Episode 53: The False Prophet Effect

This week we go down a wild rabbit hole with Netflix’s The False Prophet and honestly, we weren’t ready for how messed up this one gets.

What starts as a conversation about FLDS culture turns into a full breakdown of how one man, Samuel Bateman, took advantage of a broken system and turned it into something way darker. We’re talking manipulation, control, blind faith and decisions that will genuinely make you pause and go “how does this even happen?”

We don’t just recap the documentary we react to it in real time. The anger, the confusion, the moments that made zero sense, and the ones that hit way too hard. Especially when it comes to the women and kids caught in the middle of it.

And then there’s Christine and Toga two people who saw what was happening and decided to step in, even when it meant putting themselves right in the middle of something dangerous.

This episode is messy, honest, and a little all over the place because that’s exactly how this story feels. But at the end of it, one thing’s clear: this wasn’t just about one man. It’s about what happens when people are taught not to question and what it takes to finally break out of that.

As always stay hydrated, take care of your mental health, and brace yourself for the unexpected.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Welcome to Current Chatter, the place where we dive into the latest news and happenings going on around the world. Join mother and son duo, Coda, and Losa as they engage in lively debates over current affairs and anything else that sparks a discussion. With diverse perspectives and a bit of fun, you never know what topics will come up next. Tune in every Friday afternoon for your weekly dose of current chatter. Hello, hello, hello. You know what time it is? It's time for current chatter. Two generations, one noisy world. How you doing, Dakota?

SPEAKER_01 0:44

I'm doing alright. A lot better than last week. I uh owe everybody an apology for skipping out last week. I had some mental health things that I was going through, and I just was not in the right mindset to record a podcast. It's not that I didn't want to, I just couldn't have been my funny self. So um we take mental health seriously at this podcast. So if we needed to check out, we can check out. Yep. That's what it's all about. So in in the midst of my like I want my episode, we'll just call it an episode. Uh this docuseries on Netflix dropped. And I was so excited to check it out, and I didn't even tell mom about it. And I not even halfway through the first episode, I text mom and was like, Hey, have you seen this yet? She goes, Yeah, me and dad are uh almost finished it with it. We're on the last episode. And I was like, Okay, you can't spoil anything. We'll talk about this on the podcast. So this doc series is called Trust Me, I'm a False Prophet that just released Wednesday.

SPEAKER_02 1:40

Trust me, false prophet.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Are you sure?

SPEAKER_03 1:43

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Trust me, and then false prophet. So good. It's called Trust Me the False Prophet. No, you're right. You're false prophet. The false false prophet. But I went into this, have already known a little bit about the Warren Jeffs thing going on in Colorado City. It's like right on the border of Arizona and Utah, correct? It's like right in that little niche. Like Rin's family lives probably an hour and a half, not even that, away from Colorado City, which it's weird to have Colorado City in the middle of Arizona and Utah. You're just like, why wouldn't it be in Colorado?

SPEAKER_02 2:19

It's got to be Colorado somewhere. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Snowhere near Colorado. No. So and this takes place, I think it started um roughly nine or 2019. 2019. 2019. And they have gathered evidence all the way up till I think 2024.

SPEAKER_03 2:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Yeah. And I had no clue this was going on. Like none at all. Did you have any inkling of of the what was going on?

SPEAKER_02 2:44

Uh about well, I know everybody in Utah knows about the FLDS and where they live and yes stuff. So if you're not from Utah, you would be like, what? So FLDS stands for fundamentalist uh Latter-day Saints. And they're an offshoot of the Mormon religion that believes still in plural marriage. And so there's several offshoots that have big communities here in Utah. So this is one of the offshoots that was dedicated, really dedicated to Warren Jeffs and everything that Warren Jeffs stood for. And so because Warren Jeffs is now in prison in Texas, I think that the whole group in Colorado City was just floundering without their profit.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

Yeah, they were they were super lost. Did you happen to watch um it's called Keep Sweet, Pray and Obey? That was the the first um Docky series that Netflix did. And it followed, it it gave you the full story of Warren Jeffs and and uh the crimes that he committed. Um with I don't want to say with the help of the FLDS, but with the cloaked protection that this church or cult gave Warren Jeffs. Right.

SPEAKER_02 3:59

Um some of the first I have to really I have to just butt in, sorry, Takoda. No, you're fine and just say that I know plenty of FLDS people. And I just want to say that the majority of them are not like this. And I want that to be a hundred percent clear going into it that this is just this happens to be just isolated incidences. Yes, they're fantastical, and yes, it makes for a really great documentary. But the majority of the people out there that are FLDS are just like us. You wouldn't know that they were FLDS unless they came out and told you.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Yes, absolutely. That that is a very good call out, and I appreciate you saying that for sure, and I'm I'm sure some of our listeners will appreciate that too. Uh we should preface also that the these are offshoots of FLDS. They they they wear the FLDS badge, but they've manipulated these books and scriptures into a way that feeds not only their ego, but their disgusting behavior. And yes, not not all FLDS followers believe in this radical idolization of having sex with underage children. Like Thunderage. It's bad. All right, but we're spoiling it. So Yeah. So you start out in episode one meeting this gal named Christine Marie, correct? Marie? Um Christine Marie. Yep, Christine Marie, and she she has like all these weird quirks about her. She's like uh, she does Vantuilicurist. Vantumist. Yep, she she does the where the dummies talking, but she's the one talk, you guys know what we're talking about. Um she also was uh um Miss what state was she representing?

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Minnesota or something back, middle middle of the country, I think.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Yeah, yeah, but she she yeah, she was a pageant queen.

