's where logic doesn't really come in.
00:16:18
Speaker
Hiding out in one of the most visited natural attractions in New South Wales is a strange choice. But I guess paranoia doesn't necessarily follow logic.
00:16:31
Speaker
I mean, maybe they thought they were going to hide out in one of the caves because... Trust me, caves can be scary places. They can be places where you can hide. Because I don't know about you sleuth hounds, but I've gone spelunky before, not in Mammoth Cave. I've just visited Mammoth Caves here in Kentucky. But I've gone to Carter Caves.
00:16:55
Speaker
And I ended up crawling around on my belly in mud and had to back out because we ended up at a hole about 50 feet up in the air. So you can get trapped, but you are definitely far away from others.
00:17:13
Speaker
It was here at Janolan Caves that the daughters, Rihanna and Ella, made their decision. They had to get away too. The sisters separated from their parents.
00:17:27
Speaker
and I feel like I'm going to say this 20 million times in this episode, but again, don't know how to feel about this either because separation on the one hand implies that they at least saw through their parents' delusions, which is good.
00:17:42
Speaker
But if that's the case, that wouldn't explain why Rihanna is found, as I'll tell you in just a moment, in the state that she is found.
00:17:54
Speaker
And then another part of me feels like, If these girls were aware of the delusion that their parents are suffering from, then why not alert authorities and also stay with them to ensure that they don't harm themselves or someone else?
00:18:11
Speaker
So I just don't know how to process a lot of the information that I read about for this case. But the sisters did leave, and not only that, they did something extremely out of character.
00:18:26
Speaker
They didn't just walk away, because remember, they were all, all of the Trumps in one car, Ella's car, that presumably their parents are still driving. The sisters also didn't take public transportation like Mitchell.
00:18:41
Speaker
Instead, they stole a car, a utility vehicle, and they headed south to Goulburn. At a gas station in Goulburn, the sisters themselves also split up.
00:18:57
Speaker
Ella wanted to return home to feed her beloved horses. Rihanna, she was unraveling. And just as before, i don't understand.
00:19:08
Speaker
i don't know why the sisters decided to split up. I don't know if Ella saw through the delusion like Mitchell had, but Rihanna didn't.
00:19:19
Speaker
And maybe Rihanna wanted to stay closer because their parents were close. I don't know if Ella says, hey, I'm going back home. I've got to feed my horses. And Rihanna refuses to go back. But then Ella's like, nope, sorry, I've got to get back. So if you want to stay here, stay here.
00:19:37
Speaker
Either way, they decided to go their separate ways. And there's been no answers to those questions. All I know is that Ella continued on in the stolen car and left Rihanna in Goulburn.
00:19:52
Speaker
Well, left her there momentarily. You see, truck driver Keith Whitaker was driving along in his utility vehicle, his ute.
00:20:03
Speaker
He had stopped in Goulburn, and he was continuing his journey. He traveled several kilometers past Goulburn when he felt something odd behind his seat.
00:20:16
Speaker
A kick. And at first he thought he imagined it, but then he turned around and there on the floor behind him were a pair of legs stretched out between the seats. It was a woman lying flat, almost hidden.
00:20:33
Speaker
Whitaker was shocked, to say the least. He told a reporter for the Goldberg Post, quote, I got an extreme shock, he told reporters, quote, she was lying on the floor. She didn't know where she was, didn't know her name, end quote.
00:20:49
Speaker
In fact, Whitaker said that for about 20 minutes, the young woman who did eventually sit up just stared straight ahead in a catatonic state.
00:21:02
Speaker
Eventually she would respond, but she didn't know her name. She didn't know where she was, where she came from, anything. The driver asked if she was hurt and she said no, but he did the best thing that he could think of.
00:21:16
Speaker
He called the police to get her help. After waiting with the young woman about an hour, the police arrived. She was by that point back in a catatonic state and was taken back to Goulburn, where after an initial trip to the police station, she was admitted to Goulburn Hospital.
00:21:38
Speaker
Doctors said she was suffering stress-related mental health issues. That woman was Rihanna Trompf. By Tuesday night, Ella arrived back at the family farm. Remember, she continued on in the stolen car.
