My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 306 - Present Blitz
Episode Date: December 23, 2021This week, Georgia covers the mysterious death of Blair Adams and Karen tells the story of "Love Has Won" cult leader, Amy Carlson. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and Califo...rnia Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
This is exactly right.
We at Wondery live, breathe, and downright obsess over true crime.
And now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C.
Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C, on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery
and Amazon Music.
Exhibit C, it's truly criminal.
Hello, and welcome to my favorite murder.
That's Georgia Hardstar.
That's Karen Kilgariff.
And this is the Christmas holiday season.
That's right.
Hanukkah has long gone.
That was like, didn't it start in November?
November until December 6th.
It was such a bummer when I was a kid, when this would happen.
Because it was like too close to Thanksgiving?
It was just like over so quickly, and then everyone was still being festive.
Yes.
And then, but it was kind of nice to have nothing to do during the Christmas break.
Oh, that's true.
You know, no parties or anything.
No parties and no.
I mean, do you worry about gift giving the way people do for Christmas?
Some people do.
I don't, no.
I'm not a big holiday gift person.
We don't really do it much as adults.
It's for the kids.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
My mom will give a pair of slippers or something, like a bathrobe or something cozy.
You save it all for Purim.
That's right.
Hard Purim.
A hard Purim.
No, we'll do gift cards or whatever, but we're just not that big on it.
I think for Christmas, we used to be because I think my mom had such a bad childhood that
she always was just like, look, everyone, you have themed gift areas or whatever.
Need to make it big and exciting because I didn't have that and makeup for stuff, which
was fine, but we were so spoiled, you know, it was just kind of like, I didn't get the
bits I want.
There was a lot of that attitude that I'm ashamed about now.
Yeah.
And then after my mom died, it was very perfunctory and we just, for each other, we would just
get what we could get.
Like keep it up, but only kind of for mom.
It all got pointed toward Nora, of course.
Of course.
So then she had themed gift areas, piles that were endless and like, you know.
The only granddaughter or the only niece.
Yes.
When I was a kid, we had a lot of lean years where a dollar a night was kind of the, my
mom would tell us before Hanukkah, I'm sorry, this year's going to be a dollar a night,
which was for cash or you don't spend more than a dollar.
No, cash should give us a dollar a night, which was, so I feel like it was never and
like when it was, you know, it was like a calendar, it was never huge for us and it was
never about that.
It was like, we had a family Hanukkah party that was like the most fun at my grandma's
house with tons of latkes and cantors catering, we've got deli sandwiches, so it was like
so fucking awesome.
And the kids all got presents, but it was never like that.
It was more about the hang as opposed to just one big present from my grandma, but that
was like it.
So yeah, just, I think that's really nice.
Yeah, I appreciate it now as a kid, it was like, you'd go back to school and everyone
would be like, you had Hanukkah for eight nights.
What did you get?
You must have got so much and be like, it's not how it works.
That's the Christian equivalency where it's like, your holiday must be exactly ours, just
like at your house with a different name.
Right.
Yeah.
Right, exactly.
Well.
But I love, and I love Christmas.
So I mean, we celebrate Christmas now and been tonight.
Yeah.
I mean, I just love the whole, I love that it's winter and people are like, we better be nice
to each other.
Yeah.
I love this time of year.
Yeah.
It gets nicer.
But I think actually my favorite holiday has always been Thanksgiving.
Yeah.
A, because of my food issue, but B, because of that exact thing you're saying, where
the size of my family, it would always be like a 30 to 50 person tardy.
Totally.
At some house, outfits, you know, cousins.
Gee, you guys, well, it's so funny because we're filming, we're recording this before
Thanksgiving.
Yes.
We're glad to say that.
So I still don't.
So we'll talk this week in the real episode about Thanksgiving because I want to know
a lot about yours.
Since we're on the subject of presents, I hate to make you uncomfortable, but I have a present
for you.
The Christmas present.
That doesn't make me uncomfortable.
Because it's so weird.
I don't know why someone with that and be like, and you didn't know, so you didn't
get me anything.
Yeah.
Guess what you get?
You cannot prank.
He's yours now.
Great.
I'm bringing Mimi over.
Um, this is actually, this is funny because since they knew we were doing the Christmas
episode, I bought you this like two years ago when we talked about this on the podcast.
That's how long I've had this for and like meant to frame it.
But like, can't find.
I'm lazy.
Okay.
Here.
I got it right.
Okay.
It's an envelope, everyone.
But you have to get you something.
All right.
Give me a Thanksgiving present.
Oh, give me a Hanukkah present.
It hasn't happened yet.
Oh, right.
This is like, this is backwards world.
I have to get you eight presents.
Here's a card Georgia with this very beautiful Dear Karen, congratulations on Jesus being
born.
I bet he was a rad baby.
He was.
Everybody gathered around him in a manger.
So someday I'll frame this for you.
Oh my God.
How rad is that?
Okay, I went on Etsy and I Googled or I Etsy searched, Ty, Condorosa, Roga, vintage and
found a little postcard that has little fifties or forties or maybe 30 school children.
And it says Ty, Condoroga, America's favorite pencil and like one of the kids is checking
the other kid out.
Like that's kind of creepy.
Yes.
He clearly loves the girl sitting behind the boy who's trying to take the pencil from
him.
And the boy standing is passing out Dixon, Dixon, Ty, Condoroga pencils.
We'll post it.
We'll post it.
Amazing.
Isn't that great?
I'm going to frame this.
Yeah.
Like I was just been looking for like an old vintage like metal frame and I can't remember
anything.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Literally I've had that on my dresser for two fucking years and every time I see it
I'm like, shit, because it's not near Christmas.
Oh, shit.
Frank, I need you to not.
Frank, here.
Frank is trying to crawl inside Georgia.
It's very scary.
She's.
Hey, back, back.
Hey.
He's so thick.
Do you see?
That's his.
That's his.
Like you can't move me.
Protest.
He's not moveable.
He's all muscle.
And if you.
Oh my God.
He's like leaning into me.
Hold on.
Hey.
Yeah.
There he goes.
Good boy.
That's it.
Good boy.
Yeah.
I really love that.
I really love it.
That's why I love presents for is like randomly.
Oh my God.
She said she liked this thing.
I'm going to look for it and give it whenever.
Yes.
That's what that is.
Also, because it is out of order, don't tell any of these secret secrets, but it is kind
of like you just kicked off my holiday season.
Oh yeah.
I love it.
Thank you.
First present of the season.
What if we do, I'll call it, we'll call it present assault and we just keep popping up
with crazy presents assault when you don't, don't realize it and it surprises you and
then you're like, wait, was I supposed to have one and it's all kind of like, or maybe
a better way to say it is like present blitz.
Have an uncomfortable present blitz.
But I'm very comfortable being given presents.
Very comfortable.
Okay.
Good.
Good.
Good.
Good.
Thank you so much.
Yes.
Well, we hope that you guys listening are having a either passable or a wonderful or anything
in between kind of holiday.
We know this time of year's can suck a lot.
So we're happy that you're with us and with all your podcast friends because what's better
than a podcast when you're like feeling low?
Yeah.
Or having to spend time with family when everyone knows family of origin is complicated.
At best.
So hopefully you're spending it with someone you love or at least tolerate or at least
there's a good dog or cat there you can walk out of the room and hang out with.
And if you don't have one again, Frank is completely available for rentals around the
nation.
I'll ship him anywhere.
The box of three holes punched him.
Franky, you're a beautiful man.
Okay.
If you want to talk about some ERM highlights.
Sure.
Let's do that.
Do it.
Oh, very exciting.
Kate Winkler Dawson, our superstar podcast host is coming back with a season four of
tenfold more wicked in January.
So if you haven't listened, you can binge seasons one through three during these holiday
weeks during your downtime or your travels or whatever, get all cut up, and then you're
ready for the brand new season.
That's a great bingeable podcast.
So good.
So good.
She's such a talented, she's an author.