SPEAKER_02 5:39

And grew up LDS. Yes, she did grow up LDS. Latter-day Saint. Sorry, I should have said that because it's Latter-day Saint now, so I forget that it is.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Um, anyways, so her and her husband Toga, which I love that name, at first I was like, well, that's a goofy name, but he comes from Turkey, so I wonder I didn't look and see if that was like a a normal name in Turkey. Yeah, exactly. Just uh it was just weird. But her and her husband moved to um Colorado City, and um Colorado City right now or in the beginning of the documentary, it's it's very us versus them. The FLDS people that live there, that is the majority of who is in that city is FLDS. And there are a few people uh who aren't FLDS.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Christine was at Christine and Toga were one of them, but they were very separate, like they don't have anything to do with if you're not part of their group. You're an outsider, then you are considered evil and bad, and you're going to hell. And why would you want to associate with people that are going to hell?

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Exactly. Christine just wanted to sit and talk with these people. That's what it felt like in the beginning. She had some questions again. She was L LDS or Latter-day Saints, whatever. She felt this closeness with some of the people there. And the first set of women that you meet that are they they run this little cottage. I can't remember what the cottage was called. Do you remember? I don't. It was like the cottage in or something like that. But the but those women gave jobs to some of the women in the F L DS church. Correct. Correct. Some of those women are the women from uh Keep Sweet, Pray and Obey. Some of those women. Yes. And that's Rin and I were watching it going, where have we seen these ladies before? They're only in the first episode, and then you you meet um the the main group of women in um this other offshoot of the FLDS. So Christine is getting um close and familiar with the FLDS, and at some point someone introduces her and toga to Samuel Bateman.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

And Samuel Bateman is the unfortunate star of our of our saga. He and he is just gonna throw it out there, you fight me for it. Sick and disgusting human being.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Yes, absolutely. He um yeah. Uh I I yeah, he he's just as disgusting, if not more disgusting than Warren Jeffs. Just just saying.

SPEAKER_02 8:05

But when I would say way more. Way more. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 8:11

I don't know because Warren Warren Jeffs was able to hide his um liabilities longer than Samuel was. Samuel was only doing this for so many years.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

The country and the FBI and the police were had been alerted to it because of what happened with Warren Jeffs. They were they I don't know if they were necessarily looking for it as much as they were like a little bit more tuned into seeing it.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

Does that yes, but I'm saying Warren Jeffs got away with it longer than Samuel did, so Warren probably did more heinous acts. I I that we'll get into it. But but uh this episode has nothing to do with Warren Jeffs. They they very hardly ever talk about him. You do see him, like pictures of him and whatnot, but when Warren went to prison, he told his followers that they're not allowed to marry anyone else or continue having children.

SPEAKER_02 9:03

Right. They could not procreate.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

It got to a point where one couple um almost got divorced uh because they were sleeping in separate beds, but the the husband was such a strict follower and the wife was like, I just want companionship. You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_02 9:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Um and then they go into this addict and there's cribs everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

The FLDS had taken any crib that they had and stuck it into You know what it reminded me of that scene from Sleeping Beauty where she runs into all of the spindles. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Yeah, that is a fantastic analogy.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Instead of spindles, it was baby cribs.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Samuel Bateman comes in and he has taken on a new wife. Warren Jeff's F F L D S followers were kind of like, What the fuck? Like, you're not supposed to do that. You can't do those kind of things. Right. And Christine and Toga start talking with Samuel. Uh several months go by, and then they contact Samuel again, and he's got a second wife who happens to be the sister of his first wife, which is hinkly to me. That it like it Yeah, it's just not right. I'm sorry. It's not. Um and he ends up talking three different men who are offshoots of Warren Jeff's FLDS into following him. And the way he's able to manipulate grown men in such a short amount of time is mind-boggling.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

I think I really think that those men, not just the men, but the women, were just desperately wanting to be in contact with somebody that they thought was a prophet. Because their prophet, who they had contact with and was always there, was now gone and it left a void that every there's they still haven't recovered from the void that Warren Jeffs had. And this didn't help at all.

SPEAKER_01 10:56

No, and I think Samuel knew he could prey on these people. I don't think Samuel grew up FLDS, correct?

SPEAKER_02 11:03

I don't know. I don't remember I don't think they said anything about his his fundamental years. They just started with He just here is Yeah, he just came into the picture.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

So he was able to talk these three different grown-ass fucking men into his offshoot of FLDS. And in doing so, Samuel Bateman convinces these three men to surrender all of their wives. They had multiple wives, multiple children. Plural. Yep, they were plurally married. He convinced these men to hand over these girls to Samuel. And Samuel went from having two wives to I think they said 18 or 19.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

20. He had over 20 by the time it was all said and done.

SPEAKER_01 11:45

I think it was 24 when it was said and done. Uh, but they said 20 in the beginning because they didn't realize um the age gap. Yeah. Yeah. So he goes from having two wives to 18 or 20 wives in two separate houses pregnant and babies.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

Yes. That was the most important part. Is that they were having babies. They were like, these women were like, I finally, this is what God put me on this earth for. And Samuel Bateman is the key to that. So I just was so flat. I I was just godsmacked about it, that about that. You know what I mean? Yes. That and they talk about that, that they raise their women to be obedient, and that's all they raise them for. They are to be obedient to their male figure.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

Male figure in the family. And that's that's what the FLDS really this offshoot of FLDS points out is that these women and children cannot get to their heavenly plane without them a man. Yeah, without having a man who is devoted to the FLDS. So these women, they are thinking that their whole salvation lies in these men that they just have to trust. They don't they don't ask questions, they just say, okay.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

That well, that's I mean, if you don't know anything else, Dakota, put yourself in their shoes. If you didn't know anything else besides what you were raised to believe, of course, that everybody has that. Everybody has a little bit of that. But think about the fact that these are are offshoots that are very, very se cloistered, cloistered. You might not know that. You might not know you're living next door to somebody who is a in a plural marriage because they are cloistered.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Yes. Yes, they don't know any better that this is and any time they even started to question it, they were brought back to, hey, this is how we need to think if you want to find your salvation. Because I I'm sure they're probably uh it gets into it a little bit. I'm sure there was more questioning when Samuel walked in, you know. Right. Um his offshoot begins to gather followers r very quickly and it's exploding at a crazy rate.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

Well, that because he was married to everybody. Yes he had his fingers in everybody's business because he was married to their daughters.

