My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 397 - Doers of Knowing

Episode Date: October 12, 2023

This week, Karen tells Georgia about the Cult of the Great Eleven aka the Blackburn Cult.For our sources and show notes, visit www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. I'm Candace DeLong and on my podcast Killer Psychie Daily, I share a quick 10 minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds you hear about in the news. Hey, Prime members, listen to the Amazon exclusive podcast Killer Psychie Daily in the Amazon music app. Download the app today. Listen to the Amazon exclusive podcast Killer Psychie Daily in the Amazon Music Out. Download the app today. Hello!

Hello! Hello! Hello! And welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hard Stark. That's Karen Kilgarif. The podcasting begins now. And now we start to talk about true crime.

Go. No. Now talk about it. No. But in a funny lighthearted way. But not too lighthearted. But not too lighthearted. Well here's something that we can talk about in a purely lighthearted way. But not too lighthearted. But not too lighthearted. Well, here's something that we can talk about

in a purely conversational way, which is how this podcast was founded. Chipsy Rose Blanchard, who is basically how everybody in this country learned about Munchhausen's by proxy syndrome is going to be parole. Now, if you don't know that story and you are listening to this podcast, you have some catching up to do. Yeah. And you could start with that HBO documentary,

Mommy Dead Enderist, which is great. Oh, so good. And then I think there's also a scripted version. The story itself is so beyond belief. Yeah. It's the kind of thing where you're like, how could this go on for so long? You're like, I know why it could go on for so long. Because can you imagine accusing a mother of making her own child sick on purpose, basically because she has that disease? It's unheard of. It's unbelievable.

It happened and the fallout and consequences that led to the daughter, Gypsy Rose, in prison, it's also wild. I mean, I hope she can live a full happy life now, but maybe, yeah, I'm sure she's gotten a lot of therapy. Right, and basically get a chance to live a life as the person she is supposed to be. Totally.

Under her own agency, it's just extreme abuse, extreme psychological and medical abuse, that's a thing. Maybe physical for sure. Physical for sure, yeah. Wow, terrible. Wishing well for her. The thing I was thinking about recently because I was thinking about a different story

that we have been talking about. Now I can't remember which one it was. It was one of those like driving in the car like, God, that's weird. And basically, it's that idea. And maybe because my mom was a psychiatric nurse growing up, so this was a little bit more in the common conversation. But that idea that there are these very rare kind of syndromes

that people can have, something like Munchhausen's Biproxy, which is like takes you to this unimaginable area, but it is possible in the realm of possibility of why a person might be doing a thing they're doing. Because it's happened enough times that there's an actual name for it, and it's in the DSM, it's not like this rare thing that nobody knows about, it's an actual name for it and it's in the DSM. It's not like, you know, this rare thing

that nobody knows about, it's an actual... It's not a one-off, right? Yeah, which is like, holy shit. Yeah, what's another one that your mom is interested in or your family? Oh, my mom was always... My mom. Well, my mom was very Lucy Goosey with it conversational

because she'd always be like, if somebody was like yelling in the grocery store in a weird way, she had this thing going, I think they've gone organic. And it's like, if you've gone organic in the brain, it has started to turn. Yes, it's gone organic. I think it's a medical term. It wasn't a joke term.

She was always very serious about it. OK. She wasn't judging people either. Yeah. She was literally giving them their diagnosis. And then if something was actually happening, she'd be one of the first people to like go over and be like, excuse me, my name's Pat.

Do you need help? She would get, oh yeah. Did you see the queen of getting into business? No, it was, it was so normal. That it just kind of felt like, well, she's the one that handles stuff like this. Yeah. I see, I guess when my mom did it and she wasn't a nurse,

it was like, mom, leave those people alone. Your mom is an actual professional. My mom would just yell it at someone else's kid to stop screaming in public. I'm looking back, she was wrong. Right, in some ways. Right. No, my mom wouldn't ever, she would let it get

to the level where, instead of having the police come, maybe we'll see if we can solve this with like the grocery store manager and, or whatever. How could fair, mom? Cause she saw the other side of that all the time. Yeah, totally.

It wasn't a big deal to her. I just watched the new documentary about Jimmy Savile. I don't know why. I can insist on continuing to watch documentaries about him. Like, he's the fucking awful, once famous, now hated pedophile from the UK. He had a key at Broadmoor, which we talked about, Broadmoor Hospital

for the criminally insane, as it's called. And I don't know why I keep watching documentaries about him. So upsetting. You wanna hear my guess? It's because he is an apex predator. Yeah. So it's kind of like watching something about great white sharks where you just like,

oh wow, I hope I never swim in that part of the ocean or whatever. But it's like that's the kind of person where you go, okay, what is this? That's very similar to I just watched the documentary on Netflix. Now we really, by the way, we can talk about all these things now because the strike for writers, the strike has ended. I just watched the unscripted documentary series on Netflix about the Boy Scouts. Oh, no. So we're in the same mindset. We've gone to the same dark, dark mindset. It's because somebody was talking about it just going, it's just kind of staggering. And I think this is what's interesting these days

is like Jimmy Savile was a very popular British host of like kind of a teen, what I remember from that documentary, I saw it was like a dance show. Talk to the cops. So it'd be like, it's Rick D's who like, I know it's famous anymore, but like for us. He's famous to us from our era. He's like the Carson daily, beloved.

The last person you'd expect, it's that. Exactly. Which is what they always do. Right. But he was like, he talked, like they could show interview after interview of him saying the most inappropriate, basically admitting that he's into young girls

and sexual assault. Like over and over and over and over and over. And we go, oh you, oh Jimmy, our Jimmy. Like you didn't want to know that that was an issue back then. Nobody wanted to acknowledge it. It wasn't until the late 90s this document talks about that a child sexual abuse abuse, police force even came about because they were like, well, nobody does that.

That's not a problem and it's none of our business. The guy who was the head of that team even said, oh, everyone thought it was a woman's problem for women to deal with. Not a man. Oh, it's so troubling. To add to that, I was just gonna say, it makes me think of when everyone started talking

about Shnato Conner, when Shnato Conner died and like everybody's talking about she was such a great fighter and such or whatever. And it's like, I remember Dave Holmes tweeted this thing where it's like, she was fucking right the first time. This is almost insulting at this point to pretend that everybody was so, what a great fighter. It's like, no one says that real time,

especially about women. It's always, oh says that real time, especially about women. It's always, oh shut up, she's making a problem. Oh, she's crazy, whatever. Schneider Connor was fighting that. She was one of the only people actually saying it. And the context was out of context because in Ireland and also in the UK, like that discussion of child sexual assault

in the Catholic church had just begun. It had not begun. The spotlight story that we all know is that movie had not started. Yeah. So, like, that whole idea of it was so easy to just go, how dare you, the Pope is Brienne reproach, or the Catholic Church, how dare you say a word. And it's like, no, I dare. And she herself was a victim. And it's like, no, I dare. And she herself was a victim.