It's so, it's historical, it's beautifully researched, it's beautifully executed.
Yeah.
She's the greatest.
It's a good anecdote to this podcast.
Yeah.
And then incredible, hilarious hit podcast, that's messed up.
They cover the SVU Christmas episode, Presumed Guilty, and a really extremely talented actor,
Dennis O'Hare.
Dennis O'Hare.
Yeah.
One of my faves.
And he is the guy, I hope I'm not wrong about this, but he's the guy from Michael Clayton
in the very beginning of the movie where he hit somebody like, and he's called in Michael
Clayton to come to his house because they want, he basically wants Michael Clayton to
get him out of a hit and run.
Oh, shit.
And it's the most brilliant, amazing scene with him, George Clooney, and then the woman
who plays Dennis O'Hare's wife, who I wish I knew offhand, because you know her too.
Amazing.
Want me to look it up?
Yeah, you probably should.
She has big...
I don't think I've seen it.
Michael Clayton?
I know.
No, you have to watch that movie.
I'm sorry, but it is, it's one of those movies, when it came out, we got to go like for free.
Till the Swinton.
No, no, no.
This one plays, Till the Swinton's name's Karen and Michael Clayton, and therefore causing
George Clooney to say the name Karen hundreds of times.
Is it Mrs. Clayton?
What's her name?
Julie White.
She's at the very beginning.
Yes, I think it is.
Julie White, Dennis O'Hare, George Clooney.
This is an all-star cast, Sidney Pollock.
Come on.
No, no, no.
It's such a perfectly made movie, I've talked about it many times.
I've never seen it.
If you've never seen it, it's such a like sleeper, but we went because we got in free
because of the WGA, and it was nominated, and my friend Lauren Pomerance and I went,
so this was, I mean, this was like mid to, yes, 2007.
I just saw it.
I'm not good at this.
I'm not, I just saw it on Google.
I was like, yes, you're right.
We sat there and we were just like, oh, let's go to a free movie, and at the end, we just
looked at each other like, was that the best movie we've ever seen?
The Christmas movie?
Sure.
Yes.
What's the best Christmas movie, Die Hard?
I mean, for our family, we put it on the channel that plays a Christmas story for 24 hours.
They beat their kids.
Oh yeah.
What's the fucking 30s and 40s?
All of life was problematic back then, like people weren't doing it right, and yeah.
But the in-between parts of a kid, the story of a kid, basically living a real kid's life,
that's very sweet.
That's going to be a hot take, and you can send hate mail to myfavoritmurder at georgia.com.
Yeah.
They also go out to Chinese dinner after when the turkey gets fucked up, and there's a kind
of very racist moment.
There we go.
Yeah, it's just, it's so hard, things from the past where it's like clearly no one was
being represented correctly.
Right.
But, yeah.
And, well.
Thank God it's fixed now.
Anyways, let's get on the Christmas.
Your argument worked, it's no longer my favorite Christmas.
We're supposed to be positive.
Speaking of positivity, oh, well here's a positive fucking podcast if I've ever seen
one.
Yes.
Oh.
I said no gifts.
Oh, right.
So fun.
Bridger's Holiday episode is out today, and people are competing in either Gift or Cursed
or Gift Master, so there's a bunch of different guests assembled, George and I are on it.
It's very funny.
So funny.
There's no rhyme or reason.
It's just like Bridger being in charge of everyone, which I think is like, he's a great,
he's great in that role.
He's so good at it.
It's like, he's the coldest piano teacher you've ever experienced, and it's a delight.
Yeah, if you need to cheer up, that's a great podcast.
Yeah, it is.
You know?
And then just make sure, for Christmas, as a Christmas present, you follow exactly right
on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook for updates on all our shows.
And please rate, review, and subscribe to all the podcasts you love out there.
Yes.
It's like the little thing you can do for your free podcast.
Yeah.
That's right.
Make a difference.
That's right.
Just like us.
Hey.
That we've been doing it all month long, and we're very excited.
This was George's idea from the beginning of let's do a weekly donation, because there's
a lot of people in need out there, obviously, especially at times like this.
And so we're just basically giving suggestions for our favorite charities and places that
we really like, and trying to help encourage people to give a little if they can, obviously.
And so we're giving 10 grand to all these charities in the name of Murderinos.
So you guys, good job.
And this week, we're giving to one of my favorite charities, and it's Homeboy Industries, who,
for the last 30 years, have been the largest gang rehabilitation and reentry program in
the world.
It's run by Father Greg Boyle.
I've talked about his books and how much his books mean to me and how beautiful they are.
You should definitely read them if you haven't.
It's an industry that they've set up, and it's totally based on empathy and love and
supporting people who maybe have never had it in their life, and they've changed so many
lives.
So we're very grateful, Father Greg and everybody at Homeboy Industries has been doing the work
they've been doing to the point where now they have a bunch of other groups.
They have Homegirl Cafe, they have, you know, they have a bakery that like is at LAX now.
Yeah.
Homegirl Cafe is a safe space for females who receive on-the-job training.
It empowers individuals to undertake what is often their first real job and their first
real opportunity, like you were saying, and their first time someone believes in them.
So it's incredible.
And we're so happy to be able to donate to them.
Yes.
Cool.
Well, that was short and sweet.
Yeah.
And I go first this week.
Do it.
For Christmas.
Yeah.
Looking for a better cooking routine?
With meal planning, shopping, and prepping handled, Hello Fresh has you covered.
Hello Fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in
the new year.
Hello Fresh meals are convenient, seasonal, and delicious.
Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly.
While I stop with just dinner, now you can enjoy Hello Fresh's expanded menu of quick
lunch solutions, weekend brunch, simple side dishes, and amazing desserts.
I think it's going to be my month for Hello Fresh.
I am so sick of takeout.
I miss cooking so much I haven't lifted a knife or a pan since early fall.
So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and Hello Fresh makes it so easy and also
makes it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own.
It gives you everything, everything you need.
So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at HelloFresh.ca
slash murder20 with code murder20.
That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to HelloFresh.ca
slash murder20 and use code murder20.
Goodbye.
Hey, I'm Mike Corey, the host of Wunderies podcast against the odds.
In our next season, three masked men hijack a school bus full of children in the sleepy
farm town of Chautchilla, California.
They bury the children and their bus driver deep underground, planning to hold them for
ransom.
Local police and the FBI marshal a search effort, but the trail quickly runs dry.
As the air supply for the trapped children dwindles, a pair of unlikely heroes emerges.
Follow against the odds wherever you get your podcast.
You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wundery app.
All right.
This has nothing to do with the holidays.
Great.
It's just a mystery.
Okay.
My gift to you.
I love it.
I love a mystery story.
Right.
This is the mysterious death of Blair Adams, which you may have seen on the old school
unsolved mysteries season nine, episode 17.
Okay.
I also got stuff from a medium, an article by Jennifer Baldwin, unsolved.com, unsolvedmysteries.fandom.com,
noxnews.com, article by Travis Dorman, and a couple of different Reddit threads and comments
and stuff.
So, oh, I'm fucking Wikipedia, obviously.
Always.
Please donate to Wikipedia if you can.
Even $5.
Yeah.
They need it.
Yeah.
So, let's...
So, this is mysterious.
Here we go.
Okay.
In the summer of 1996, Robert Dennis Blair Adams, known as Blair, he was born on December
28th, 1964, in 1996, he's a 31-year-old construction company foreman, foreman, foreman in the Surrey,
British Columbia.
What's up, everyone?
Hey.
He could be played by Mark DuPlas.
Okay.
Like you, you know, normal dude.
Everyone who knows him says he's satisfied with his life, he's good at his job, he's
liked his work, he's a responsible employee, he has a cherry demeanor, just a regular dude
who live in his life in Surrey.
But by that summer, Blair's personality begins to change pretty drastically out of nowhere.
According to Unsolved Mysteries, his personality began to fluctuate anywhere from, quote, agitated
paranoia to pensive withdrawal.