SPEAKER_01 13:56

Yes. He he formed this new inner circle of just women, and he was in the center of it because he was the man. I I feel like we should kind of describe Samuel Bateman. He is, I would say what, 55? He's not an attractive person at all.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Like at all. He would wear, I would just scream at the TV, he would wear this white driving leather jacket everywhere. And I was like, I hate it. I hate that jacket. I want him to take it off and I want to strangle him with it.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

And they had these awful scenes because so I I forgot to mention Toga is a music video producer. So he carries a camera everywhere he goes. This is something that that the FLDS has to get used to. Christine is very open about it. She says, We just like to film everything. We like to keep these memories, and this is how we do it, if you're okay with us doing this. Right. So Toga films everything, and Samuel just like worships Toga's feet. I I like he just can't. He's so excited to have someone to document his divine entity that he just can't see past the he was just dumb. And it goes back to stop recording everything. Like if you're doing something illegal, stop recording it.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

Yeah. That's for that's like rule number one. Not rule number two, um, he was he was so delusional. And you didn't really, you were like, you kind of thought, oh, he's delusional. And then he says that the Queen of England is supposed to be one of his wives and subservient to him so that he can rule the world because he's supposed to take on the North and South America and England because he England would be yes, because he would be married to her. And he's like, but don't think that the Queen of England's gonna come to Colorado City. She needs to come to a palace and then shows out this palace drawing that he's had.

SPEAKER_01 15:56

It looks like the most redneck version of the White House I can think of. Right. And he was in it, and on the bottom it just said coming soon. Right. They framed this picture.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

He framed it and like put it in his own.

SPEAKER_02 16:10

That's how delusional he is. He was truly truly that. Well, I don't know if he truly believed it. He was such a sick and twisted person. I don't know what he believed, honestly. This is what was for the cameras, because he just wanted to be he want he wanted everything to be filmed. Toga and Christine had to be available to him 24-7 to just go out wherever he was and do film him. They filmed him like Billy Goting through the canyons of Utah.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

Oh my god, can we talk about that for a second? Like when when those scenes would come and guys, this is episode one. Right. Like they would film him and he would just like run and and hop on these rocks. Parkour in the mountains.

SPEAKER_02 16:49

Parkour. Yeah, parkour.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

But you know what it also reminded me of? You remember the Steven, the little kid from Mad TV? Look what I can do.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Yes. You got it there.

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Because he would run, jump on these rocks, and then run back up, and Togo would be like, oh my gosh, man, you're so amazing. Look how how effortlessly you hike. And he's like, Yeah, you saw that.

SPEAKER_02 17:11

Did you get it on tape? Did you get it on tape? These these megalomaniacs who want everything recorded for prosperity's sake, and then don't understand why they end up in prison.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

But at that, and he just like, you could tell he was breathing super hard, but because he was built being filmed, he didn't want to look like he was breathing hard, so his chest was just like Right.

SPEAKER_02 17:32

Yeah. He's a big guy. He's a big I wouldn't say he's huge, but he was a bigger channel.

SPEAKER_01 17:38

He's not a little guy. He's not a man. No. Ahaba is a fantastic. I think of uh Samwise Gamsey. Yeah. And I I don't want to compare because Sam Wise is a phenomenal person. He will always be top-tier kind of person, kind of man you want you want are on your side. Samuel Bateman, absolutely apple. The shape, the the shape and the body, totally Samwise Gansy. Gamsy.

SPEAKER_02 18:01

No other way. No in no other way is he like that.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Yeah, absolutely. So I I just want to end episode one with one sentence, and it just holds so true to me while I was like doing my research, and they said this in in the um in this episode. They said Bateman didn't build something new, he stepped into something that was already broken. Right. And he's such a con man and such a con artist that he saw this opportunity to get these people into it and they just floundered on top of it. It was like the football's right in the middle, and then everybody just pile drive onto it. Yeah. Um, so episode two opens up. Um, it's I think it was called The Rise of Bateman. He Bateman declares himself a successor of Warren Jeff's. He says Warren Jeffs is actually dead. What we're seeing from Texas Prison is I can't remember what it like old videos, old he basically said that Warren Jeffs is dead and he talks through me. From now on. Yes. And the way these women look at him while he's talking about it is like they're seeing sliced bread for the first time. It's rapture. Their their eyes are all wide and they can't believe that this man's sitting in front of them.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

I was gonna say this for the end, but you just see you don't see anything in these the eyes. They're just dead. These women are dead, they have they have no like life in their eyes. They're just and they they train that on him and they're like, he is, he is the one for us. You know, and it's just it it boggled my mind how dark they looked. None of them looked happy, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 19:38

No, and even the ones that looked happy, you could tell they were faking it because they just like they were happy to have a leader again, whether or not they fully believed in in his leadership style. I don't even want to call it that. Is it give me the ick. So he has proclaimed himself as the prophet at that directly connects. The reincarnation, yes. Yes, yes. And so he gets a truck and a trailer and piles up all of his wives and the women that he takes, or the women that that his three male followers gave him, and just takes them around Colorado City.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

So what you failed to say is that it's a uh flatbed truck with like a three, not even a a two-foot gate around it. Right. Uh really so the he's driving around with women in a flatbed truck.