00:21:55
Speaker
But she wasn't returning to the safe, cozy farmhouse that she had left days before. Police were already there. They had actually been alerted that the Trumps were missing after Rihanna's hospitalization earlier that afternoon.
00:22:11
Speaker
You see, again, i don't have specifics because the research I found didn't give these specifics. But it seems like the disappearance of the Trump family became big headlines really quickly. And this was nationwide.
00:22:27
Speaker
And so Rihanna was recognized. For now, though, Ella was the first to actually make it back home, even though Mitchell had left before.
00:22:39
Speaker
What police found at the Trump home was a scene of strangeness.
The Search and Reunion
00:22:44
Speaker
The details I mentioned before. The doors to the home were unlocked. Keys were in car ignitions. It was almost like they tried out different cars and and rolled them out one by one.
00:22:56
Speaker
I didn't read that it was common practice for the family to leave the keys in the ignition since they lived kind of in a small community. And I feel like if that were common for them, that would have been mentioned.
00:23:08
Speaker
They left their passports, credit cards, and mobile phones, well, all except for Mitchell's, behind on the counter. And again, stacks of financial documents organized but abandoned were all around the house.
00:23:23
Speaker
So to police, it looked like the Tromps had left in fear, searching for something in their records and then fleeing without a trace. By Wednesday morning, Mitchell had made it home as well.
00:23:37
Speaker
Remember, he was taking trains, and he had taken an overnight train from Sydney. So I guess there was some wait time for the next train once he got to Sydney to get back to Melbourne.
00:23:53
Speaker
For a brief moment, two of the Trump children were safe back at home, but their parents were still on the run. Rihanna would remain in Goulburn under psychiatric care.
00:24:07
Speaker
After the daughters split from them, Mark and Jacoba had driven on. They crossed back into Victoria and reached Wangaratta, which is a town more than 600 kilometers, around 375 miles from where they'd started. So they went to the caves, and now they're kind of driving back toward Sylvan in a way.
00:24:31
Speaker
And here, their paths diverged once more. Mark remained in Wangaratta. Jacoba somehow ended up traveling alone back up north by public transport, either they're a train or a bus, to the town of Yoss, 350 kilometers, a little miles away from her husband Was she trying to get to a specific place, get back closer to where the kids had left them, maybe thinking that the kids are still there?
00:25:05
Speaker
Or was this location just random, like I hop on a train and go wherever it takes me? Again, we don't know.
00:25:22
Speaker
But before Jacoba's story was known, before we figure out that she's in Yoss, Mark was spotted again. And remember, this is a nationwide story. His picture, the rest of the family's pictures are everywhere.
00:25:36
Speaker
On Wednesday night, a young couple was out playing Pokemon Go. and they reported a terrifying encounter. They were driving when they realized that this silver Peugeot was tailgating them so close that they could barely see its headlights.
00:25:54
Speaker
In fact, they used the word stalking to describe the behavior of this car behind them. When they pulled it over, so did the car that was trailing them pulled right behind them.
00:26:10
Speaker
Finally, the driver of the Peugeot got out. it was a single man, and he started running toward the couple, but stops abruptly in the middle of the road and just stares at them.
00:26:26
Speaker
he eventually turned and walked into Meriwa Park, disappearing into the night. The young couple said it was Mark Trump.
00:26:37
Speaker
They had seen the national stories. They had seen the pictures. And as one of the only members of the family still missing, his face had been plastered everywhere.
00:26:48
Speaker
Police later found Ella's abandoned vehicle with the keys still in the ignition. It was indeed Mark Trump who had followed this couple, but now Mark was gone.
00:27:03
Speaker
One source said tracking dogs were even brought in but still found nothing. On Thursday, September 1st, hundreds of kilometers away in Yoss, Jacoba was discovered by a passerby.
00:27:18
Speaker
She was wandering the streets, dazed and agitated. Locals described her as disoriented. She was taken to the hospital, thankfully, kind Samaritan passing by, where doctors said her mental health, quote, wasn't of a good standard, end quote.