So he had had a drinking problem in the past, but he was two years sober and he was proud
of it, which made it odd that he stopped going to AA meetings out of nowhere and didn't
explain to his friends or family why.
But there were no indications that he had started drinking again.
Okay.
According to his mom on the Unsolved Mysteries episode, her name's Sandra Edwards, he began
having wild mood swings.
She said, quote, something was obviously very much the matter.
He hadn't been sleeping well.
I asked him numerous times what was wrong and he said, I don't think I should tell you
about it.
And then she says, and to this day, I don't know what it is.
I know.
At one point, he also tells his mom that people were spreading rumors about him, but he didn't
elaborate and there was no proof of that.
He also told his friends that he was afraid someone was going to kill him.
Oh no.
Uh-huh.
But his friends didn't know why he suspected that he didn't elaborate on it.
So his strange behaviors take a turn on Friday, July 5th, 1996.
That day, he withdraws his entire savings and empties his safe deposit box of more than
$6,000 in cash, as well as thousands more in jewelry, gold, and platinum.
This empties everything.
That Sunday, he tries to enter the United States via a ferry in his Chevy Chevette.
The ferry leaving from Victoria, British Columbia, would have taken him to Seattle, Washington,
but he was stopped from getting on the ferry because he fits the profile of a drug trafficker.
He's unmarried, a young man carrying a large amount of cash.
And so they were suspicious of him at the border crossing.
He didn't have any drugs on him, but then, okay, so this, there's so many things that
there's like little pieces here and there of information on different articles.
So I can't confirm everything, but in one article, only one, it said that the border
police became more suspicious because he then lied about having no criminal history despite
having convictions on drug and assault charges.
But in other articles, it said he had a clean record, so I don't know how true that is.
So he was turned away from the border and refused entry into the US.
So after this, he told his friends that he didn't want to go back to his own apartment
that day.
He was afraid someone was after him.
So he stayed with his mom that night.
He left her home on Monday, July 8th, 1996.
And this would be the last time that Blair's mother would see him alive.
That day, Blair showed up at his job and told his boss that he quit, gave no explanation,
got his last paycheck and left.
That afternoon, he spent $1,600 on a round trip airplane ticket to Frankfurt, Germany,
which was leaving the next day.
So he had worked in Frankfurt in the past.
He had an old girlfriend in the country, but she had no idea he was planning on coming
there and she had not been expecting him at all.
So it wasn't like he had planned to see her or anything.
Later that same day, he cancels his trip to Germany.
He's refunded his money.
So at some point, this behavior seems erratic, but to a lot of people, it also seems like
he's trying to throw someone off his trail.
Oh.
Doesn't it?
Yeah.
Like maybe he is being followed.
It's that thing of like, before you call someone crazy for thinking they're being tracked
by the CIA and make sure they're not being tracked by the CIA.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
Have you heard that?
No.
Is that an old saying?
Yeah, the whole take of like, before you think someone's paranoid or being followed,
make sure they're not being followed because maybe they're not being paranoid, maybe someone's
fucking following that.
I mean, and the idea, here's what I think is especially fascinating because I feel
like I have, I watched this episode, but it always blows my mind.
Like it makes me, it gives credence to something actually going on because he didn't tell anybody
details.
Right.
So it's not like he's saying, these are the people that are following me.
This is the specific, this is this, which, you know, this is completely my opinion, obviously,
but it's like, you know, when people maybe are having like a paranoid experience, there's
a bunch of theories, there's specific details, yes, about exactly who wants, what, this guy
isn't saying a word, he's just saying the thing he's afraid of and not giving details
at all.
Do you think it almost seems like he's trying to, like, if he told them who was following
him, they would be in danger too?
I mean, maybe, or just, but it just, to me, it maybe indicates a level of control that
he still has.
Yeah.
As opposed to when you want to say, quote unquote, this person's gone crazy or something.
This is happening, there's happening, specific, specifics.
Yeah.
And it doesn't make any fucking sense, but he's not telling them specifics, then does
make sense.
He's keeping something a secret.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Yeah.
All right.
That makes total sense.
So that night, in the middle of the night, Blair shows up to a friend's house in a panic
telling her that someone's trying to kill him and he needs her to take him to the border
to help him cross into the US.
His friend can't take him because she has young kids sleeping at home.
So she's, you know, and they're all a little like weary of like what's going on with him.
So he leaves and then that next morning on Tuesday, Blair leaves his Chevy Chevette at
the Vancouver International Airport.
He rents a Nissan Ultima so he gets a different car so he's not suspicious.
Goes back to the US-Canada border ferry and this time he manages to get through.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
So he gets to Seattle where he buys a one-way ticket to Washington, DC, which is strange
on its own because when investigators later look into it, he paid around $770 for a one-way
ticket when he could have purchased a round-trip ticket for like $350 to $400.
So it wasn't coming back.
Yeah.
But it also looks like throwing someone off of his trail kind of thing, right?
Yeah.
Sure.
So he arrives in DC early Wednesday morning.
He then rents a white Toyota, then takes off and he heads to Knoxville, which is more
than a 500-mile drive southwest.
Okay.
So just going lots of weird different places for no reason.
Trying to escape, yeah.
Yeah.
Doesn't know anyone in Knoxville, just heads that as far as we know.
So about 5.30 p.m., he ends up at a gas station in Knoxville and his behavior appears to have
become even more erratic as he's described by witnesses.
He's described as distressed as well.
He asked the gas station attendant for help because his rental car won't start.
So the attendant asked for his keys and he tries to use them on the Toyota and he realizes
the key that Blair had given him was for the Nissan.
Oh.
It was the wrong key.
Okay.
But like wouldn't he have given those rental car keys back?
Maybe who knows if you forget to, but he was like, this is the key I've been using.
And that gas station attendant's like, these don't work.
Like this is a different car.
They don't go to that car.
Yeah.
I've heard a couple different things.
One that he looked through his stuff and couldn't find the key, which is like, how did
he get there?
Another one is that, yeah, he wouldn't go through his things.
He was being really paranoid and suspicious about it.
So like, why didn't he want to go through his pockets?
But I don't know which one's correct.
Yeah.
So the rental car company was closed for the day, so he couldn't get a new set of keys.
So Blair got a ride to a nearby hotel via the tow truck driver who towed his rental car,
who seemed really concerned about him as well.
He left his overnight bag behind and so the tow truck driver brought it back to him at
the hotel.
Sorry, I don't understand how he got there without the right keys.
I don't know either.
That's so weird.
It's so weird.
But were they in his pocket and he wouldn't go through them?
He was being really adamant that he wouldn't go through his pockets, according to one story.
Oh, that's, and also if he is really distressed and really, you know, stressing out, he could
have just put them in a weird place, gotten himself there and then put them in a weird
place.
And you know that thing where if you have something in your hand and you realize you lost
something else and you start looking for it, you end up losing the thing in your hand
because you put it down somewhere.
Like I do it constantly.
I'm trying to leave the house.
I can't find my phone.
I have my keys in my hand.
I go looking for the phone.
Once I find the phone, I realize I don't know where the keys are.
I do that where I go.
I don't know where my phone is.
It's in my hand.
If I'm holding more than two things, I don't know where my one of the things are.
Yes.
Or like my glasses are on my head.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
So anyway, it's like if he has this stress, some kind of real threat that he's really
stressed out about.
Or perceived.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That losing your keys is the easiest thing in the world to do, but that's just such
a weird detail.
It is very odd.
But it'll come back.
Okay.
So the woman working at the front desk at the hotel, her name is Tika Hartzfield.
She remembers Blair vividly and she's interviewed on Unsolved Mysteries.
She says, quote, the best way to describe him would be paranoid.
He just was very nervous, agitated, expecting someone to come in on him, even though there
wasn't anybody there, like checking the front door a lot.
The hotel's security camera, and you can see the video on Unsolved Mysteries, shows that
in a space of an hour, Blair went in and out of the lobby five times before finally paying
for a room.