SPEAKER_01 20:30

And children. These children are just being held on to by women. No one's strapped in.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

And then he would stop at like the store so the women could sing because he thought that they were just the most heavenly choir.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

And then it says, Hey, some of these girls in this on this truck bed are underage, and we have CGI's their face out like they CGI'd a different face on their body. And that's when you kind of like, you're like, that person doesn't look right. That person doesn't, and you're just pointing out way too many faces that don't look right. That's telling you how many underage girls are in the back of that trailer, and you're kind of just like, what?

SPEAKER_02 21:08

Like, yeah, and it's like and you just the ick starts, right? This is the first time where you're like, okay, this isn't gonna be good.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

It's like the that uh the The Simpsons, I'm in danger.

SPEAKER_02 21:19

Like danger, danger, Will Robinson from my it from my age group.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Yes. That's when Christine is like, uh-oh. This isn't this isn't okay. So she decides, along with Toga, these two have decided they are going to take this man down. One, they don't have any evidence that he's harming children. Two, they aren't in the inner circle yet. I mean, yes, Toga has filmed Samuel out in the open, but they're they're they have never been left alone with the females or just yeah, it's always been Or with Samuel.

SPEAKER_02 21:53

It's always with females.

SPEAKER_01 21:54

Always a group effort, yep. And before any of the girls speak, they look to Samuel to make sure that they it's their turn. To speak.

SPEAKER_02 22:01

And he tells them what to say. And then it's like, just tell them your testimony that your testimony does this. That you're and he told them what he would tell them what to say, which just oh yes. So I agree with like with some of the things that are happening nowadays where people are like, I want to be a traditional wife or something like that, you know? But it's not like this isn't what traditional wives look like. This isn't what this isn't healthy, it's not nice, it's not, it's it's ick. It's the beginning of the ick.

SPEAKER_01 22:34

Yes. So Christine and Toga have decided that they are going to take Sam down. They don't know what he's doing, but they have an underlying feeling that whatever he's doing isn't right. And thank any deity above anything that these two people were like, something's fucking wrong here, and we need to figure it out. And that's when you kind of get a little bit more into Christine's um past experiences, that she was in the FLD or the LDS, and she also followed a cult leader at some point um that would trick her out to other LDS people. Men.

SPEAKER_02 23:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:11

Yes. So let's go back to the three men that gave up their wives and children um to go ahead and marry Samuel. Some of these girls were under ten and they were being called Samuel's wives. But the three men, including Samuel, so the four of them all worked for a company that one of the three men owned. And Moroni. Moroni. Was it Moroni that owned it? Mm-hmm. I thought it was the other one because Moroni I think it was the other guy.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Yeah, I don't remember their name. Yeah, I don't remember his name.

SPEAKER_01 23:42

Yeah. Um, but somehow Sam is able to convince the owner of the company that they work for to fund his lifestyle with all of these women. And it's not like a little bit of funding at either. This person, this company owner buys him two houses, buys him a Rolls-Royce, pays for his awful white riders jacket. And like so bad.

SPEAKER_02 24:10

If you if you take nothing else away from that, that riding jackets are out of style. And the only people who use them are serial killers and uh cult leaders.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

So he uh he does have a job and he's like, Yeah, this is cool, you should pay for everything. So he just has his boss pay for everything. Everything. All the wives work, of course. They all have jobs. Yep. Um and then he's sitting in a meeting, Samuel's sitting in a meeting one day, and he gets this divine call in his head.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

That what did he call it?

SPEAKER_01 24:51

He called it a message, uh, vision. Uh so he he he described it as who's the dude that sees the bush on fire in the Bible. Moses. He says it was like Moses seeing the bush on fire. It was that intense for me that my three followers, my three male followers and I need to engage in group sex with my wives. Right. Some of these wives are daughters of the three men. Let me just say that. Like group sex with their fathers. Whether I don't know for a fact if their fathers were having coitus with their daughters, but their daughters were in the room while they were having coitus with someone else. Right. Just think about that for a second. Just like let that sink in. And and and Samuel's sitting at work with this chubby going on, thinking about this, and saying it's a divine message from God. And he said he got up and left. He just left work. He just got up and left in the middle, middle of this. And so he sets forth a plan of action to take this message from God, his fantasy, and put it into reality.

SPEAKER_02 25:54

Yeah, it's so not right. It just it just leaves it just I feel I feel bad for the women. Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Absolutely. So Samuel, being the narcissistic idiot, he is Megalomaniac. Yes, decides that after this has occurred, he's going to tell Christine and Toga about it.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

So he takes Christine and Toga because he is magnanimous enough to let the prophet speak through him that he needs to share this information with the world. With the world.

SPEAKER_01 26:28

Yes. And he knows that if he can do it with Toga and Christina, that he can get away with it. So he takes them and three other wives of his on a car ride in their Bentley. He's wearing that fucking awful white jacket, and he just starts talking to Toga. So he explains to Toga about this divine message he's got from God, and that the three girls in the back are the ones that helped him carry out this orgy. One of those girls was younger than 12. So bad. So bad. And and Christine turns to these girls and says, How does that make you feel? What was it traumatic? Or do you have any kind of trauma trauma from that? And all three of them say, No, God chose me to do this.

SPEAKER_02 27:14

So that's the end of episode two. And it just kind of leaves you like, whoa. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:20

Yeah. Whoa. That's heavy. It's heavy. Because these girls say it with such conviction that there's no questioning them. They just said, no, I'm I'm happy to have been a visitor. No, no, a hundred percent. A hundred percent. I I totally understand that.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

I like if you were raised to be obedient, then you're given to somebody who you think is a prophet. I don't like at 12 or 13, I'd have been like, this is right. It's all good.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

This is what we do.