So she's like, yeah, I'm talking about it. This needs to be discussed. Well, it's crazy to applaud someone for being a fighter when they fought because they had to. No one's trying to be a fighter. They're like, I'm trying to do a thing and you're making me fight you. How is that?

How am I being applauded for still standing up for what's right? Yeah. And also it's like everybody does that after the fact. I think people, because back then, pre-digital age truly, it was just like, no one knew anything and everyone was allowed to quote unquote not know things. And just be like, what?

We don't know what you're talking about. Right. And this day and age, how could you not see? How could you not know? I don't know. Yeah. Well, anyways, I'm taking my vitamins and I'm feeling a lot better lately. Oh, good. Good.

Speaking of way to put a silver lining on that. Thank you. For a fine conversation. I know. I don't know how else to scooch out of it. But no, I think that was a great one just to do a little integration for some sort of vitamin company. Yeah, right. This isn't a commercial. I just say that to say that like, you know, when I was like,

take your vitamins, you'll feel better, take your vitamins, you'll feel better. Like, I've started taking my vitamins like begrudgingly and I am not at the depressions a lot better. Good. That's how that relates to the conversation we're just having is I've been less depressed lately. Even though I watch it like that. Are you taking magnesium? Is that one of the magnesium? Is the fucking cure all everyone take your magnesium as your carrier has said before. Also the citrate. Exactly. Check what kind of magnesium you need. You're just like my sister. My sister did the same thing where I was like because I was taking it when I couldn't sleep and it was working like a charm. But also the calming effects. It has the anxiety. I told my sister who has been an anxious person since she was a child. And she was like, no way. This is crazy. Like she's like, this is insane. I told my mom.

I told my mom to take it. It's such an important thing. Get your blood test done every year. You guys and check your hormones and your levels. Because it could just be like, you're low on vitamin D. And that's why you have clinical, not that I still have clinical depression. I'm still on my medication.

I'll never not be, but like, you're not helping yourself. Yes, there's ways to help yourself. There's ways. What else is up with you? Not much else. I got my teeth cleaned this morning. It's been a little while. Not a crazy amount of time, but since the beginning of the year, and it feels so good.

It's just I forgot. Yeah. When you get everything just scraped off, it'll be all good. And that was the day to whiteen them too, because they're like, they're like, fresh raw babies. They're down to the bone. I got these big fake ones, so I don't know how much that actually applies, but.

You'll never have to Whiting your teeth again, you've got that. I don't think so. And nice ones. These big zakies, but she did use that when they go to polish, and it's that super gritty toothpaste that they use. I don't know why, but I have loved that since I was a child. Did I already tell you that? It's an exfoliation. No, I didn't know that. Yeah. I actually, when I was a kid, asked our dentist, Dr. Brown, if I could please buy some. If he could tell me where I could buy

some and he laughed so hard, he was, and I'd completely meant it. I wasn't trying to do it. Because I was just like, how good would it feel if I could brush my teeth with this stuff every night? Well, you could do baking soda and some water, right? That's gritty. Yeah. But you're probably not good for your teeth to scrape the animal off every night.

Yeah. I don't know. And also, baking soda is so salty. That's true. That stuff is like the perfect, weird. It feels like something you should be putting on a car or something. And it's like, and yet it feels like something you should be putting on a car or something. And it's like, and yet it tastes like bubble gum.

It's so delicious. Oh god. So disgusting. Yeah. That's my breaking news. What about you? I'm reading a book, it's Historical Fiction, which is my absolute favorite topic ever. And it was like always on the list, like best historical fiction.

You should, it's the same with vitamins. Like you should do this. And I'm like, on the list, like best historical fiction. You should, it's the same with vitamins, like you should do this. And I like, I don't want to do it then, that I'm not going to read that book. Then I'm not going to take my vitamins. And then I do it. And I'm like, oh, yeah. So it's called a gentleman in Moscow by Amor Tolls to EW Elias. It's this beautiful book.

It takes place between World War One and World War Two about a guy in house arrest in a hotel in Moscow. It's incredible. There's so much cool historical facts about it. And then I found out the guy who's been booked to play, oh wait, can I talk about the actor? What if you do a cliffhanger and you say you've found out who it is and will tell you once the sag strike is over? Yeah, so start reading it now.

And it like fits perfectly and I love this actor so I'm like, well, okay, now I'm picturing him when I'm listening to the book and it's lovely. It's a beautiful fucking book, a gentleman in Moscow. Okay, I think I started that book because that's one of the books on my dad's guest room nightstand. It's a total dad book for sure. Okay, like my brother who's a dad has read it. Oh nice, okay, that's a good one. All right, should we get into some network news? book for sure. Okay, like my brother, who's a dad, has read it. Oh, nice. Okay. That's a good one.

All right. Should we get into some network news? Let's do it. Network news. That's funny. Oh, we love that show. Over on the exactly right podcast network, we've got a bunch of stuff going on. For example, this week, Kate and Paul discussed the 1894 murder of the Meeks family on buried bones and they're going to be untangling all the details of one of the most horrific crimes in Missouri's history on that episode. And then on this podcast, we'll kill you, Aaron, and Aaron are covering everything you need to know about my grains, fascinating.

Every time I see a new topic they're doing, I get excited, it's such a great podcast. Yeah, so much good information over there. And if you love listening to the Weird News podcast, bananas or the SVU podcast that's messed up, get excited because they are both heading out on tour this fall. You can go see all of those hilarious people live, follow their shows on Instagram,

and that's where you're going to get all that tour information. So you don't miss them when they come to your town. Great, great live shows, like so much fun. Yeah. And if you plan on trick-or-treating on Halloween or a big fan at the farmer's market, hey, but I like both head to the MFM store and check out some of our cute tote bags that you can fill with candy or carrots or whatever you want.

MFM tote bags. Hell yeah, my favorite murder.com. Ugh, good one. Good one, Aaron. Good one, like thinking of a new use for those things. She's bringing it all together like what would interest people in a tote bag? What are murdering us like Halloween and farmers markets and books? Take your stuff in the library and then it's just like a trifect of what murdering us are into. Hey listeners, it's me, Mr. Ballin, host of the Mr. has are into. diagnose inexplicable pains, debilitating body aches, sudden fevers, and strange rashes. Though our minds tend to spiral to worst-case scenarios, it's usually nothing.

But for an unlucky few, these unsuspecting symptoms can start the clock ticking on a terrifying medical mystery. We've spent months researching totally true and thoroughly twisted medical horror stories and diagnostic mysteries that are surgically calibrated to make your blood run cold and we can't wait for you to listen. Listen to the trailer and follow Mr. Ballin's medical mysteries wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes come out every Tuesday starting October 17th. Prime members can listen early and add free on Amazon Music. I'm going first this week. Okay. Exciting. This story that I'm going first this week.