He gives her a $100 bill, doesn't wait for the change.
And after checking in, he pockets the key to his room, but instead of going to his room,
the surveillance camera shows that he walks out of the front door at 7.37 p.m. and never
comes back.
And that's the last confirmed sighting of him.
Whoa.
12 hours later, on the morning of July 11th, 1996, about half a mile from the hotel, Blair's
lifeless body is found in a parking lot by two construction workers.
Oh no.
I know.
This is so bizarre.
He's naked from the waist down.
His pants having been removed in a way that suggested to investigators someone else had
taken them off because they were inside out.
And same with his socks, which were strewn alongside him, along with his pants, shoes
are off, obviously, and his shirt is ripped.
Initially, police were like, this must be a robbery, but scattered around Blair's body
was $4,000 in American, Canadian, and German currency.
Oh no.
And his fanny pack is nearby, and in it was another $2,000 worth of that golden jewelry.
So nothing had been stolen.
So yeah, that did not happen.
It was not a robbery.
Right.
It just, it removes a theory that would make sense completely and takes out another equation
making this seem even more nonsensical.
His duffel bags nearby, which held maps and receipts.
The hotel key card to the room he had checked into at the Fairfield Inn, as well as his
missing Toyota car key is lying next to his body.
So the key is back.
Yeah.
Detectives also recovered his driver's license, passport, and credit card.
They said, quote, they were strewn about 100 yards from his body like they had been thrown
from a vehicle as it was moving.
Whoa.
So according to the autopsy report, Blair had been killed at approximately 3 AM, and
his cause of death was ultimately a blow to his stomach that caused it to rupture, which
caused septic shock.
What?
Yeah.
So he, it wasn't self-inflicted or he was murdered.
Whoa.
But in addition, he had sustained many cuts and abrasions and his body also showed signs
of a road rash as though he may have been dragged or hit by a car.
It also seemed as though he put up a fight with his attacker defending himself.
He had defensive wounds on his hands and a weapon, possibly a club or a crowbar had sliced
up in his forehead, though no weapon was ever identified at the scene.
So that's just so mysterious.
Like you think you could put it together that maybe it was self-inflicted if the weapon
was there, but it's fucking not, right?
The autopsy showed that he had been possibly been a victim of sexual assault, but it differs
from article to article.
The medical examiner couldn't say for sure if the assault took place before or during
the timeframe of the murder.
The toxicology report shows there's no evidence of drugs or alcohol in his system showing
that he indeed remained sober before his death.
So they believe, authorities believe that Blair had eaten somewhere after he left his
hotel, but remember he had no car.
So it couldn't have been that far if he was on his own.
His autopsy showed lettuce, meat and shrimp still in his stomach when he died, but there's
no indication that authorities were able to place Blair at like a specific restaurant
before his death.
The only person who reported hearing anything out of the ordinary in the area the night
that Blair was killed was a security guard who was working at a nearby business.
He tells detectives that he heard an abrupt scream around 3.30 a.m. and believed it to
possibly be a woman's voice.
So on the night before his death, Blair was seen with an unidentified man at several
restaurants in Knoxville.
A composite sketch was made of that man, but it's not known if he had anything to do with
the murder.
And there was only one piece of evidence found that may be useful in the investigation, which
was a long strand of hair found in the hand of Blair Adams.
The hair does contain useful DNA, but it doesn't match to anyone as of who knows when.
I mean, it's so long ago.
Although Blair had been telling people his life was in danger just before his mysterious
death, authorities ultimately believed his threat to be imaginary and that Blair's strange
journey was just due to his own delusions, despite never having been diagnosed with any
mental illness.
Either way, Blair Adams ended up inexplicably thousands of miles from his home in a town
where he knew no one murdered just as he had feared.
And that is the mysterious death of Blair Adams.
Oh my God.
He fucking ended up dead.
He was scared for his life.
People speculate like mob hit or, you know, all these things.
Don't make me talk about that, Barry.
You love the mob.
But like none of it explains why they left the money behind or like maybe he started
a fight with someone in his messed up state and that person just responded to him.
And it's just a fucking coincidence, but it's just you can't, you don't know, and like
a long blonde hair.
Where did that come from?
Yeah.
And in that way where if it was a state of delusion, then again, it would be, I think,
much more erratic.
Like it's not like he's, although he seemed paranoid, say to the woman that worked at
the motel, he also, it wasn't like he was doing a bunch of things and he was just scared
someone was after him, right?
So he's not like threatening her.
Right.
He's not like, I don't know.
It's not at a character like the things he's doing and the things he's saying.
If you're giving him the benefit of the doubt, someone is actually after him, right?
Then he's responding as a normal person who knows that someone's after him.
That's a good point.
I mean, to me, that's, I mean, and also it is really unbelievable and amazing that
all of that money, passports, I mean, like there's some of that stuff you could take
that's incredibly valuable, like, or even just like they wouldn't have known he had
his passport on him.
Exactly.
Something.
Like German marks on him.
Yeah.
Like they could, you know, it's a thing of like, well, maybe they knew the money was
traceable or the jewelry was traceable, but it's like, but they didn't know what money
he had on him.
And it wouldn't, would it have been traceable in Knoxville when he's from fucking British
Columbia?
Right.
Right.
Wow.
That's unbelievable.
Isn't that odd?
It's so creepy and sad.
And also it's like, what, what piece are we missing about his life where it's like, did
you just strangely happen upon?
Yeah.
Like, did you ever see the amazing, hilarious movie foul play with Goldie Hawn and Chevy
Chase?
It's from the late seven.
Yes.
We saw that recently.
It's really funny and crazy, but this is it where she, her friends tell her she's too,
you know, like too careful.
She's got her heart broken or whatever.
So she decides to pick up a hitchhiker and this hitchhiker has a pack of cigarettes that
has film in it and he leaves the pack of cigarettes in her car and then he gets out of the car
and is immediately killed and then suddenly people are chasing her and she doesn't know
why.
Right.
And not to, not to treat this like it's a comedy in any way, but it just makes me think
of suddenly she doesn't know what's going on and she's just, she didn't even know she
had this film.
Right.
She's just like, suddenly people are after me and she looks like she's paranoid and
deluded.
Totally.
Totally.
And Chevy Chase is like, I understand.
I believe you.
Or maybe he was dating a woman whose ex-husband was in the mob or like something that like
just...
Yeah.
Right.
But as we've talked about, the mob would take care of that business.
Yes.
Locally.
Yeah.
They wouldn't chase them all over the place.
Right.
Right.
I mean like...
Right.
You would think they would be get it done one and done and...
Or maybe it's a coincidence.
Maybe he did get in a fight with someone at a, wherever, maybe he was hitchhiking, got
in it because he didn't have a car, got in a fight and that happened and...
The person hit him in the head, realized it was a fatal bloat or like it was a, you know,
a really bad injury that tries to drive away and ends up hitting him.
I mean...
Who the fuck knows?
I mean, yeah, anything's possible.
That is, that is crazy.
Wow.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, great job.
Thank you.
I know.
That was fascinating.
I also have a very bizarre story.
Ooh.
So, this is something that cropped up and I remember it from basically kind of mid-quarantine
before any kind of vaccination had been developed, when we were all still washing our hands
for 30 seconds while singing the theme to Mr. Rogers Neighborhood or whatever, like just
past the point where we were wiping down cereal boxes, but still stuck in our houses and very
unsure as to what was going on.
So, this was the kind of story that when it popped up, it was like, ew, what's that
about?
And it just kind of like hit my radar, essentially.
Okay.
So, this is the story of the death of Amy Carlson and the love has won cult.
So, there's an amazing article by Virginia Pelley, I hope I'm pronouncing that right,
Virginia, in the magazine Marie Claire, called Love Has Lost, got a lot of information about
that because it was very comprehensive.
Cool.
Also, there's an article in The Washington Post by Marisa Ayti.