00:27:39
Speaker
Jacoba was actually transferred to Goldburn Hospital, the same facility where her daughter, Rihanna, remained. So mother and daughter were now at least together in the same hospital, though both under psychiatric care. But Mark was still missing.
00:27:58
Speaker
The Tromp family story was splintering across the Australian landscape. Mitchell and Ella were home, safe but baffled. Rihanna and Jacoba were in the hospital, struggling to recover. And Mark?
00:28:12
Speaker
Mark was out there somewhere, last seen fleeing into the night like a man hunted by shadows that only he could see. Australia was captivated.
00:28:23
Speaker
What had happened to this family that, by all accounts, was ordinary, successful, and close-knit? Why did they flee without money, without phones, or passports?
00:28:36
Speaker
And where was Mark Trump? For days, Wangarada was on edge. Police combed the area around Mary Waugh Park.
00:28:47
Speaker
Locals reported strange break-ins. One was at a motel, the Miller's Cottage Motel in Wangarada, where a door was found ajar in this motel. The bathroom had been used. The bed looked slept in, and a muesli bar wrapper was found on the floor.
00:29:04
Speaker
I also read that there were other break-ins in nearby homes, but I didn't read any details about those. But they started questioning, was this Mark? Was he scavenging for food, desperate to survive?
00:29:19
Speaker
Meanwhile, the Trump children were pleading with the public. On Channel 9's Today Show, Mitchell looked straight into the camera and begged, quote, he's scared that people are after him. He's not in a good state of mind.
00:29:34
Speaker
He's not dangerous. He's my mate, my father. I love him. I just want someone to find him so we can bring him home, end quote. Imagine the weight of that plea, a son trying to reassure the public that his father wasn't a threat while also desperately begging for help.
00:29:55
Speaker
Police echoed the strangeness. Sergeant Mark Knight, who knew the family personally, called it, quote, the most bizarre case in 30 years, end quote.
00:30:07
Speaker
Finally, on Saturday, September 3rd, six days after the Tromps had first fled, because I'm counting the day they left, August 29th, as day one, Mark was found.
00:30:19
Speaker
A passerby spotted him near the Wangaratta Airport walking along the roadside. He was dehydrated, he was disheveled, but alive. Police picked him up, questioned him for five hours, and had him assessed by a mental health professional.
00:30:36
Speaker
Then, astonishingly, he was released into the care of a relative, though I did read that the relative was his brother, who was also a police officer.
00:30:47
Speaker
But unlike Rihanna and Jacoba, he was well enough to return straight home. Cameras captured the moment he was driven away, but instead of relief on his face, Mark turned to the media and flipped them off with raised middle finger.
00:31:05
Speaker
The image would become infamous, a man who had sparked a nationwide manhunt, defiant and angry now at the attention. Why the hostility? Was he embarrassed? Was he ashamed?
00:31:17
Speaker
Did he still feel that invisible they were watching him, that the cameras were part of the threat? Again, we don't know. now let me take a minute to talk about kind of the map of this journey that the family took.
00:31:33
Speaker
I will post this map for you. It was given by BBC, but it shows the route from Sylvan on Monday, August 29th. to Warburton, where Mitchell's phone is thrown out, to Bathurst, that's the place the furthest away from home, where Mitchell left to take the train home, to Goulburn, where Rihanna and Ella drove after stealing a car, to Wongarada, where the stalking incident went down,
00:32:01
Speaker
to Yoss, where Jacoba is wandering in the streets, and then to where Mark Trump is found at the airport. And when you see this map, you guys, you will see the distance that this family traveled over the course of a few short days, again, with no rhyme or reason.
00:32:26
Speaker
but by early September, all five of the Trump family were accounted for. However, they were far from unscathed. Rihanna remained in Goldburn Hospital, still fragile from her breakdown.
00:32:39
Speaker
Jacoba was also still hospitalized, receiving psychiatric treatment. Ella was facing charges of car theft for the vehicle that she and Rihanna had taken Bathurst.