SPEAKER_02 27:52

This is this is how we act.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Yes. And like one thing that I I love about my upbringing is when I was eight, the Mormon church came at me to get baptized. They did all the things. Yes, they did all the things. And you and dad said, wait a year. If you still want to get baptized in a year, we will allow it to happen. Um, and I think I was probably over it with what, three weeks? Yeah. Like and now I now I sit to this day, I'm I'm ready to go to hell. I I got no passage to get up into heaven. I'm cool with it. Like, I don't need to. Like, I made my decision. But like that's that's also like when Christine ultimately goes, These women are gonna fucking hate me. But we have to continue working with Samuel. We have to fight for these girls. These girls have no idea because again, Christine has a background in cults. She has a doctorate in cult relationships. Yes. She has seen it firsthand what it is to be, I don't want to say naived or brainwashed. I I don't know what the word I'm looking for so captivated in a narration that you think is true. I I I don't know how else to put it. But she can see that there are the to save them, she has to betray them.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

And so, like, what else are you gonna do? Toga asks her at one point, can you say no? And she was like, No, I have to save them. There it's like there's if and or what about it, I have to save them.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Yes. So the third episode is all about Christine and Toga trying to gather evidence to give to the police after the car when they went. Here's another thing.

SPEAKER_02 29:35

The police officer from Colorado City that they went to at the beginning, I wanted to punch him in the face.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

He's like, I don't listen to the recordings because they're they're icky and they make me feel icky and I don't like that. And I'm like, you're a police officer.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

You are Grow some fucking testicles. Exactly. Girl some balls, bro.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

But yeah. There's women being abused. Yes. That's that's the evil side of the world that you said that you were going to fight when you took on the badge. Yes. I can't but yes, I will agree wholeheartedly. I have a gentle soul. I don't care. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:10

You're gonna have to have some tough fucking skin if you want to be a police officer. You just have to. You're gonna have people look you in the face and spit in your face. You just you just have to have tougher skin. Yes. You need to be their protector. That is like you are you're a peace officer, you need to keep the peace, and this man is disrupting the peace. Right. Yes, exactly. That that because Toga and Christine brought him tapes, the tape recording of Samuel admitting to what he'd done. Yes, admitting to what he had done. And and they said, This isn't enough evidence. We can't get the FBI involved. This this isn't enough. And Christine and Toga are like, What do we need? Tell us what we need. Exactly. And they they went deep into it. They they like I said, they they were on Samuel's beck and call. If Samuel called, Toga was there. Um, and meanwhile, while Toga is just got Sam wrapped around his finger, Christine is trying everything she can to gain the trust of these women.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

And these women women, this is a tough one because those women, and here's the thing about FLDS women that I know for without a shadow of a doubt from the women that I know. They are the strongest women in the world. They are some of the strongest women I know because they put up with and do stuff, not do stuff, but they live a lifestyle that I don't know if I could live.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

No, no. Um, there's one mother that stood out to me. So she was Moroni's wife. Moroni is one of the three men that follow Samuel Bates. Without a shadow.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

Like just like down like Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

He he had an orgy with underage girls and one of them with his daughter. Like that that is that is beyond like, but his wife said, someone's not right here. And so she would sneakily start to come hang around Christine.

SPEAKER_02 31:53

It wasn't and that's what I was saying. That these women, these women are strong women. Yes. Like they oh I hate to say it out loud, but the women are in control. The women are in control, they outnumber the men like 20 to 1. 24 to one, exactly. Like it just like so you know that and I don't it's we laugh at it because we say it tongue in cheek, but they know they are, they are, they were in control as much as they could be. And they are strong women for it. So that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_01 32:34

But she she comes to Moroni and says, Hey, I'm not comfortable with this. And Moroni says, I am your gateway to heaven and I trust this man with my full life. What are you gonna do? So what does she do? She moves in with Samuel so she can watch her daughters closer. She becomes one of Samuel's wives just to keep an eye on her underage daughters. Think about that for a second. You're going into an abuser's house. You can't for a fact know that this person's abusing your children, but you know he's not doing something right with your girls. So she sacrifices herself to make sure that her children are good. She ends up becoming very close with Christine. And she like, we'll come by during the day and help Christine with things. She'll bring a children every now and then. And so her and Christine just get really close, and Christine's like, There's my inn. There is my inn. So she finally breaks that barrier, and the wife is like, It's it's not at all. It's not what you think. Yeah, it's not at all what you guys are recording.

SPEAKER_02 33:28

And this is deep into episode three where things start to turn. And you're like, it's not sunshine and roses and adulation.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Yes. And there is one of Samuel's wives who in any time they're filming with her, she is clung onto him, rubbing his chest, massaging his shoulders, holding his hand. She is fully invested into Samuel. There is no turning back. And she questions from day one what Christine and Toga are doing. From day one. And this this lady's name was Naomi. I think they called her Gnomes. Gnomes. But she has drank from the well so much that I I did not think that that there was ever going to be anything but her. Like that would be his follower until the end. And the episode closes out with her coming out in normal street clothes saying, I'm I'm ready to talk about what happened. And I lost my mind. I said, They flipped that bitch.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

What the heck? How did they do that? And they start episode four with her talking. And you wonder, I just I don't know if you wondered this, Dakota, but when she first started episode the last the last two episodes, I didn't know if she was still an acolyte or if she had come to the other side.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

So that's exactly where my head went to. Okay, Rin picked up on her past tense conversations. She always referred to the situations that happened in past tense. I felt this way. I felt this way toward Christine. I I had felt this way. So she had been dropping subtle hints, but I wasn't catching on to it. And Rin was like, no, that bitch is totally flipped. She don't believe a single thing uh Samuel is saying. And I was like, are you sure? I don't know. And Rin was like, listen, pay attention closely.