There's an episode of Dr. Phil that actually has the whole family of Amy Carlson on it,
a vice documentary called False Gods, Cult Leader, Abuser or Goddess, Meet Mother God,
a BBC news article by Joshua Nevitt, a Denver Post article by Noel Phillips.
There's obviously a Wikipedia article, a People Magazine article by Jeff Truesdale,
and a Honolulu Star Advisor article by the Star Advisor staff.
For a second, I thought it was a woman named Star Advisor, it's just like a way to go.
And it's funny because this is such a recent story that there's been.
So far, it doesn't ring bells.
Okay.
So, in September of 2020, so about six months into quarantine, there's a news story out
of Kauai, one of my favorite Hawaiian islands, beautiful, that popped up about a group of
roughly 11 people calling themselves Love Has Won, who tried to relocate to the island
from Colorado in August of 2020.
So aside from breaking the state's quarantine protocols, the group, who many believe to
be a cult, had been co-opting native religious practices and generally pissing everyone off
in the island, because many of us know who like to go to Hawaii and like to visit there.
It's like going to a very small town and, you know, it's, white people are very invasive
over there.
They're tourists and they're oftentimes can be very disrespectful.
So engracing yourself into the culture over there is a very important part of visiting
those islands, because it's about respecting the, the reason you love it there so much
is because of the Hawaiian people and the native culture.
And so a big group of people coming over there and basically ripping them off and, you know,
disrespecting.
Basically, yeah, just being kind of a bunch of assholes, it of course didn't sit well.
People were immediate.
And also they had, they already knew, because this was the second cult that had come to
Kauai during the quarantine.
So this was actually a kind of a problem for the people there, the locals.
Especially like the fact that they're disrespecting them and possibly bringing COVID over.
It's like, yes, it's unsafe, it's really shitty, it's disrespectful, and it's like,
go fuck yourself.
So there was vandalism, there was several small fires, it was just a huge problem almost
from the get-go.
And so for the safety of the residents of Kauai, the police end up escorting this group
of people back to the airport on September 4th, and they end up flying back home to Colorado.
So at the time, this story was just kind of a blip in an already very overwhelming news
cycle until about seven months later on the night of Wednesday, April 28th, 2021, when
43-year-old Miguel Lamboy arrives at the Salida police station near the tiny 100-person
mountain town of Moffitt, Colorado, in Sawatch County.
So basically, Lamboy is there to report that a group of people have brought a dead body
into his home.
He explains it's the corpse of Amy Carlson, the leader of a local religious group, Love
Has Won, and they got there the day before and they needed a place to stay.
Lamboy is also a member of this religious group, quote unquote.
And he didn't realize they had this body until the next day.
And so there's seven people, I believe, in the group.
And so when he does realize this dead body is in his house, he takes his two-year-old
son and he goes to leave, and they say, you can leave, but the boy has to stay here.
And that's when he decided it's time to go to the police.
So the local police are well aware of this group.
Many locals have claimed it's a cult and the Sawatch County Sheriff's Department was quoted
as saying, quote, they've received many complaints from families saying that the group is brainwashing
people and stealing their money and that from all over the country, not just in the area.
So according to Miguel Lamboy, this group drove from California to Colorado with Carlson's
dead body in the back of their SUV.
Holy shit.
And then they landed at his house because they needed a place to stay.
So the police are granted a search warrant for Lamboy's house, which they execute at
around 1150 that night.
And they find this group of seven people as well as the dead body as Lamboy had described
to them.
But the body is an even more disturbing state than they had imagined.
In the back bedroom, police discover what appears to be a mummified corpse with gray
skin wrapped in a sleeping bag lying on a bed.
Her teeth are showing through her lips, her eyes are missing, and her eye sockets are
painted with glittery makeup.
Oh my God.
The whole body is wrapped in Christmas lights and a shrine has been, she's basically surrounded
by a shrine of trinkets and different lights.
How do seven people like agree that this is like seven people?
That's so many.
I mean, that's what cults do, but yeah, I mean, it's the, this is, this is a long, this
has been a long process to getting to this point, basically.
So all seven adults are arrested and charged with abuse of a corpse.
And because one woman who's in this group, her name's Karen Raymond, her 13 year old
daughter is with the group and Lamboy's two year old son are in the house.
The group is also charged with two counts of child abuse.
Even though both children were found asleep and safe, it's just child abuse that they
would even be in that scenario.
So Raymond's daughter is taken into social services custody after the mom's arrest.
Lamboy's two year old son has returned to him after the search of the house is finished.
So when the coroner inspects the body, it's so decomposed that fingerprints can't be taken.
And it leads him to believe that Amy Carlson must have been dead for at least a month,
if not longer.
Yeah.
Oh, chills.
In fact, the body's so decomposed, it takes him three months to confirm that this is indeed
the body of 45 year old Amy Carlson.
So over the weekend, following the raid, other members of the love has one group post a video
on their Facebook page about their leader's death, saying that she has ascended to the
fifth dimension.
So this video is later deleted, but Carlson's devoted followers still hold this belief.
And in fact, the idea of Amy's ascension had become the main tenant of the group.
Amy was called Mother God in this group.
And she claimed to already have been reincarnated 500 times.
Whoa.
Yeah.
That sounds exhausting.
And more so when you realize that she has already been Jesus, Joan of Arc, and Marilyn
Monroe.
Right?
It's the old joke, no one ever is reincarnated as just the person down the street.
It's always Joan of Arc.
And on her next ascension, she was telling believers in these video streams that she
was making that the, that starships were going to come and take her away and that when she
ascended, her followers would finally learn this truth that a powerful quote unquote cabal
had been keeping from the people of earth in every incarnation that she had.
So right when she was about to, right when the people of earth are about to learn like
the ultimate truth, the cabal comes in, kills her and keeps the truth from coming out.
That's basically her theory.
What a bummer.
Right?
It's really unfortunate and kind of, kind of tidy, you know, it's all just this one,
this is the reason we're all suffering is just this one cabal of like rich people.
It's the same as you always hear.
It's like the cabal is super rich people, Hollywood people and, you know, and then just
like villains from around the world.
Any non-believers that don't follow Mother God will be sent to live on the quote central
galactic sun or be turned into rocks.
So there's a former member named Ash McCoy who said that the shrine that the police found
around the body wasn't new.
They didn't put that there when the body got there.
It had actually been made long before Amy Carlson's death with the idea that when she
did finally ascend in this lifetime, her followers would want a place where they could come and
commemorate her life and basically treat it like a museum exhibit.
So they had been preparing for her quote unquote ascension for years.
The members of the Love is One cult are convinced their leader, Mother God will go down in history
as the greatest being who has ever lived.
Which is just, if you think about it, all of this is just a perfect 2021 vibe.
Just like super intense, super apocalyptic.
Everything is like, everything is conspiracy, it's simplistic and it's kind of like do what
I say or the cabal will get you.
It's because we're living in an unprecedented time so anything is possible and people just
want to believe something.
Yeah, people are disenfranchised, they're scared, they're alone, a lot of people are
sick or feel like they're not healthy and they're looking for answers online.
So as many web MDs and websites that are standardly reliable, there are just as many websites that
start out as kind of new age, quote unquote, holistic medicine alternative practices and
that's how this started.
Okay.
Okay, so we'll talk about Amy Carlson's early life.
She's born on November 30th, 1975 and grows up in Dallas, Texas with her two sisters
Chelsea and Tara, their parents divorced when Amy's young.
She lives with her dad at first, but then she goes back to live with her mom and her
new stepdad.
She's a popular straight A student with a beautiful singing voice and her sisters say
she was always really sweet and kind.
But as she gets older, she starts dating a lot of controlling or abusive men.
By the time she's in her early 20s, she's basically on her third marriage and she has
a child with each husband.
So she has a daughter and two sons, but then after her third marriage, she basically starts
to settle down.
She gets a manager job at the local McDonald's and her family and friends, people on the
outside believe that she's happy.