Okay. Exciting. This story that I'm about to tell you it takes place in the roaring 20s in Los Angeles, California. Love it. If you watched the first season of Perry Mason, this story will seem familiar to you.

Frank's kind of punishing me for the fact that he can't be where he wants to be. Well, what's his deal? He doesn't like that I shut the door when I record in here, but if he comes in, he's loud. He won't be loud, but Blossom will be loud, because she has to bark at people who walk by in the window. Sure. Anyway, it's the rowing 20s in post-war America.

People are reeling from overwhelming death, destruction, and the austerity of World War I. And of course Americans are now doing everything they can to basically make the most of the fact that the war is over. They're doing a lot of big spending and a lot of heavy partying. And young Americans are pushing back against their parents' traditional values, basically kind of attributing those values for getting them into that war in the first place. So suddenly, traditional religion is being turned away from and people are exploring spiritualism, the occult and mysticism, which become a big part of pop culture at the time. And we did talk about spiritualism in episode 363 when I told you all about the death of Harry Houdini and his fight against spiritualism. Basically, it was

based on the idea that it was possible for certain people to contact the dead. And so that idea was very comforting for people who'd lost loved ones, but it also spawned a ton of scam artists. ones, but it also spawned a ton of scam artists. So this is the era that we're in right now. And then the 20s and Los Angeles is having this huge growth spurt between the oil industry and show business, both of those industries are like, there's just a boom in Los Angeles. So because of that people from across the country are being lured to LA by this idea of being able to find their fame and fortune in a city like this. There seems to be opportunity everywhere. And a lot of these transplants fit a certain kind of mold.

They're young, they're idealistic, they're adventurous, they're open-minded. Perhaps because of that, LA residents become very, very interested in the zeitgeist alternative spiritual practices that start getting really popular. We love to be on trend in Los Angeles and we love to pretend that aliens from a volcano are going to help us get a part on a TV show. That's who we are as people. It's simple, really. It's been this way since the 20s, since the roaring 20s. So the main source of this story I'm about to tell you is from a book, it's one book written by a man called Samuel Fort, and it's called The Cult of the Great 11.

And Samuel Fort actually has a theory on this. And he thinks that the open-mindedness of many LA transplants in the 20s drive an absolute boom in religious cults during this period. And because they are everywhere. And a 20th century religious scholar named Dr. Lewis Brown, who was actually based in Santa Monica,

claims that he counted around 400 cults operating in the LA metro area in the latter part of the 20s. Holy shit. 400. 400. So today I'm going to tell you about one of these cults run by a mother daughter, con artist duo, who preyed upon people's hopes of spiritual renewal, eternal life,

and of course, money, money, money. This is the story of May Otis Blackburn and her daughter Ruth Wyland Rizio who started the divine order of the royal arms of the grade 11. Some people call it the Blackburn cults. That's usually how if you're gonna search it in a true crime way, the Blackburn cult is what most people call it. But Samuel Fort calls them the cult of the grade 11

because that's the actual name. Blackburn cult is based on the mother's married name. And so we do what Samuel Fort does because he truly is the primary source of the story I'm about to tell you. So this is the story of the cult of the great 11. Okay, so it starts in August of 1881. That's when May Otis is born in storm like Iowa. I don't know much about her early life, but she marries for the first time when she's

just 16 years old to a man named John Wyland. And he is a bummer. Of course, May is very soon disappointed by his gambling and his knack for basically just taking off and going on long adventures and staying away for a while. So by July of 1899, just two years after they get married, they separate and Ruth is pregnant. So basically during that separation trial,

John Vanishes may give birth alone and she names her daughter Ruth. So May starts telling people that John is dead and she claims that daughter Ruth. So it may start telling people that John is dead, and she claims that she got a letter from a doctor in California telling her John was shot and killed in a workplace dispute. Of course, May is under a ton of financial stress as a single mother, and so she's forced to make a drastic plan. Her parents plan to move from the Midwest to Oregon,

and so she decides to send Ruth, her newborn daughter, to go live with her parents. Of course she loves her child, she does not want to be separated from her, especially by such a long distance, but she is still a teenager and a single parent and it is the late 1800s so she basically has to do what she has to do to ensure her daughter's survival and safety. She sent her daughter with her parents to Oregon and she heads to Minnesota to start her life over again. She's both beautiful and charming and around 1900, the turn of the century, my favorite time. Hey. Hey, girl. She meets and marries a man named Rudolph Schultz.

I immediately called him Rudy in this document. Rudy is absolutely in love with May, but that may be in part because May has never told her new husband that she has a daughter, that she already has been married, that she has baby. Instead, she tells him she has a baby sister in Portland, Oregon, who she loves and misses dearly. So much so that she convinces Rudy to move with her to Portland.

And then when they get there, he gets a job that pays him $150 a month. Yeah. And that sounds like a lot, right? Oh, I'll tell you, $150 would be worth $5,500 in today's month. Holy shit. So he's making good money at his new job. May is able to convince him to give her $125 of those dollars and he gets to keep 50. For like, upkeep of the house. No, sorry. He gets to keep 25. Girl, girl math, girl math.

So basically she keeps the overwhelming majority of his paycheck. It's just a kind of a little anecdote that goes toward May's beauty and her, maybe manipulation, maybe her just powers a persuasion, whatever it is. So after five years of marriage in 1906, May comes to Rudy and she has some shocking news. She tells him she's just found out that her first husband, John,

who she thought was dead is actually alive. And that means that her marriage to Rudy is invalid because she never ended her first marriage. She just thought it was over because he was dead. she never ended her first marriage. She just thought it was over because he was dead. The truth is that May's first husband, John Wyland, was not shot and killed in a workplace dispute in California. So the doctor's note that May had been showing people at the time was probably faked, probably by her.

Rudy desperately wants to make it work with May despite this hitch, but she's already gone. She basically comes and says, this is an invalid marriage. And then she leaves him immediately starts dating a married man named Fremont Everett, who also happens to be very, very rich. And he also spends tons of money on May. He gives her entire apartment buildings in Portland. What?

Building's plural. So she gets the income from entire apartment buildings in Portland. What? Building's plural. So she gets the income from those apartment buildings. Holy shit. Yeah, lovely gift, but May wants more. So she keeps dating him, but she's also setting her sights on another man. His name is George Edward Bloom, and it turns out May had read an article about George in the newspaper about how he'd recently won a $3,000 settlement after a workplace accident and that settlement is about $90,000 in today's money.

So May goes and tracks him down, asks him out, they date, and then she eventually marries George Bloom. I'm just going to break it to you now. The marriage does not last. So, now it's the mid-1910s. May's daughter Ruth is a teenager. And Ruth knows that May is her biological mother. The two women are very close, but they still refer

to each other as sisters. And when I read that line, I was like, okay, May is definitely a narcissist, if not a malignant narcissist, because she's doing exactly what she wants, kind of seducing, getting her way, whatever. But on top of that, kind of like, I'm not your mother, I'm your sister.