SPEAKER_02 35:22

So Sam or um Christine's episode four starts off with Samuel trying to escape. Do you remember that? Escape what? With the girls in the in the U-Haul.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Oh yeah. So Christine and Toga have uh gathered enough evidence to get the FBI involved. Right. And they are working very closely with this FBI agent who it like she did absolutely everything she possibly could, this FBI agent. Right. Um amazing FBI agent. Yes. And at some point, Sam gets a hinkling. I think it it comes from um Naomi, and he's like, I need to take my family and I need to run. I don't know where we're gonna go. Yep. Yes, but I need to run. So he gets a box trailer, like one of those awful white box trailers, and is pulling it down the highway. Well, the doors aren't fully secure, so they're starting to rattle really hard. And you see little hands on the top of the white trailer holding the door shut just to try because he had four wives in the truck with him and then five or six young people in the trailer. Young. Young. They're underage. They're underage. I think it was between 15 and 7. Don't put me on that button. But the ones that he kept in the trailer were underage, and the ones in the car were of age. But the police see the someone sees fingers coming out of the door and calls cops. What else are you like? Like, dude. Hey, something's fucked up here. Some fingers are sticking out of this uh trailer. So they pull Samuel over and they're like, what's going on here? And he's like, oh, nothing. And then they ask, Well, who's in the trailer?

SPEAKER_00 37:05

And he goes, Oh, well, anybody in the trailer. There ain't nobody in there. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 37:10

It's like the typical cops, the typical cops thing.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Yeah, yeah. Those aren't my pants. That's not my drugs in my mouth. Right. So they finally get the trailer open, and when you first look into it, no one's there. And then they kind of like zoom into the back, and there's a curtain rod with a black sheet in the like not toward the middle, but more toward the front, but enough that like you can tell the trailer's this long, but there's only this much of the back showing. And they tell these people to come out from behind the curtain. And they open it and these children just start piling out of the littles.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

Littles. Like Dakota said, Littles.

SPEAKER_01 37:50

Little. And they're like, oh yeah, there wasn't enough nipple room in the truck, so we all just hid in here. Like, yeah, what are we gonna do? Like, daddy told us to do that. So he goes to jail.

SPEAKER_02 38:01

Father. And they don't call him daddy, they call him father.

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Yes, father. Father goes to jail. And he gets out. He spent what a couple of months because this is the catalyst. This is the catalyst that has the police actually paying attention, and the FBI is like, Yeah, we need all the information we can get on them. So let's watch them a little closer. Because Christine and Toga had been watching. Yeah. So Samuel goes to jail and he is able to, with the help of his male followers, they tells his male followers, I need 150 grand, get it now. They not only do they so the 150 grand is to bail him out, but while he's in jail, because I think he was in jail for two months, maybe two weeks, I can't remember. It wasn't it wasn't very long. But he was able to have still have sermons with these people. They would do FaceTime sermons with him, and they he would say, This is just a test of your faith. You cannot let the man tear your fate down. Like this, this is just what what we're here for. He has one of his followers, the owner of the company that's paying for his entire livelihood, pull out a hundred thousand dollars. And he, the guy who pulled out the money has like the camera's on his face, and you can tell he wants to have this big old smile, but at the same time, he's like, What the fuck, dude? Like, I can't, I I uh he he just doesn't seem sincere about being excited to get this person out.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

The wives have lost their mind. Naomi is the ringleader of these women, and they dress like what did they call it? They had to dress like normal in regular street clothes.

SPEAKER_01 39:30

Yeah, they went, they went, I can't I think it was a Ross or something, and they went in and they were like, Well, this show's too much. Can we wear a t-shirt under it? And Christine's like, Yeah, you can do whatever you want. And it was just like, it was the most uncomfortable I've ever been watching someone get dressed. Like they were like, because they always wear these, these gowns, these dresses. That's all these women wear, and then they're done a certain way. And yeah, yeah. So they go and they release Sam. And Sam is just holding these girls. Naomi is deep in his titty, just loving on him, and he's saying this was just a test. We can get over this, here's what we need to do, and he lists out all these things, and then Christine and Toga are like, Okay, we really like we can't handle this anymore. It's making us sick because we're seeing the way he's like influencing these girls, they're seeing all of this, they they know the underage sex is happening. Christine and Toga finally they've they've had the FBI on their side and they're like, We we need to do something. So the FBI decides to hold a raid. And the whole time Naomi is sitting there and she's like, something's weird. Like, something is is is not right. She is questioning Christine and Toga heavily, right? Not like verbally questioning them, she just is watching their every movement.

SPEAKER_02 40:41

That and when she brings it up to Sam, Sam's like, Leave him alone, die with me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

So they come up with a plan to separate Sam from one house to another. They're going to keep all of the girls and children at the greenhouse, and then at a blue house, they're going to hold a interview with Sam. Right. Toga is going to induct the interview, and Christine is just there to have another adult to help take care of all the kids because there's a fucking gaggle of children. And then the raid happens. So first they take down Sam. They bust into the blue house and arrest Sam. They he had two wives there with him at the time, and they take three. So they had three wives there at the time, and they take all of their phones and they take Sam into federal prison. It's not, it's not jail. He's in federal prison. He skipped jail and went right to federal prison, and that's when he was like, fuck. Something's happening. As soon as that raid's over with, Christine says she looks out the window. She doesn't see any police officers. She goes back to helping take care of the children, and she looks back, and the house is surrounded with FBI agents. They're banging down the door. Gnomes is in the shower at this point and just hears commotion, hears screaming. So she jumps out of the shower, gathers any anything she thinks is evidence, and tosses it out the window, including um some iPads and things like that. So she tosses that out the window. And Christine comes out to the FBI agents and says, Hey, I can talk to these girls and I can get them to come out with you one by one. And that's what she does. She says the girl, she says, Hey, there is an investigation going on. I know nothing about it. I don't know anything about it. But I need you guys to come with me. We need to act cordial so that we can figure out what's going on. This is the best way to do it.