But shortly after her third child is born, there's a noticeable change in her personality.
She begins to grow distant.
Her mom, Linda, admits all that Amy has never really been maternal, but now she's basically
become a neglectful mother.
And she disengages from her children's lives and she's spending all her time online looking
at bizarre, new-agey kind of websites.
And this is when basically her world of view begins to change.
Then Amy starts meeting up with the people that are also on these websites, meeting them
in real life, and soon she's constantly talking about these things, like about ascension, about
alternative medicine, about starships, all kinds of kind of nonsensical, new-age philosophy.
And then when Amy's in her early 30s, she decides to leave her husband and her children
who are aged two, seven, and 12, it's heartbreaking.
She moves out of state with an unidentified man that she had met online.
It reminds me so much so far of Heaven's Gate.
Yes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Of the idea of people that have always kind of been unhappy in some way that stumble upon
a group that has all the answers all the way.
Yeah.
So she moves out of state.
Her family tries to contact her.
She doesn't ever respond.
She basically cuts herself off from her family completely.
They're convinced Amy's new boyfriend has tricked her into joining a cult, but when she
finally reemerges and they see her again years later, she's the one that's leaving the cult.
Twist.
Yeah.
So the man Amy ran off with called himself Father God and convinces Amy that she's Mother
God and he brings her to Crestone, Colorado, which is a remote area 200 miles south of
Denver that is considered sacred by the native people.
And because of that, it's attracted, it's almost like a Sedona type of town in Colorado.
It's attracted spiritual seekers for decades.
The town itself only has about 1800 people, but it has over or around 24 spiritual centers
with a full range of there's like, there's Buddhist, there's Catholic, there's, I mean,
it's everything.
Yeah.
So after a couple years, Father and Mother God split up, but Amy keeps the title Mother
God and they can't make it work.
Yeah.
Who can?
I mean, that's a real sign.
Yeah.
Relationships are so hard, the gods can't even get it right.
So she of course keeps on basically pursuing these interests and then she starts releasing
YouTube videos and Facebook live streams and she is claims to be the leader of a group
called the Galactic Federation of Light.
So it's not in any way associated with Star Trek.
She preaches about her plan to save humanity.
And in these videos at first, she's just the voiceover and it's just kind of like images,
but then after a while, she's front and center, she's the leader, and she's got followers
in the videos who were talking about Amy as if she is God.
Wow.
So we've gone from this kind of like, oh, an alternative to Western medicine to I am
God, which is pretty, that's a pretty steep incline.
And then in 2018 is when they changed the name of the group to love has won.
So Amy's followers believe that she's God in human form and being with an elevated consciousness
that's been continually reincarnating for the last 19 billion years so that she can complete
her mission, which is to save humanity by leading a chosen 144,000 people into the mystical
fifth dimension.
They claim that she's currently on her 534th incarnation.
And she also claims very strangely after Robin Williams dies in 2014 that she has a direct
spiritual connection with him.
We've been alone.
For real.
She broadcasts herself channeling on these live streams.
She claims that Donald Trump was her father in another lifetime.
Oh, I wouldn't brag about that.
But to the people who are starting to get into this kind of like this conspiracy, it's
a conspiracy community.
So she's kind of using the buzzwords that attract people who are online in the first
place because they're kind of like starting to be believers in these things.
And they're also, I've said this before, but it's my personal theory.
These are people that didn't grow up with computers.
They don't understand that websites can be made by anyone.
And they can say anything.
I mean, talk to Janet.
It's just how it is for people that it's like they're looking at their people who grew up
with one newspaper and that newspaper was just telling you the truth.
There was no reason to question it.
So now we're in the world of the digital age of anyone can make any website and suddenly
everything is this kind of believable.
And it's also about numbers.
The more people believe it, the more believable it is.
I definitely screamed at my mom the other day.
What was the source?
What was the source?
We have some fucking bananas, batshit thing, she said.
And it was WWW.
That's the source.
So a lot of her teachings end up dovetailing with QAnon conspiracy theories.
And basically the entire foundation of love has one draws from new age spirituality, Christianity,
astrology, Scientology, numerology, and basically anything else that appeals to Amy and that
appeals to kind of like quote unquote spiritual seekers.
She claims to have lived in the magical ancient land of Lemuria.
She claims the lost city of Atlantis is real, but sunk from an explosion that took place
after a certain technology was stolen and that her and her followers must fight an everlasting
war against the cabal.
And that's all the same.
That's that kind of same theme that comes up all the time is that it's people declaring
this small group are the pure, they're the noble.
They're the, they're the, they're their heroes of the story.
And that basically whoever they decide, Hollywood, rich people, whoever, you know, believable,
believable theories.
But it's like, but that these people are then whatever they decide and that they're, they're
trying to attack them.
They're trying to kill them.
They're trying to, they're trying to squash the truth and keep the world in darkness essentially.
So there's anywhere from 12 to 20 followers who actually live with Amy, like in a commune
between Colorado, California, Oregon, sometimes Florida, they wind up basically they come
back to that area in Colorado on two pieces of land, one ranch house in Solita and then
this mobile home in Moffitt.
These two places become the home base for the group.
So essentially how it goes is every day at six in the morning, Amy and her followers,
begin about a three hour live stream and in the beginning, the videos are about energy
connecting with spirit, essentially new age stuff that's like lots of people ascribed
to and that isn't in any way destructive.
It's then they start talking a lot about frequencies and about, you know, negative versus positive.
It's that kind of thing.
Then basically the videos devolve into these outlandish concepts about the cabal and, you
know, them being hunted and all of that.
There's two young women in the group that serve as basically hosts at the top of the
show and their group names are Archia Hope and Archia Aurora.
And they're like young, kind of beautiful women who like it's just it's good marketing.
Yeah.
So they're hosting this and talking about the tenets of these beliefs, but they get
into some stuff that's like incredibly fucked up.
They start talking about like basically the pros of Hitler.
I knew it.
I knew.
I just pointed at myself because I was like, you're like, they're anti this and that.
I'm like, say Jews, like, come on.
Well, that's the thing is they they're basically kind of floating the idea of being Holocaust
deniers and then floating the idea of maybe that Hitler's intentions were better than
you know, it's all that shit.
And basically they they preach Amy's God status, her plan to save humanity, and they
start offering these things called spiritual surgeries.
So that's like a virtual healing session with Amy.
It cost eighty eight dollars.
She does spiritual surgery on you and claims that she can cure everything from addiction
to cancer, saying that her words and her hands have strong healing powers.
So this is where they get people who are sick, people who have who have gone to doctor after
doctor like a typical Western medicine and haven't been cured and or been told that they're
it's all in their mind or they've been treated poorly by traditional doctors.
And they're they're on here looking for other stuff.
So in the beginning, that idea, and sometimes it really is just that mental thing of somebody
going, I can spiritually surgically cure you over the internet.
And just the idea that there's a solution and it's eighty eight dollars is very alluring
to people.
Yeah.
Then you then you're coming in with and while we're here, maybe we'll talk about how the
Holocaust isn't real.
I mean, that's it's they're playing upon people who are already like at low points and weak
points of their life.
So as insane as that seems, love has once Facebook group climbs to about 20,000 members
and their YouTube channel gains nearly 10,000 followers.
And their their videos have like 1.5 million views.
Oh, my God.
So people are watching.
We don't know how they're watching or what their what their approach is, but they it's
being seen.
There's lots of fan engagement.
Viewers communicate with each other in the comment sections and Amy and her followers
answer questions or give shout outs to people who are commenting in the live streams.
Plus, of course, this is a crucial element of it.
Money is pouring into the group in the form of donations made out to either love is one
or mother's joy.
So about this topic is that this is a kind of a long quote from the Marie Claire article.
Love has one's vocabulary is similar to that of other new age meets QAnon can spiritualist
spaces says Amanda Montel, author of the book, cultish, the language of fanaticism and the
co host of the podcast sounds like a cult.