Right. Like what? That's the best friend. She's manipulating everyone. Yeah. So her daughter Ruth is repeatedly described as one of the most beautiful young women in Portland. So she's a magnet for male attention.

So by the time she's 17 years old, May starts getting ideas. She's like, I think she could be a movie star. Basically, May takes all her money from my guest, the apartments and from George Blooms, injury and from all the different money over the years. And she sinks the bulk of her savings into making two movies for her daughter to star in.

One is called Nugget in the Rough and the other is called a Tale of Address. And now these movies, I don't think were, I mean, they never, we never heard about them, right? You've never seen them on TCM. Not good enough or rough? No, it doesn't ring a bell. Not familiar, really. But they are historically significant because they are some of the first film ever shot of Portland, Oregon. So it's really old footage, you know, from the tens of Portland, which is cool. Yeah. And local people love these movies. Like they go to see them, they're perceived, everyone loves them. But beyond that, they don't get marketed nationwide or anything. Local jokes get local work. I tell you this and I tell you this. Even so,

Mae believes Ruth could make it in Hollywood. And she also thinks she could make it in Hollywood as a director. That's all go to Hollywood. And we can all make it in Hollywood, and she also thinks she could make it in Hollywood as a director. Let's all go to Hollywood. And we can all make it in Hollywood if we just believe. So the two leave their lives in Portland, and they relocate to Los Angeles. So when they get there, Ruth does get a couple of bit parts in movies, but she isn't taking Hollywood by storm the way her mother thought, because what happens to everyone when they're the prettiest girl in Portland, Oregon, and they

move to Los Angeles? You're a Los Angeles six when you were a Portland nine. You could hope to be a Los Angeles six. And also, May isn't getting hired as a director anywhere. No, shit, a woman and the fucking teens isn't getting hired as a director anywhere. She's walking and going, it's me, Maywile and Sholtz Bloom, the director of Nugget and the Rough. It's me. How, don't you know who I am?

Yeah. So to make ends meet, Ruth becomes what's called a taxi dancer. She's private dancer, a dancer for money. Do what you want me to do. You know the song. So basically that just means that she's a higher dance partner who hangs around dance halls and clubs.

And men pay her based on the amount of time they spend together like you'd pay a cabbie for a taxi. Right. So it's not exotic dancing. It's a dance club. It's almost like, you know, the Japanese, like hostess clubs where you sit and flirt and talk and everything like that.

It's like that. Exactly. With dancing and whatever, but I think it's basically maybe a baby step toward exotic dancing or toward sex work. Uh-huh. Ruth also was an exotic dancer. Okay. I think this was probably step one. And then

she's like, oh right, there's tons of, you know, there's tons of guys around here that want to dance with a pretty girl. So she actually seems to genuinely like these jobs and does very well at them. Her charm and beauty pulling a ton of male clients. Meanwhile, her mother may is very unhappy. Samuel Fort says, quote, for the first time in May's adult life, she was not in control. She found herself subject to the whims of fate in a strange and famously dispassionate city, which I don't know if you can describe Los Angeles any better than the very simple description of its dispassionate. It doesn't give a shit. Yeah.

Yeah. That's all. That's true. You don't think that's that big of a deal. It's a really big deal. Yeah. When you get in, you're like, oh, right, no one cares if I'm here or not. It doesn't matter.

You gotta bring your own passion. That's right. Like, there isn't any here to spare. So you have to bring your own and hope it's enough. Bring your own passion and make it happen. Ooh'm just going to keep doing 80s song lyric quotes for the rest of this. So to pass the time, may start spending hours studying the Bible. But not because she's a religious person, she has never been a religious person. What she is is an opportunist. And she has noticed the tidal wave of alternative religions

that are exploding in Los Angeles at the time and she sees a market to be exploited, which is kind of legendary. Yeah. She's like, oh, this book here, is this the one you're all going crazy about? I'm gonna read it. Yeah.

Why not? Gotta do something, become a cult leader. Actually, in this town, very common pipeline. So by 1921, May's 40 years old, Ruth's in her early 20s, and Ruth starts dating a 26 year old man named Arthur Carl Osborne. Arthur is head over heels in love with Ruth. And then one day in their relationship, Ruth breaks some strange news to Arthur. She tells him that she and her mother are being visited every night by the archangel Gabriel. Okay.

And for those unfamiliar, archangel Gabriel appears in both the old and new testament, Georgia relevant to your people and my people. He's one of God's messengers. He is the one who actually reveals that the Virgin Mary will be giving birth to Christ. He's a very big deal. So Ruth explains to Arthur Gabriel says that she and her mother are God's two hand-picked

witnesses, which are two people that are mentioned in the book of Revelations, the two witnesses. So she's like, it's us. It's been revealed where the witness is. No, no, no, no, no. And that they're here to announce the apocalypse. Oh, so Ruth says she and May are writing down everything Gabriel is telling them. And when they're done, they're going to compile it all into a big book. And thanks to Gabriel, they will basically have this book and they will be able to figure out where all the world's gold gems and oil deposits are located.

I mean, there has to be some like preemptive persuasion to this person, right? You can't just like drop this in someone's lap. The preemptive persuasion is yet another pee, and it is pussy. Ah! Ah! Ah! Ah!

The preemptive persuasion is the name of this podcast because it can't be per pussy. It can't be the three pee's though. Three pee's? Ah! Oh! And we're talking bib, look how pussy. And so that is like, this is witness pussy. I'm so sorry.

They're people that are trying to drive their children to school right now. Pull over. That's another piece. Pull over. The four peas. No, I think it's the classic thing. If you basically trick someone into loving you and then they do whatever you want. And then they're kind of under your spell and everything you do is kind of great and everything

you suggest is kind of what you want to do to. I've never been that hot. You know what I mean? So I guess I can't wrap my head around. For real. Like I'm cute, but I'm not that hot. I'm funny. And so not hot.

Yeah. I've always been the observer of like interesting you can do to stay maybe someday yes so that's the kind of the running theme I think Ruth probably learned it from her mother that's what Ruth was doing to marry all those rich guys yeah each one richer than the last we don't know if Arthur bought this story. I bet it was kind of like they're sitting at El Compadre in his stomach drops and he's like, oh no.

Shit, I'm not gonna stop sleeping with her. I'm not gonna like leave, yeah. Come on. So he probably wanted to keep her happy either way. He starts lending them money for this project because that's ultimately what it comes to is we want to be compiling these books of these messages from art, angel, Gabriel, but we need money to do it. For paper and pens, why?