SPEAKER_03 42:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

So she starts leading these girls out one by one. They take all of their phones. Then they separate the minors. And it's not, it's not like babies or anything. It's it's probably, I would say, individuals who have started their ministration cycle. It is people between 12 and 15. There are six of these girls that they take. CPS is involved. The FBI had no idea CPS was involved. The FBI didn't know that child protection.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

CPS was going to come in and correct.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

So CPS takes these girls, and these girls are de straught.

SPEAKER_02 43:00

They are because they're programmed to be like, I have to be with uh Sam in order to uh, you know, the evils of the world outside of this the world that they built was such that it did not, it it doesn't even to this day, uh, you know, justify some of the behavior that's done with no.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

And these girls, they're they are trying to put on such a brave face, these young children, and they are calling these police officers fuckers and motherfuckers bastards, but they're doing it in a way that you can tell they have never used this kind of language before. You know, little kids they'll you motherfucker, but like it they don't understand what they're saying. It's like you fucking fucking bastard. Like that that's how they're saying it. They they they just know that these are curse words and this it should get a reaction, and we're just gonna say it. These these girls are too young to even understand how to curse properly. Like, just think about that. They've never cursed. They're like, we are not getting in a car with another male. We cannot do this. A female has to take us. So they make the arrangements, they send these six girls. To a foster home. Somehow, the foster home gets a letter, and in that letter it says the mother's name that was Morone's wife that said, Hey, I don't like this. I don't I don't understand what's happening, but I don't like Samuel. It's got her name, Toga's name, and Christina's name. They the um foster home had torn up this note and tossed it in the trash. Well, the girls had found this note, taped it together, and sent a picture to um Gnomes. And Gnomes comes out swinging. She is furious. Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:35

Absolutely like feral. She calls Sam and Sam is upset and he's like, go get my girls, do it.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Yep. So without failed, they come up with like um uh what is that movie, Ocean's 11, the heist movies? Right. They come up with this crazy heist to get these girls out of the foster home. And like here's where I got super mad. These foster parents should have known better. These foster parents should have taken care of these kids better.

SPEAKER_02 45:05

People in charge of the home that they were in should have known that something like this was gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 45:09

Yes, because one of the girls was able to sneak in a phone or an iPad, I can't remember, so that she was still in communications not only with Samuel, but Naomi and the other sister wives. So they were in complete communication. They came up with a whole way to extract these girls out of a dire situation that they thought that they had when they were literally just trying to keep them safe. CPS failed these children.

SPEAKER_02 45:29

Yes, more than once.

SPEAKER_01 45:30

Yes, tenfold. CPS failed these children. They hindered this investigation from going off without a hitch. If it had not been for CPS, Sam would have had no idea. Gnomes would have had no idea, nobody would have known that Kastrine and Toga were involved in what was happening. Do you agree?

SPEAKER_02 45:47

Yes, I agree. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:49

Yeah. So they extract these girls and They run. Everybody runs. They scatter and just like cockroaches just vanish, just gone. And I think they're missing for about six days.

SPEAKER_02 46:02

And the mother No, the the little czar, but Naomi. Yeah, I haven't gotten to that part yet. Yeah, Naomi isn't with the six girls. They've separated and she gets caught.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

But you have to talk about the way she got caught. Because she goes back to the house to get supplies.

SPEAKER_03 46:17

Right.

SPEAKER_01 46:18

And there's lights on at the I think it was the greenhouse, and the police surround the greenhouse, and Naomi just takes off, just starts running. And she's explaining this, and this is kind of where you get the instinct that this is where she finally thought, something's not right here. I shouldn't be running from the police. Like she ends up hiding underneath a trailer until morning. The police just she just disappears, she just vanishes out of thin air. They've got Christine and Toga driving all throughout Colorado City trying to find gnomes.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

And she says she got she got as far as the mountains before she turned around. That that's a little bit of a hike.

SPEAKER_01 46:52

Yes. But they said that she just turned into the flash and was gone. And so she hid out underneath a trailer, underneath a trailer's axles all night. She said one of her legs was super frozen and she just didn't know what to do. And she said while she was sitting there, she just scared. Yes, absolutely. And I think that's that I I truly think that that's when she started to be like Yes. So she turns herself in.

SPEAKER_02 47:14

It might not be Christine and Toga, all of them. It might be Sam.

SPEAKER_01 47:18

Yes. So she turns herself in. I don't remember how they ended up finding the children. Do you?

SPEAKER_02 47:23

Um they I I don't I don't remember either, but they do find them and they separate them again. And this time each one of the girls is put in a separate home so that the girls are no longer together, which is the best thing that they that they can do for them in order for them to have a normal rest of their childhood. Meanwhile, the mom and Christine and Toga are trying to convince these women that it's gonna be okay. And two of the um Naomi and the one the other sister wife who was of age that helped the girls escape are now both in jail. And they spend two to three years in jail at this point.