Oh, yeah.
I can't wait to listen to it because that is it's I love this topic totally and I and
I think it's really fascinating and incredibly scary that this kind of stuff is happening
more and more.
Yeah.
So good to pay attention to it and and be, you know, aware of the way people can get
got at like their weakest point.
Totally.
Sorry.
Back into this.
No, but do it.
This is Amanda Montel's quote.
It co-ops and bastardizes the technical language of physics and combines it with the lofty
language of spiritual mysticism to imply that those who know it are tapped into a wisdom
higher than science.
Such language can't brainwash people into believing something they have no interest in,
she says.
It simply gives them license to believe what they already want to.
Yeah.
Language works to convert condition and coerce certain followers, coaxing them on board with
more and more extreme versions of whatever idea they were already open to, whether it's
the notion that a certain cult leader has the secrets to eternal salvation or a multi-level
marketing recruiter has the key to making a million dollars in a year.
It's the words.
Did she watch Lulu?
Oh, yeah.
What was it?
Lulu Rich?
Lulu Rich.
The documentary about Lulu Lemon.
About those.
No.
The leggings.
Not Lulu Roe.
Yeah.
About Lulu Roe.
Yeah.
Shit straight.
So throughout the duration of this group, Love Has Won, they see a rotating cast of Father
Gods who partner up with Amy, but the most notable is the most recent, Jason Castillo.
He joins Amy in mid-2018 when the group changes its name to Love Has Won.
It's uncertain how he and Amy have met, but what is certain is his criminal record, his
rap sheet lists charges for drunk driving, breaking and entering, and child neglect.
So after his arrival, things in the commune go from bad to worse.
Others are only allowed to sleep when Mother God sleeps, so they're usually limited to
maybe four or five hours a night.
They're always forced to rise at 5 a.m.
The live streaming starts at 6 a.m. every single day, and they usually last three hours.
They're also not allowed to sit for very long.
The whole thing is leading to exhaustion for everybody.
Totally.
And here's the other one.
They're underfed.
Right.
Carlson claims that eating too much is a symptom of our rampant ego, which Amy claims stands
for edging God out.
They're only allowed to get small amounts of food that are donated from local food banks
and no snackings allowed.
So they basically...
I'm out.
I'm out on so many levels.
Yeah, I can't do any of it.
I'm all about that ego, but this is fucking by the book, Cult Brainwashing Practices.
Meditation and Starvation.
The members live on the compound, rent free, but they have to serve Mother God with whatever
she needs, and they don't get paid for anything, and they don't get any of the donation money.
Most of the time, members wind up giving whatever money they have to Mother God, and as one
former member named Taylor puts it, quote, everything is revolved around Amy.
Of course.
But she's not the gentle, compassionate leader that she claims to be, even though drugs and
alcohol are expressly forbidden in the group, she drinks to excess every day and openly
on camera.
What?
Yeah.
So this is a real...
We're watching...
This really parallels the Synanon story, where the leader who starts out with these really
lofty goals about helping people, it slowly slides into saving humanity, which slides
into I am God, which goes right along with some kind of substance abuse.
Also when Amy's sober, she puts on a warm kind facade, but at night, she launches into
drunken, cursed-filled tirades on the live streams.
Holy shit.
And on one, she shouts into the camera, quote, spiritual ego whores die, if you're not connected
to me, you're out.
Damn.
So it's turning.
Yeah.
I feel so bad for her kids back at home, like they have to be explained where mom is and
like...
It's so sad.
It's so sad.
There's a lot of victims here.
She also starts calling the followers, Adams, A-T-O-M, like an Adam.
And there's one live stream where he brings her meatballs for dinner, but she asks for
chicken parmesan.
So she starts screaming, my vision was chicken parmesan.
So the fucking Adams turn around on me and get me meatballs.
I didn't say meatballs.
I love meatballs, but I didn't fucking say that chicken parmesan.
She's just like flipping out.
What the fuck?
You're recording it.
That's why.
Yeah.
You want to hide that behavior.
You would think.
Also, Father God, he also gets in on it.
He can be seen getting into Robertson's face and glaring at him with rage and chastising
him while Robertson hangs his head in shame.
So he got the order wrong and he's just being attacked by mother and father God.
You know, the way the Lord, the Lord you've always heard about, there's also a thing where
there's on video, they give a two year old child a time out by putting it in a closet
and screaming at the child and saying that they're not that normal people, their child
rearing is programming and it's the, it's basically society.
That's the cult love has won is the only same group of people.
That's gotta be it.
Okay.
So around that time is when they try to go to Kauai.
They basically get kicked out real quick.
So they come back and then, so they start pushing these holistic health products.
They make a thing called plasma coasters, which quote act as receivers and transmitters with
the ability to neutralize harmful energy and you're supposed to put them in glasses of
water.
They sell for $66 and 66 cents.
That's fuck.
It sounds like a shrinky dink or something.
Yes.
Like, see what were those sea creatures you'd put in water?
Oh, sea monkeys.
Sea monkeys.
They also are big on colloidal silver and gold supplements.
Those were big.
I remember.
Colloidal silver was huge for a while.
So basically they sell their own version of it.
Of course they do.
Yeah.
And they claim that it can cure COVID.
They end up getting a letter from the FDA saying you have to stop claiming this.
You have to stop selling these products and they're not available anymore.
So some of their other terrible medical advice.
They're holistic alternative medical advice.
They say that tumeric cures diabetes, that lemon and baking soda cures cancer.
And they actually tell people that it's a myth that staring into the sun makes you
go blind.
Oh no.
Yep.
They say that you need to stare into the sun to receive healing quote unquote light codes
and that it quote burns away the darkness inside you.
Yeah.
They also tell people that you don't have to worry about having heart attacks because
it's just your heart expanding.
No, it's okay.
It's not.
So they, it's just a bunch of super dangerous and very crazy, like basically personal theories
and creative writing that they're now telling people is like medical, the medical truth.
Yeah.
Okay.
Dangerous.
Basically she's gone so far off the rails that her family goes on to Dr. Phil in September
of 2020 to try to get her to basically be like this.
You have to come out of this.
Yeah.
This is brainwashing and her sisters and mother are there and they're all really worried
about her.
Um, Dr. Phil confronts her about how she's not a peaceful being.
There's that they show the videos of all her cursing and confrontation.
She claims that, that one of the reasons is she's been raped several times and that her
house has burned down and that she's basically grown weary of it all.
But essentially it's, you know, it just is kind of like, it doesn't make a difference.
Yeah.
And it's, it's an ineffectual way to kind of try to break this person out of the cults.
The problem is that her health is clearly on the taking a downturn, probably maybe
from the drinking, maybe from all the colloidal silver that she's constantly ingesting.
But they, her mom notices on the live stream.
She's being carried around by her followers and she seems to be paralyzed from the waist
down.
What?
Yeah.
So something they, her, her sisters are seeing it.
They're so scared and worried.
They, they say that they knew she was ill.
She looked weak and frail and that she was basically that she was kind of turning a gray
blue from how much colloidal silver she was ingesting.
Do we know like, is that not good for you now?
Like, do we know that now or it's just large quantities?
I have no idea.
But yeah, if she, if she was ill and they were saying, this is what's going to fix you,
then, then right, large quantities of anything like that.
But I know, I'd hate to say anything about colloidal silver and not knowing.
During a live stream on October 15th, 2020, two of her followers admit Amy has expressed
a desire to see a doctor, but they refuse to take her and they say, there's moments
when mom has asked us to take her to the hospital.
Nope.
There's no way.
We know how a hijacking works.
So the hijacking is this idea that right as when she's about to ascend, the cabal comes
in, kills her and represses the truth.
So they, they're basically like, you can't go to the hospital because it's a hijacking.
So all of her own crazy theories are now turned against her.
And her followers are basically like becoming the ones in charge.
The last time an outsider confirmed seeing Amy alive is on April 10th, 2021.