The problem is Arthur's not a rich man. He's not one of those people that may land it. At one point, he has to actually borrow cash from his employer. Oh, no. He got a big advance and he gave it to them. And then he was supposed to basically pay it back and he couldn't do it. And so he gets fired.

But Ruth assures him he will be repaid when this book gets published and all the jewels of the world are revealed. I assure you, you will be paid back. Oh, you'll be getting some of the oil money that we get when the Archangel Gabriel, because here's the thing about angels, they love money. Oh, totally.

All throughout the Bible, they're like, yes. Yes, the kingdom of heaven loves rich guys. That's not true at all. So now it's 1922. One afternoon Arthur stops by Ruth's house for a visit, perhaps in between job interview as I wrote. You know what's about to happen. He walks up to the front door and what? They're gone. Not out of the house running errands, but actually they have skipped town without so much as a thanks for all your money goodbye. So, of course, Arthur is heartbroken, dejected, he feels used. He basically just turns around, goes and joins the military and ships off to who cares wherever she broke my heart, shipped me to Guam.

I don't care. So, meanwhile, May and Ruth, what they've done is actually gone back to Portland because essentially May is thinking, well, we know people up there and we know people that will believe us when we say the archangel Gabriel is giving us these messages. So they start courting members of the public for donations for their book. And specifically, they target people interested in faith healing And specifically, they target people interested in faith healing or people who are experiencing poverty and Much of their audience is women People who are basically looking for a possibility and opportunity something to get them out of the position that they're in

So they have the same spiel as before they're writing a book that's being dictated by the archangel Gabriel They've been identified as the witnesses. On top of that, the publication of the book is what's going to trigger the apocalypse. Oh, that sounds like a bad PR plan. Definitely, it would make it so hard to then fundraise. But what they're saying is, we're gonna trigger the apocalypse and like every cult, everybody else dies, except us, and then we'll be left to go find the jewels and the oil. And even though the dollar

will have no value anymore, still stop asking questions. This is supposed to be a cult. So, the fundraising for the book quickly turns into basically a pitch for an entirely new religious order that May is the ringleader of. And she begins to build what Marin wrote as a sloppy theology. She's a sloppy theology. Oh, that's my punk band's name. Right? So good.

But essentially, many researchers who've looked into this story believe that May was just making everything up on the fly Yeah, her ideas are very convoluted. They're very hard to follow Which also if you've ever read the Bible, right also insanely convoluted and very hard to follow think that's key Kind of right where it's like interpret this how you want because if we're too clear about it You're gonna be able to be like it's gonna be like spot the bullshit pretty easy. Right. Keep it kind of vague, keep it a little foggy, and talk fast.

Works for us, right? That's the key to our success here on my favorite murder. Amen. Now that's a religion I can get behind. Okay, but the most important thing to know that basically May is able to drive home is that Doomsday is coming soon. But the best Doomsday imaginable because their followers get to go straight

to a new and better world. And this new world is going to be very female centric. May claims that she, Ruth, and nine other queens, 11 women total will rule the world from marble palaces on Olive Hill in Los Angeles. And do you know where Olive Hill is? Echo Park. It's Barnsdale Art Park.

Oh! That's where... Wow! You had your birthday one year. I had my birthday one year, and it was across the street from there, so we where, wow. You had your birthday one year. I had my birthday one year, and it was across the street from there. So we started the podcast. There's a, yeah, Brinkwood, right?

House, there, yeah, okay. I was close. That's Los Feliz, everyone. But I was thinking it was Echo Park. Further down. Listen, if you're a hipster, you know. What if we're a couple of the queens in this story? I didn't think about that part.

I could buy it. Or anyone else that's gone to Barnstall, our park and had a picnic at any time in the past 80 years. Here's another part that I'm sure drew women of the 20s in at the time. Not only are they in charge, because they're queens. Each one of them will have 12 kings. And back to one of the original story points,

they will all have gold gems and oil deposits as many as they could dream of. Okay. I love that idea that it's post-apocalyptic gold and oil deposits. Right. It's like selling them to whom. Exactly.

What are you doing? What do you do? Take your oil, I just want to like, come pick out or whatever. Look, you could have oil. And it's like, no things to sell to who. Of course, all of this in hindsight sounds ridiculous, like any

cults belief system when you explain it out after the fast. But what matters is who's telling you the story and how well they can make you believe it. We know that May was a very convincing person, always was, and she's not afraid to use theatrics to get people hooked. So the thing she would do with this story, she would pull out a massive storage chest and it was filled with thick bundles of paper wrapped with twine. And she would pull them out and say, these are the raw dictations coming straight from Archangel Gabriel's mouth. And on the cover of these bundles,

there would be pages with religious kind of esoteric gibberish written all over them. That was like the proof, but you wouldn't let anybody touch them or read them or look at them up close. And of course, after the fact, it's revealed much, much later that all the pages in these bundles are blank. Yeah, it's like wrapping a lot of $1 bills and $100 bill of me.

Yeah, look at all these $100 bills. But most importantly, in a situation like this, no one's looking past the cover and kind of no one wants to. It's just like, just tell me that there's more to life than this. What year is it at this point, Ish? It's 1922, 23 maybe. Okay. So within a couple years,

May and Ruth have managed to gain dozens of followers of what they're calling the divine order of the royal arms of the great 11, the great 11 for short. And in 1924, May moves the group back to Los Angeles. So she gets a bunch of Portlanders to move to LA. That's like the biggest feat you've accomplished. You know how she did it?

She was like, you can all be stand up comics if you get. Just kidding. No man, there's a lot of open mics. There's so much stage time. So much more stage time down there. So she rents a house for them to all live in together, big, huge rented house. And they're the members start printing religious pamphlets So she rents a house for them to all live in together, big, huge rented house, and their

the members start printing religious pamphlets and circulating them throughout the city to attract more members. So it actually, in terms of the business they're about to be doing, she does very smart business in terms of that kind of effectiveness. It's like, go to a major city where the people actually are open to any and every idea and start papering the area. Meanwhile, Mei is doing all the classic cult leader stuff. She renames her followers, claiming that the new names will put them in harmony with

the universe. Like one member is given the name, four wins of the world-wind god and another is named the circling of the minor scale in the harmony of music. So not catchy hard to put on a business card but still. In another classic cult move May starts restricting her followers diets. She bans apples because they're the forbidden fruit of the Bible. Oh, yeah. But she also bans things like teabone steaks and walnuts. So she's like, yeah, that's like such a classic move.

Like starve people and they'll be way more malleable. That's how you break people down psychologically. Right. Food and sleep. A food sleep, your name isn't your name anymore. I don't talk to your family. It's the right thing. She's doing everything.

She also has to pay for all these people in one house. So then this idea of like, T-bone stakes are against the original Gabriel. It's like, yeah, good idea. Yeah, no more kettle one for you guys. It's all Tito's from here on out. Winners Cup was the vodka we used to buy. Oh, no. At the grocery store in Sacramento.