SPEAKER_01 48:07

I don't think it was two to three years. It was it was it was only a couple months, I think 20 months. Yeah, it's almost two years. Oh no, you're right, you're right, yeah, for sure. And the whole time, Naomi is in contact with Samuel. And Samuel's saying things that aren't adding up to Naomi. At one point, he says something about well, they had been watching me ever since that time where the girls saw their fingers because of this and this reason. And Naomi was like, the police didn't do the raid until this date. There was so much out. And Naomi is finally starting to piece together. Yes. And I also think, and I could be out of my mind on this, I also think that the girls Naomi was in prison with heard her story and went, girl, what the fuck are you thinking? You know what I mean? So because Gnomes has never had real life experience. I can't imagine what it's like for her to go to jail with all the Well, and she said, she goes, I was in jail.

SPEAKER_02 49:05

I didn't think that because it was my God doing this for me, that I would end up in jail. And I was in jail and I didn't know how to react to that.

SPEAKER_01 49:14

But I I I I really do think that some of those girls in jail were like, bitch, you tripping. Like this this man ain't shit. This man is fucking crazy. I bet you told her about that about all men. And what's funny about that is the other girls that were in jail, they slowly also started to piece. They all turned from Sam, yeah. Exactly. So it had it had to not only be what Sam was telling them while they were in jail, and he's in federal prison too. Like they're they're talking through federal prison.

SPEAKER_02 49:45

He only got 50 years, which was just disgusting to me. He should have gotten so much more for that for what he did. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 49:51

Naomi has totally like not necessarily turned against him, but she is not on the same path that Samuel is anymore.

SPEAKER_02 49:59

Oh, you oh, she's just she lives her life like a regular 20-something year old should live, just chilling.

SPEAKER_01 50:07

Yes. And she admits I I did do some wrong things. This is what I did wrong. I I was following someone that I truly believed in. And yeah, it ends with the sentencing of Samuel, and like mom said, he he got 50 years. They also pulled in his three uh followers.

SPEAKER_02 50:25

Yeah. Yes, because followers, accomplices. It's a very fine line.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

I I think accomplices is they know the final plan is to have sex with underage girls. I think that he Somebody should have stopped.

SPEAKER_02 50:36

Somebody should have said no.

SPEAKER_01 50:38

Yes. All three of these men were so ingrained into his mindset that they didn't see it was wrong. They are in jail. I can't remember how long they're in jail for. They're not in jail for that long because they weren't co-conspirators. They they were followers, correct?

SPEAKER_02 50:55

I think the one that the longest one was 25 years.

SPEAKER_01 50:59

Yeah. Um, so Samuel.

SPEAKER_02 51:02

And the girls are now like, the young girls have all grown up and are now living their their best life, I think. Trying to. Trying to I don't know how you recover from that. I don't think you can recover from that fully um from the atrocities that happen. But I just want to say again that this is not a common occurrence even in the polygamy or the fundamentalists or the plural lifestyle people. This is this is the out of the ordinary. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 51:37

Yeah. Um, what really got me is that it was so recent.

SPEAKER_02 51:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

I didn't hear any it made me question my true co crime knowledge. I was like, I didn't know anything was happening. Like, I had no idea.

SPEAKER_02 51:50

It's just so quiet. People keep it so quiet, Dakota. It's just such a stigmatism. And I really think that it needs to not be, you know? I think that you're you whatever you do, like I've I've told you, I've said it on the podcast, whatever happens behind the closed door of your bedroom is up to you. It's not me. I have no right to judge you for that. Unless Yes.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

I was gonna say, please have a butt in their mom.

SPEAKER_02 52:15

Yeah, yeah, unless you do the things that Sam Bateman did. Um Sam Samuel Baton is a sick and twisted individual that just if you want to watch something that'll make you cheer for the good guys, this is a good documentary to do because the good guys win in the end. And documentaries about true crime doesn't always end that end up that way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:35

And I feel like Netflix has really let us down on Docky series in the last year, like with I shouldn't say that, because that one with the mother who was texting her daughter, like cybering cyberbullying her daughter. Right. That was crazy. That was crazy. That was probably the last good one that we've seen. But like the Fred and Rosemary West, I was super upset with that one. I don't think that they they did it justice. Yes, I don't think they did justice. And then and then we can talk about the god-awful Ed Gean story. I it was just it was so bad.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

The thing with the Ed Gean story is that the actor who played him did such a phenomenal job. Oh, yes. But they took they definitely did take some liberties in it. But all right, Jakoda, this is one of the long ones. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:22

There was a lot to talk about though, but it like we only scratch the surface. We try to to to it go watch it.

SPEAKER_02 53:30

Go go watch it. Go watch. It is definitely I've recommended it to all my sisters um people that I come in contact with on a regular basis. I'm like, you gotta check out this crazy, crazy documentary. And it just threw me for such a loop, like because you just had no idea that it was even that this was even a thing, right? Yeah. I like Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:56

And I I wanted to watch it again and take notes, but I I it's gonna be a minute before I watch it.

unknown 54:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:03

It leaves you going, hmm, a little ick.

SPEAKER_01 54:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 54:06

But like I said, the good guys win in the end, and that's what's important.

SPEAKER_01 54:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 54:10

So you don't usually see that. Like I said, it's hard in it.

SPEAKER_01 54:13

Thank goodness for uh Toga and Christine. Like they saw atrocity happening and they didn't turn their backs on it. They knew they could do something and they did they did the damn thing. So yeah. Go go watch it. It was it was awesome. It's it's right up there with Tiger King. And I love Tiger King. Like, Tiger King is great.

SPEAKER_02 54:35

Tiger King. Poor Tiger King.

SPEAKER_01 54:38

All right, guys, we're gonna close it out here. I just want to remind you please drink your water and talk to your therapist.

SPEAKER_02 54:44

For the love of God.

SPEAKER_01 54:47

Much love. Peace out. Bye bye. I've never been so uncomfortable in my fucking life. Oh my god.