00:32:51
Speaker
As I mentioned before, those charges were later dropped when the court accepted her mental state at the time. Mitchell, though, was the most grounded during the ordeal, but he too was still reeling.
00:33:04
Speaker
In interviews, he struggled to explain what had happened to his family. Part of this quote is what I mentioned to you earlier. He said, quote, it was a buildup of different, normal, everyday events, just pressure, and it slowly got worse as the days went by.
00:33:23
Speaker
I've never seen anything like it, end quote. And Mark, the father, Well, Mark remained the biggest mystery of all. Days after he returned home, Mark released a statement to the press, quote, "'In recent days, my family has been through a difficult period.
00:33:42
Speaker
We will soon be reunited and together. I hope that we will begin to make sense of our ordeal and return to a normal life.'" I am conscious of the burden these events have placed upon our extended family, friends, and the community resources devoted to our aid.
00:34:00
Speaker
Without reservation, I apologize for the hurt and concern caused by these events. On behalf of our family, i express our deep gratitude to Victoria and New South Wales police, as well as the healthcare care professionals who have looked after our physical and mental well-being." end quote His statement was polished, almost sterile, but it didn't answer the question that everyone was asking.
Speculations and Explanations
00:34:30
Speaker
Why? and if there's one thing that people can't stand, it's a mystery without an explanation. And the Trump case had plenty of questions with few answers.
00:34:44
Speaker
So theories began to swirl. Theory number one, environmental toxins. Some speculated that the tromps had been poisoned by carbon monoxide, by chemicals used on the farm, by lead in the water, all of the above.
00:35:02
Speaker
And it makes sense on the surface. They were renovating the house. So could a pipe have broken, releasing something toxic? Yes. They ran a berry farm.
00:35:13
Speaker
Could pesticides or fertilizers have seeped into their environment? Also, yes, carbon monoxide poisoning in particular was a popular theory on Reddit in terms of this case, and it can cause confusion, paranoia, hallucinations, but would the effects have really lasted for days after leaving the house?
00:35:35
Speaker
And would they persist while driving hundreds of kilometers in the fresh air? That seems unlikely. Then again, stress and a lack of sleep can cause some of those same symptoms of confusion, paranoia, hallucination as well.
00:35:53
Speaker
As far as chemicals go, it doesn't seem that any were found when testing was completed around the Tromp family home. Theory number two, debt or criminal pursuit.
00:36:08
Speaker
Others wondered if the Tromps were fleeing something tangible, loan sharks or debts. But police, again, found no evidence. They weren't in debt.
00:36:19
Speaker
They weren't involved in cults or gangs. They were, as Sergeant Knight insisted, quote, not drug users or members of a church or cult, end quote. Hence why I mentioned those things about Jacoba in the beginning.
00:36:32
Speaker
While police have since said that they do not believe that there is any credible threat against the family, any reason why they should have realistically felt fear or anyone after them, law enforcement have also said that it was the belief of this threat that did likely cause the family to leave behind anything that could have been traced, like cell phones and credit cards. And law enforcement even believed that the Tromps may have originally considered leaving the country before also deciding that passports could also be traced.
00:37:11
Speaker
But regardless of belief, no proof was ever given that they owed a debt. So if not financial threats, what else?
00:37:22
Speaker
Theory number three, ergot poisoning. This is another theory that reaches back into history of ergot poisoning. Ergot is a fungus that grows on rye and other grains like wheat and barley among them.
00:37:37
Speaker
And when consumed in excess, it can cause hallucinations, convulsions, and paranoia. Some historians actually believe that ergot fungus played a role in the Salem Witch Trials and even possibly in the dancing plague of 1518 in Europe.
00:37:57
Speaker
But the tromps weren't grain farmers. They grew red currants and no evidence was ever found of contaminated food. And again, the effects of ergot are typically short-lived, not days long.
00:38:11
Speaker
Theory number four, a mob was after them. Could Mark's fears have been justified? Could someone really have been after the family? Did they owe someone something other than money? Or did they see or find something that they shouldn't have?