And it was truly the bottom shelf. Winners Cup. Winners Cup. I've never even heard of that. And I've drank some shit before. That's crazy. And at a wonderful little horse on the label. We had a, we bought cigarettes for a nine-and-a-mine sense

of pack in high school and they were called smokes. No. They might even have an exclamation mark at the end of them. Smokes. Smokes. Like they were worse than like parliaments or winds. I got, sorry, gone. No, no, I love it.

Oh, also another classic cult leader, tactic she makes all of the followers give her their paychecks. Paychecks, insurance payouts, military pensions, any real estate holdings, oil rights, she actually even makes them give her their cars. At the group's peak, she has collected

around $300,000 from her followers, which is over $5 million in today's money. So with the follower she has, she is actually making bank. And then she pulls in a wealthy recruit named Clifford Dabney, whose family got rich off of oil. And he's very interested in this book of the teachings of the Archangel Gabriel about the apocalypse. And basically, more specifically, about the maze and systems that Gabriel will be revealing the earth's hidden treasures. So he's banking on this idea that if he gets this book printed,

that he will basically be investing to have all this wealth come back to him once the book is printed. Right. So it's like half smart and half so dumb that you're like, what, how are you? How? So he makes hefty donations to May. And he waits patiently for the book to be finished. And he also donates several acres of land in Seamy Valley to the group.

Uh-huh. But May isn't as interested in finishing the book as she was because now she's real excited about that track of land in Seamy Valley. So she moves out of this rental house because then she doesn't have to pay, right? Any more to this donated land and They now have about a hundred members Wow to live on this new property and over the next year

The grade 11 members are the ones who actually build cabins buildings and even a temple for them all to live in on this property Oh, shit, so she has the cult members do the manual labor themselves. Yeah, of course. And inside that temple, they built, there's an 800 pound gilded throne that they say is reserved for when Christ returns to earth. You know Jesus, that whole thing that he was about, gold throne?

Excuse me, I won't sit anywhere unless it's 800 pound gold throne because I am Mr. Materialistic, Jesus Christ. Jesus, age Christ. Of Jerusalio. Yeah, heard. You know me. So I love that idea, or just like that's like that kind of thing

where you get somebody a birthday present that you want. Right. Like don't you love it? And it's like, no, I've never been interested in this ever. Don't have this. But these construction projects are very expensive, obviously. So May is actually burning through the millions of five million dollars that she's been donated. She's just like burning through it.

So she comes up with a perfect solution to get the cult more money. She has her followers go work it in nearby tomato packing plant. Okay, great idea. And of course all those paychecks come right back to her. And of course this is exhausting work. She basically has them doing manual labor at home and then going out and doing manual labor. So she has to now really work to keep her followers invested in this plan. So she's secretly, this I love, she secretly hires people to start doing special effects

during their meetings. So none of the members know this, but suddenly they're seeing flashing lights during the meeting or they hear disembodied voices. And of course this is all just convincing them. This really is real and she's just called down to the Warner Brothers and been like, hey do you have any lighting guys I could hire for the day to come set up some stuff for me? I mean who believes that shit? I don't get it. I guess these people who have kind of like maybe

they already had a little bit of a propensity toward like the open-mindedness, quote unquote, which sometimes you say open-minded when you just mean not that bright, right? Yeah, yeah. So you're just kind of like open to whatevs that comes along. And also she starts doing these nighttime ritual. So it's getting cultier and cultier. Right. The nighttime ritual, she has everybody

where matching robes, and then they take the robes off their naked, and they dance in the dark outside. And then they sacrifice animals. No. Right? Which is just kind of the hacky version of where a cult. Yeah. Here's the not hacky version updated Los Angeles version. They also sacrifice a couple cars. What? I don't know. Maybe people bummed out about the animal sacrifice. Yeah.

I don't know what that actually entails. If it's like one of those rage things where you get to take a sledgehammer to a car, I don't know. In 1924, 43-year-old Mae marries a man who is 20 years younger than her. And our instincts are to cheer during a story point like this, only not when the guy that she marries is a guy like Ward Blackburn, who is also big reveal her step brother. Oh, no. Uh-huh.

Word to put it mildly is a loser. He brings nothing to the table financially, socially. He's just nasty. He wears the same clothes until he stinks. He keeps his fingernails prepare yourself five inches long. So, Marin wrote basically it's like the length of a soda can. keeps his fingernails prepare yourself five inches long. So Marin wrote, basically it's like the length of a soda can. Yeah.

Yeah. And then on top of that, he's rumored to be a pedophile. Ah. Who? Right? So there's a ton of theories of why May would marry Ward. First, obviously, she can manipulate him into doing whatever she wants. That's one theory. Another theory is may apparently has a real aversion to being touched, like the only person allowed to touch

her is her daughter. There's a theory that Ward being a pedophile would have no interest in a middle-aged woman. He's probably causing problems for his family, so she's like, send him down here. I'll provide cover for him. And essentially, then he's my quote-unquote husband, but none of that marital stuff applies for us. It's also been alleged that May also was a pedophile, or maybe just a psychopath. According to Samuel Fort, there are reports of May approaching young girls in public and asking their mothers to, quote, give them to her. And there's one case where May's driver actually stopped in front of a house and see me valley and begin to approach an unattended child in their front yard. But before anything could happen, the kid's parents ran

outside and chased the driver off with a gun. So whether it was pedophilia directly or she was just like, oh, there's value in having children or whatever. It's just, it kind of points to, I think that like, there was nothing kind of internally unhinged. They're unhinged. Yeah, there's no moral compass here. It seems. So at this point, it's now the mid 1920s,

and we're still only a couple of years into the great 11s existence, which is kind of mind-blowing. Yeah. And May's cult leader tendencies escalate. When people try to leave the group, she reportedly threatens, stalks, extorts, and black males them. And in some cases, she has them kidnapped and returned to the property. Some people who speak out against May and against the cult go missing altogether, including Ruth's second husband. So Ruth, her second husband was a 17-year-old devout Catholic named Samuel Rizio,

who, despite marrying Ruth, never liked the idea of the grade 11 and what they were all about. And in 1924, days after a fight between Samuel and Ruth that escalated into domestic violence, Samuel vanishes while on the cult property. It's later revealed that just before his disappearance may ask several great 11 members to go get her chloroform and poison. Tch, ho, tch, ho, tch. Yeah.

So then in 1928, a member of the great 11 named Margaret chloroform and poison. Luda. Yeah. So then in 1928, a member of the great 11 named Margaret comes to May with a request. She wants May to heal her sister, Francis Turner. Francis lives with multiple disabilities. She is unable to talk. She's affected by paralysis. She's in chronic pain. And she presumably never consents to

this treatment or even this idea. She's under the care of good doctors as she is, but Francis in this cult thinks that May has like superpowers essentially. And so she's like, can you please heal my sister? So Francis is brought to see me valley for a cure. There is no cure. May has no powers. So basically she just starts making shit up. And this is where things turn nightmarish and it becomes outright torture. Because May's idea for treating Francis is she puts her in a five-foot-wide brick structure that has chicken wire hanging horizontally from the ceiling.

