![]() The New York Times, after reviewing pages of the book sent by former followers, reported that in it, "the toddler Ricky is described or else pictured as watching intercourse and orgies, fondling his nanny's breasts and having his genitals fondled." Rodriguez was well-known in the cult-his childhood had been recounted in a parenting manual spread among the members. But the cult landed in the headlines again in 2005 after their son, Ricky Rodriguez, killed himself and another former member of the group. His wife, Karen Zerby, inherited leadership. Dupuy, like other ex-members of the group, later committed suicide.ĭavid Berg died in 1994, and at the time of his death he was under investigation from both Interpol and the FBI. In 1993, a former member of the group named Ricky Dupuy appeared on Larry King Live, and told the host that he’d been ordered by the group to rape a 10-year-old. "Close friends of mine growing up were abused and raped." "It definitely wasn’t a safe place to grow up, especially if you were a girl," one former member told The Guardian in 2017. Berg himself was accused of sexual abusing young girls, including his daughters and granddaughters. Some in the cult reportedly extended its sexual policies to children, allegedly permitting and even encouraging child sex abuse. Members of the group sit down to a communal meal in 1974 California. This doomsday predication encouraged his followers to live hand-to-mouth rather than making long-term plans ex-members later told The Guardian of begging for alms and subsisting off of donated food. Members of these communities could be isolated, as they didn’t work-people who held real-world jobs were called “ systemites”-or send their children to school.īerg’s church melded worship of Jesus Christ with ’60s-era free love, and preached a fairly standard cult leader prophecy-the apocalypse was coming, and soon. The church believed in group living and zealous proselytizing, and soon grew to include hundreds of communes. This church would evolve into the Children of God, which at one point counted 15,000 members around the world. ![]() In 1968, preacher David Brandt Berg founded a group initially called Teens for Christ, which at first consisted of young runaways and hippies. Joaquin Phoenix on the Joker: You Start to Go Mad.'Wild Wild County' Isn't Just About a Sex Cult. ![]()
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