00:38:29
Speaker
You see, this theory is about more than money, like theory number two talked about. But Mitchell and Ella dismissed the idea, and police dismissed it too. But Mark himself never explained exactly who he thought was coming after them.
00:38:46
Speaker
Was it a faceless they, a shadowy group in his imagination? Or had he experienced something concrete that triggered his fear?
00:38:57
Speaker
We'll likely never know. And then we have theory number five, folie a deux, shared psychosis. The most enduring theory is one rooted not in the environment, but in the mind.
00:39:13
Speaker
Folie a deux, French for madness of two. There can be more, folie a trois, folie en famille, so madness of the three, madness of the family, but from my understanding, the term folie adieu was coined when a French married couple suffered from shared delusions, thinking that someone was coming into their home, wearing their shoes around their house while they slept, and spreading dust everywhere.
00:39:47
Speaker
They both ended up believing this shared delusion and reinforcing the belief in each other. This rare psychological condition occurs when delusional beliefs are shared between individuals who are very close, often spouses, siblings, or families.
00:40:08
Speaker
and In fact, those three groups make up more than 95% of the cases of this condition. One person becomes the primary, the one who develops the delusion, and others, the secondaries, adopt and reinforce that delusion.
00:40:24
Speaker
Usually the primary is the dominant partner, someone who is deemed more intelligent or who is at least more assertive. In the Tromps case, many believe Mark was the primary. Jacoba, then the children, were drawn into his paranoia.
00:40:41
Speaker
As one internal police document reportedly noted, Tromps may have suffered from, quote, group delusional schizophrenia, end quote.
00:40:53
Speaker
Rihanna herself later admitted, quote, you do start thinking the same. You have a few things and they do build up. You can get sick in some way, end quote. Mitchell later told reporters, quote, the best way to describe it is like a movie.
00:41:10
Speaker
I've never seen anyone act like this or conduct themselves in this way, end quote. And I want to pause because if you think about it, and these are your parents who have raised you and guided you,
00:41:23
Speaker
They are sane people who have conducted a successful business and you've walked and worked alongside them your whole life. I'm sure if this behavior is coming out of the blue, then it would be hard to go against them.
00:41:39
Speaker
right Even if it sounds crazy what they're saying, it's likely that you would originally at least believe what they were telling you. I think it's only that the children are adult children that may have helped them to come back to reality.
00:41:56
Speaker
And if their parents are speaking with earnest sincerity and urgency, then I know that they would have followed because I would have, at least initially. And hindsight does bring a lot of clarity.
00:42:10
Speaker
Later, Mitchell told reporters of leaving after that first day, quote, I thought getting out was the best idea for me at the time. In hindsight, I should have tried to stay with them and try and help to bring them back around and talk to them more.
00:42:28
Speaker
But I got out of the car, end quote. Ella had similar sentiments, saying, quote, I was confused about the whole situation, as I still am now.
00:42:39
Speaker
I just wanted to get home to feed my horses, end quote. Their words? echo the very definition of shared psychosis. To understand the tromps and the potential of the shared psychosis, I think we need to look at other cases.
00:42:57
Speaker
The most famous modern case is that of Ursula and Sabina Eriksson, Swedish twins whose bizarre breakdown in 2008 was captured on CCTV in the UK. They were visiting near Liverpool.
00:43:15
Speaker
The twins were first seen at a bus station acting strangely. They were clutching their purses, acting nervous, and after a stop on the public transport bus, they refused to let their purses be searched.
00:43:29
Speaker
So the driver says, hey, I'm not letting you back on. Police were actually called to the scene, and when the two women saw the police, Instead of opening up their purses or talking to them, they fled onto the highway, cameras recording the shocking events.
00:43:49
Speaker
Ursula threw herself into traffic and was hit by a truck. Sabina followed, struck by a car.
Aftermath and Reflections
00:43:57
Speaker
Miraculously, both of them survived. Paramedics arrived, and when police tried restraining the twins so that they could receive treatment, Ursula yelled, "'I know you're not real,' and Sabina started attacking the officer and yelling, "'They're going to steal your organs.'" but the ordeal didn't end there.