And according to Samuel Ford's book, quote, hot bricks from a nearby stove were being placed on top of the chicken wire, effectively turning the platform into a broiler. What end quote the hack? So Francis dies of his fixation within an hour of this treatment. It's unclear if May ever genuinely thought she could heal Francis, but Samuel Fort writes

that quote, as soon as May realized she killed the woman, she jumped into her Lincoln and drove rapidly away. She left the disposal of Francis Turner's body to another cult member and May had her followers dismantled the boiler and used the salvage bricks to build a walkway that led to the front door of one of the cabins. May took the bricks that were the instruments of Francis Turner's death and turned them into a path trought an underfoot every day by other cultists. Oh my god. Oh, it's awful. Another death linked to the Great 11 involves a teenage daughter of two cult members that teenage daughters named Willa Rhodes, and Willa was very popular

within the cult, especially with May, May adored Willa, so much so that she dubs her both a priestess and a queen of the great 11. Unfortunately, though in late December of 1924, Willa develops a serious tooth infection that goes untreated, and she dies on New Year's Day of 1925, and she's just 16 years old at the time of her death. Of course, this looks very bad for May. May is supposed to be talking to directly to God basically through Archangel Gabriel. Why would she let someone who's actually a queen in this group die?

Why would God allow her to die if there's this big plan? As Willa's devastated parents figure out arrangements for their daughter's body, may claims that she's just heard from an angel, and she says that the angel says, Willa is going to be resurrected soon so they can't bury her. Instead, she'll need to be preserved. So Willa's mother in bombs her using a quote, ancient recipe of herbs and ointments, and her body is then kept on ice, which is constantly replenished for weeks. As months pass, Willa is moved from location to location on the property, but never allowed

to be properly buried. Oh my God. Yeah. There's a rumor that has been disproved or that Samuel Fort in his book says, there's almost no way this could be true. But there's a lot of people when they retell the story talk about that they were driving Willa's body around so that other people would see her,

quote unquote, see her, and think she was still alive. Yeah, but that's, they think that's just kind of like, basically the story is so crazy that it then kind of spawns additional crazy stories. Anyway, it still gets crazy because 14 months after Willas' death may give the Rhodes approval to move Willas' body to their new home in Venice, California, Venice Beach.

They put Willis Body in a casket and then they place the casket in a hollowed out section of their bedroom floor under their bed. Oh no. Uh huh. They sleep above the body of their daughter for years, waiting for her to be resurrected, wake up,

and climb back up out of the floor. Oh my God. That was the promise, like the post apocalyptic promise that the grade 11 was making to everybody. I mean, that's, that's mental illness at that point. That's not religious.

You know what I mean? It's brainwashing. Yeah. They are in a cult full out. They believe everything they've been told and they're living it to the wildest of results. Right. Well, there's also the like alternative of like, okay, but if they stop believing that, then they've done this to their daughter. And they can't live with that. So they have to keep believing it

in order to not fall apart. Yes. The greater the loss and the greater the stakes The more you have to double and triple down. Yeah. And what's crazy is despite all of those horrible events the great 11 Manages to fly under the radar for years But then in the late 1920s Clifford Dabney who is the one that donated the Seamy Valley property and a bunch of money, he finally is fed up. He has been waiting for May and Ruth to finish that book. Still no publication date in sight.

He's finally seeing through May's baseless promises. He's finally waking up. He's feeling cheated. He sunk $50,000 into the Great 11, which is worth over $700,000 today. Wow. So he goes to the police and files a report accusing May of fraud,

but the officers don't take him seriously right away. In their eyes, he willingly gave his money to May and the cult, but then tips start rolling in from the public about either loved ones going missing or people dying under strange circumstances out on the Seemee Valley property. So the police started an investigation and finally in 1929 May is arrested. Not for violent crime though. Instead, the police probe leads to 15 counts of grand theft related to May's alleged scamming. Ruth is also arrested initially,

but all charges against her are dropped when they realize that May is the ringleader. May pleads not guilty to all charges. When her trial begins in January of 1930, she puts on a hell of a show. While testifying, she collapses on the stand. When she comes 1930, she puts on a hell of a show. While testifying, she collapses on the stand. When she comes to, she says she's exhausted by the angels constantly interfering with her life. And later, when asked if she's committed

fraud, she firmly says no before clarifying that if she did do anything illegal, it was merely at the command of the angels. That's not gonna fly in court, I hope. No, I don't think so. May's trial includes testimony about the multiple deaths and disappearances that are linked to the cult, including the fact that police recovered the body

of Willa Rhodes from under her parents' floorboards. And by that point, Willa had been dead for four years. Ooh. So May has found guilty on eight charges of grand theft. She's held in Los Angeles County Jail and then sent to San Quentin. But shortly into her prison stint, her lawyers appeal her conviction,

arguing that May's trial was about grand theft and the prosecution's decision to include testimony about Willa Rhodes and Samuel Rizio and Frances Turner almost certainly prejudiced the jury. In 1930, the California Supreme Court weighs in on May's verdict and agrees with her defense attorneys. The Justice's decision also concludes that there's no real indication of fraud in this case because the great 11s cult members willingly handed over donations to May and her religious organization and with that May is exonerated and released into the public. I don't buy that. I mean, I wonder if they have things in place now

where if you can prove that level of brainwashing essentially. Right. It's like just because you believed that she was talking to Gabriel and then so gave her all your money because of that. That is fraud because she's not talking to him, but if they can't prove that, like, you know, definitively, then it's not fraud. It's a gray area because they did get into it voluntarily. I think that's why I love talking about cults because it's the kind of thing that can happen

to anyone. It doesn't just because, like, may targeted women and targeted people who are poor, it could happen to a rich person, it could happen to someone who went to MIT. Right. Like, it has happened to all of those types of people. It just depends on what the big hole inside of you is and what you're searching for and how opportunists can basically turn around and be like, oh, you know that thing you're searching for? I gotcha. Here it is.

Right here. And like, what's yours? Mine's cats. I'd fall for a cat thing. You'd be in a cat cult so quickly. I already am, I have three of them living in my home. You started it, you started one. I like the way you say, they're in my home. They've infiltrated my home. They're everywhere in here. You're gonna have to get rats to get rid of the cats. Oh, I love rats.

They're so sweet. Okay, so after this, as you would be able to guess, the divine order of the Royal Arms of the Great 11 loses a lot of steam. The coverage is very sensationalized from May's trial. It's nationwide, making it very hard to find new recruits, but a core group of followers does stay in it for several years after. And the cult eventually relocates to Lake Tahoe. Oh, it's lovely this time of year. It's gorgeous, although Lake is very cold. There's a series that I love on TikTok.