She's in California.
She gets a visit from her landlord and he sees that he thinks she's dying.
Yeah.
Like she looks so bad.
The members say she has cancer, but she hasn't gone to a doctor.
So there's no official diagnosis or records of that anywhere.
It's just what the followers say.
So her mother calls the authorities in California asking to do wellness checks, but every time
they go to where the followers and Amy are, they turn the police and the ambulances away.
Then on April 16th, 2021, a photo is posted in one of the love has won private chat rooms
of Father God holding a very frail, incoherent looking Amy in his arms.
And it is unclear if she's alive or dead in the photo.
Okay.
So her cause of death is as yet to be determined because of the lack of medical records and
because of the state of the body when the coroner got it.
Charges against four of the seven members that were arrested on April 28th have been
dropped, including those against Father God, Jason Castillo, Sawatch County District Attorney
Alonzo Payne tells Dateline, our office looked at all the documents and everything that was
provided.
And from our perspective, the allegations could not be met beyond a reasonable doubt.
Charges against the remaining three members are still pending.
The group that existed under the name love has one has since disbanded, but many of its
members have splintered off and they continue preaching the same ideas under different names.
And all the shops that sold products have been shut down, but Lamboy has opened a new
nonprofit that basically it gets them out of paying taxes.
So any of the money that goes there, they don't have to pay taxes on it.
They now have one of the groups that still live streams has, they have a tapestry with
a photo of Amy on it that's like behind them in the shot.
Some of them are still selling etheric surgeries, like the way that Amy did spiritual surgeries.
Those are 55, 55 for 30 minutes and they're described as your ticket to heaven.
For the people who have escaped love has won their search for spiritual fulfillment continues,
but now with a much more cautious approach, a former member goes by the name Sarah.
That's not her real name.
She's scared of retaliation.
She says, Amy took a lot of spiritual teachings about vibration and energy that are on the
right track, but she hijacked them and said they were hers.
I still believe there's truth in those principles, but I'm working on taking Amy out of them.
And essentially that is the very strange, bizarre death of Amy Carlson and the story
of the love has one cult.
Wow.
I want to find out how she died eventually, right?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, sounds like she, whatever sickness she had, there was never any, like they were
just doing holistic practices and no one there.
So she could have gotten pancreatic cancer or something that's quick and awful and just
ravages your body.
And then she's just taking colloidal silver or drinking or liver cancer, maybe.
Horrifying.
So fucking wild.
I know.
Wild.
Great job.
So crazy.
Thank you.
I know.
Sorry, that was so long.
No, no.
But it's like, there was so much.
It's just the weirdest thing because I remembered it.
I remember seeing the story and I think people posting about it on Twitter, but it was just
at that point in the pandemic where I'm like, no, only comedies.
I can't do this.
Like, I don't want to know.
I can't look at this.
I mean, it's wild that in the middle of a pandemic that everyone's freaking out about,
you could have such an, like, outside wild story.
Yeah.
It's like, didn't everything stop?
Did everyone's life stop?
Right.
Why didn't you just, but also I think it's like, that's the thing.
Like you said, in these unprecedented times, people are scared shitless and they're looking
for answers.
They're looking for easy, like digestible answers and solutions.
And it makes sense.
They're right to want that.
They're human to want that.
Yeah.
Just don't be stupid.
It's like, it's, I don't know.
Yeah.
Well, here's the thing.
You know, there's very clear, you know, they say in cults, it's like, if it's one leader,
you're not allowed to contradict.
You're not allowed to take in outside information.
You cut yourself off from your family.
Like there's the whole, there's a whole thing of like, is your, are you just, you know,
is it just a group of people who are like-minded spiritual seekers?
Right.
Like, are you basically being indoctrinated?
Yeah.
And those are the things where it's like, if basically there's one person, they're God,
they have all the answers.
And the rules are theirs to make alone.
And suddenly the rules become about caring, you know, like you serve me.
Yeah.
Chicken Parmesan.
Wow.
Yeah.
Well, let's keep it, let's keep an eye on that one.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Good job.
Thank you.
So it's Christmas, should we do a couple of fucking arrays?
Let's do it.
All right.
I'll go first.
Okay.
This one is from Keebelf.
Keebelf?
Like maybe a Keebler elf.
Oh.
This is from the fan quote forum.
Keebelf says, my 18 year old son rolled his Jeep on his way home from work and just
has an abrasion on his arm from the side airbags.
Holy shit.
Jeep is totaled.
My son is sore, but no worse for the wear.
Holy shit.
Oh my God.
Jeep is totaled.
That's the scariest shit in the world.
Yeah.
Wow.
Yeah.
I'm so glad.
Yeah.
That's it.
Wow.
This starts, this is from the Gino.
Is this where we send our fucking arrays now?
I sure hope so.
My fucking arrays are after six years of sitting on the fence talking endlessly about it and
generally feeling ambivalent about the prospect of becoming parents.
My sweetheart and I have finally decided to remain child free.
The pressure to have children has felt stifling these past few years, but since landing on
this decision, I feel light, I feel free and I finally feel like I have permission to just
be myself.
I'm done torturing myself and trying to get excited about something I quote, should want
just because most people do fucking array cat with a K.
Yeah.
Dude.
It's okay.
It's okay.
Yeah.
Congratulations.
It's not pioneer days.
I love it.
This is also from the fan cult forum.
It says, hello all.
I wanted to send in our family's fucking array, our grandma celebrated her hundredth birthday
on October 18th.
She has seen it all, buried her parents, sisters, two children and two grandchildren, but is
still going strong.
She even still lives alone.
Her new goal is a hundred and five.
My grandma got to a hundred and four and lived alone until like the last year.
It's amazing.
It's amazing.
I'm glad my son told me about your podcast.
I listen on my way to work.
I work for California state prisons.
You guys are awesome.
Keep up the good work.
Jen with two ends.
Amazing.
Love it.
Happy birthday.
Happy birthday grandma.
Fuck yeah.
Okay.
This one might make me cry.
Okay.
I'm a veterinarian and the practice where I work has what is called an angel fund.
This is basically a donation based bank account where we can use to help animals in need.
These owners may not have the means to pay.
Last week a super sweet stray orange tabby cat was brought into my work with a badly
broken leg.
The good Samaritan who brought him in was unable to take on his care, so he was left
with us.
Unfortunately, the leg was so badly broken that amputation was his best option.
I named this sweet orange boy pajama.
Amputated his broken leg, neutered him and he is thriving.
He's now going to be adopted by my brother and sister-in-law who lost their cat a few
years ago and are ready for a new pet.
Pajama.
Pajama.
It brings me so much joy that I could save and re-home pajama and I will still get to
see him on a regular basis.
Thanks for all you do best Stephanie.
That's awesome.
Oh, that's right.
She basically is like, I want this cat in my life.
Yeah.
You guys coming in.
That's awesome.
I'm sure Stephen is crying right now considering his orange shabby is always meowing in the
background whenever he's not muted.
Penny.
Penny.
Penny.
All right.
Thank you guys.
Happy holidays.
Again, we hope you do the best you can.
That's all anyone can ask for.
Don't forget to go to the movies during the holidays.
That's always a fun thing to do.
Oh, good idea.
Right?
You know, just go or go walk around, go walk in the park or something if you're stuck
at home.
Oh, yeah.
Yes.
Okay.
Love you.
Thank you for listening and stay sexy.
And don't get murdered.
Goodbye.
Elvis, do you want a cookie?
This has been an exactly right production.
Our producer is Hannah Kyle Crichton.
Associate producer Alejandra Keck.
Engineer and mixer Stephen.
Ray Morris.
Researchers J. Elias and Haley Gray.
Send us your hometowns and your fucking hurrays at myfavoritmurder.com.
Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and Twitter at myfavoritmurder.
And for more information about this podcast, our live shows, merch, or to join the fan
cult, go to myfavoritmurder.com.
Thanks for watching, and don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe to my YouTube channel.