00:44:22
Speaker
Sabina was later released from medical care five hours later when she had calmed down. Her sister was actually taken by air because the truck that hit her had crushed her legs.
00:44:33
Speaker
So now here's Sabina wandering alone in the streets trying to find her sister. Well, two men saw her and she asked if there were any bed and breakfast nearby.
00:44:45
Speaker
She said, I'm looking for my sister. I need a place to stay. one of the men offered for Sabina to stay at his home for free while she was looking for her sister, feeling sorry for her.
00:44:56
Speaker
The next morning, good on his word, the man started calling hospitals to find which one Ursula was in. And he says, you know what? I'm gonna do something nice. I'm gonna make Sabina some tea.
00:45:07
Speaker
He had to go to the neighbor's house to borrow some tea bags. He was out. And when he got back home, only moments later, he staggered out of his home again.
00:45:19
Speaker
after Sabina had stabbed him. The man ended up dying from his injuries. Sabina fled the scene, and then, as she's being chased by police, jumped off of a 40-foot bridge onto a highway, and it was only then the police were able to apprehend her.
00:45:42
Speaker
Doctors later described the case as folie adieu. Each twin reinforced the other's delusions until reality itself fractured.
00:45:55
Speaker
Sound familiar? Well, the parallels with the trumps are striking. Close family bonds. Check. Sudden paranoia about being pursued. Check.
00:46:07
Speaker
Flight from perceived danger. Check. Catatonic or violent breakdowns. Check. Check. The key difference, the Erickson case ended in tragedy.
00:46:20
Speaker
The Tromps, by comparison, were lucky. After the ordeal, the Trumps tried to disappear back into normal life. They withdrew from the public eye. They shut down their farm's website. They ended the Pick Your Own Berries tours.
00:46:37
Speaker
They declined interviews. Rihanna, in a rare statement, admitted, quote, we're all very embarrassed. We don't want to be famous. That's for famous people, end quote.
00:46:50
Speaker
and the family went back to work. Seven months later, neighbors are reported that they were all, quote, back working on the family farm, doing really well, end quote.
00:47:01
Speaker
It was as if nothing had happened. And yet so many questions remain. What exactly triggered Mark's breakdown? Why did Jacoba follow so completely?
00:47:13
Speaker
Why did Rihanna collapse and go into a catatonic state while Ella and Mitchell were able to pull away? And why, even now, has the family never publicly explained what happened?
00:47:28
Speaker
We know stress played a role. We know delusions spread like a contagion within a family. But beyond that, the Trumps have chosen silence. Maybe they want privacy.
00:47:40
Speaker
Maybe the answers are too painful. Or maybe there's still some disagreement within the family. Maybe Mark still believes he was genuinely in danger while his children chalk it up to psychosis.
00:47:52
Speaker
It does at least seem that Rihanna Trump, at least, as she told Women's Day for an interview in 2017, believes that her father did suffer from a mental breakdown. But listeners...
00:48:05
Speaker
What do you think is the most likely cause? The Trump case reminds us of how fragile the mind is. One crack can become a fissure.
00:48:18
Speaker
Fear can spread faster than any virus. And in the crucible of a close-knit family, delusion can become contagious.
00:48:29
Speaker
The Trumps were fortunate. They all returned home. They all survived. Ella, who had originally faced those theft charges from the stolen car, had the charges dropped when the owners acknowledged the emotional stress that she was facing when she took the vehicle.
00:48:44
Speaker
Others in shared psychosis cases have not been so lucky. They had good Samaritans who took them to hospitals or called the police. Again, others have not been so lucky.
00:48:59
Speaker
When trust turns into terror, when family bonds become amplifiers of fear, reality itself bends. And that's what makes the Tromp family story so haunting.
00:49:13
Speaker
Because if an ordinary, hardworking family like the Tromps can fall prey to madness, then maybe none of us are as safe from the powers of the mind as we would like to believe.
00:49:27
Speaker
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00:49:46
Speaker
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00:49:58
Speaker
Stay safe. We'll see you next week.