It's an account by a person. It's just at Geo Geo. And they have a blue check. This person talks about lakes all the time and the bio on her account is yes, hello, which is how they start every single talk. Which makes me like yes, hello, and it says lake by call stand account, which is that super weird lake in Russia that has a bunch of mysterious things about it. No one can explain.

What? Yeah, you have to go on there. No, you have to cover it sometime. Yeah, maybe. Every October, they do spooky lake month. Okay. And so every day in October, they feature a different spooky lake. On on day one, October 1st, they covered Lake Tahoe.

And there's all kinds of shit. I was like, what? What? Do you know the Lake Tahoe? I thought that was just for bros and shit. No, no, they think there's at least 200 bodies at the bottom of Lake Tahoe. Yeah, I could see there.

Cause the mafia used to dump raties. I hate them off. Lake Tahoe. Oh my God. Okay. May remains at the home of the great 11 with Ruth by her side over the next several years, as you might imagine, even in Lake Tahoe, the group fizzles out.

No one affiliated with the great 11, including May and Ruth, is ever charged with any crime related to any of the deaths or disappearances linked to the cult. As Samuel Fort explains, quote, by circumstance or design, all the cult deaths had occurred a year or more before the start of the police investigation. There was talk of exhuming the bodies to look for signs of foul play, but that didn't happen. And because of the limited forensic tools available at the time, the state had dim hopes of finding anything actionable." So both May and Ruth fall out of the public eye in the years after the trial. We know that in the mid-1930s, May self-publishes a book called The Origin of God.

Right, she's still on it, which made me think of the lady from Starvation Heights. Remember the Starvation Heights story that I told you where even after she got caught and edit all the stuff, she still kept putting stuff out, like couldn't not do it. She's getting high on her own supply. Essentially. Yeah, for real. But it's like, I get one like red notice in the mail

and I freak out forever. It's like, there's some people who like go to trial, go to jail, get out, and they're like, what can I do that's very similar than what got me there in the first place? Right. Like they don't give you a showing with it. Yeah. I got to keep going. The book that they claimed was being dictated by Angel Gabriel never gets published. I don't think I have to tell you that because it was all blank inside because it probably was never happening.

Ruth meanwhile, the daughter goes on to continue writing religious books and pamphlets and in 1951, her mother may quietly passes away at the age of 69. Ruth herself dies in 1978 when she's about 80 years old. It's kind of, what's that phrase? And an era? No. I mean, yes for sure. I was looking for the thing where it's like a disappointing ending because it's like wait, after all that. Yeah. So what I'm looking for. Do you know what I'm talking about? I's a, um, boom, boom is. Antichlorimactic. Thank you.

All I could think of was post-apocalyptic. That's what I was supposed to be. That's what it was supposed to be, and instead it was anticlimactic. I know that. But even still, we're at the end. That is the story of May Odess Blackburn, her daughter Ruth Wyland-Rizio,

and they're called the Divine Order of the Royal Arms of the Great 11. And if you have a chance, because there's many, many more details and insanity and craziness, you have to read Samuel Forge, the Cult of the Great 11, because this is a synopsis of that, to go read that.

That was a way bigger story than I thought it would be. You know what I mean? I kind of thought it would just be like a couple of years. A couple of years. A couple of years of like some Tom Poolery. But that was like how we not hurt of them. This is like on the same level as not so much, but like, you know, that's a big story that I'd never heard of.

It's been suggested. And also, as I was reading Marron's research, I was like, oh, I was on the dollop once with Dave and Gareth, and they covered this story. Oh, wow. But at the time, it was to not know the story at all. Yeah. And then to have Dave just telling us the story. And of course, Gareth and I would not stop riffing me until the time. Right. Of course. So I didn't even kind of get what was happening most of the time. And then when I read this, I'm like, wait a second. I like this sounds familiar. The first season of Perry Mason, there's a female run religious cult in Los Angeles. And is that based on that or just happens to be similar?

This is just guesswork. I think it's partially based on this and partially based on the sister Amy, the church of the square in the circle or whatever it's called, but there was a ton of them. Yeah. That's so wild. I mean, everywhere you looked. Yeah, I guess when you're a transplant, too,

to like a new city, a new growing city, you're like looking for a home kind of. So it's probably pretty easy to like get sucked into. If you got here and you auditioned for say six months and then you started getting parts, you have a career, so you have something to do. If you got here and after two years, people are like thanks but no thanks. What do you do then? You get a regular job and you kind of are like, oh I get to watch everybody else do their dream and not do mind-dream.

So, it's the perfect city for this kind of stuff. To have faith, right? Yep. And to be like, I need to be maximizing my potential. I need to be, how do I do it so that I can get ahead of the 100 million other people that are trying to do exactly what I'm doing? Yeah, oh, you're right.

It's rough. Oh, hey, Vey. It's rough. Oh, Los Angeles, you special bitch. You crazy lady. That was freaking awesome. An excellent way to go. That was like such a great Karen paper. Yeah, paper. That was actually perfectly a story for me.

Yeah. It really was. Well, then let's save mine for next week because I feel like that was like a perfect episode. I mean, yeah, let's not keep going after an hour and a half. You don't want to do three hour podcasts anymore? To be monetizing a two and a half hour podcast. There's a business element to this also. That's not great. Yeah, yeah, which would be the learning as we go and we're still seven. Oh my god, almost eight years now.

That's right. Coming up on eight years. We're still kind of don't know what we're doing. Well, what's great about us is we're not interested in knowing what we're doing. And, you know, not everyone loves that, but some people do. Yeah. And that's what we're here for, baby. We never claim to be no doers of knowing. You know what everyone loves that. But some people do. And that's what we're here for, baby. We never claim to be no doers of knowing.

You know what I mean? Not once, not. Never doers of knowing. Not once. Doers of knowing. That's another good band name. Well, thank you guys for listening. We'll see you next week.

Yeah, part two, cliffhanger. The car too. We'll be know what we're doing next week. We know. That's right. Next week, we're going to both wear ties and blazers. I'm going to wear a pocket square. Yes. I'm going to wear a short skirt and a long blazer. Okay, that's my last musical quote. 90s musical quote. 90s musical club. Um, stay sexy. Oh, and joke.

Do it again. Yeah. Stay sexy. Don't get murdered! Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah! This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. our managing producer's Hanna Kyle Crichton.

Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squilachi. Our researchers are Marin McClauchion and Ali Elkin. Email your hometowns to my favorite murder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at my favorite murder and Twitter at my fave murder. Goodbye! Listen, follow, leave a serve of you on Amazon Music, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, prime members, did you know that you can listen to my favorite murder early and ad free on

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