End of Year Wrap Up 2023

27:59After this short break we'll be back with a big update about the cat cult along with some great listener stories.

28:21Okay, so season three of The Opportunist, this was the Cheryl Ruthven story, the cat cult, the woman who ran a high control group or cult that posed as a cat rescue. And part of Cheryl Ruthven's method for controlling people was requiring them to adopt unbelievable amounts of cats. And oftentimes these cats were sick and had really intensive needs when it came to medication and being isolated from other cats, which was really difficult when you had to have like 20 or 30 cats in your home. And it was a huge financial burden and a stressful thing and a time burden. We spoke with people who talked about waking up in the middle of the night because some of these cats had to have medicine every three hours or something.

29:08And one thing I heard a lot from the ex-followers of Cheryl was that the cats' needs came first. This was so clear from Cheryl that the cats needed to be fed and taken care of above even people's own children. So in season three, we tracked Cheryl's ideology as it evolved over the years from something originally kind of resembling Christianity to something so entirely different. Ultimately, I felt like the only consistent aspect was inconsistency. It was always changing, which made it impossible for anyone else to get a firm grasp on what would be coming next. And what that did was that solidified Cheryl herself as the only voice of authority.

29:55Eventually, she came to teach her followers that she was basically a god on earth and that if they disobeyed her or if they left her group, that they would be punished by burning in hell. I have heard a few updates about Cheryl's group. I think the biggest one is that they made a move. So if you'll recall in the season, the group started in Washington State and then they moved to Columbia, Tennessee. So since the podcast has come out, and I don't know how much this relates to the podcast. Someone said, oh, they heard the podcast and this is inspiring them to move. I really don't know if that's true or if this was a totally separate thing.

30:38But the group did move from Tennessee, Columbia, Tennessee to Kentucky. Weirdly enough, Columbia, Kentucky. So from Columbia, Tennessee to Columbia, Kentucky. But now they're in Kentucky. And I've heard rumblings that they might move again. I really don't know if that's true. Every once in a while, I'll get like a small update. I know some people that are still very plugged in as far as watching what happens with the group. And I've heard some updates that there have been a few people who have left. I did not speak with any of those people, but I do wish them all the best. And I am happy for them that they were able to leave an abusive and controlling situation.

31:23So I did catch up with two people who you heard in the season. Sisters, Mary Lancaster and Rachel Gunderson. They were both ex-cult members. They both spent many years of their adult lives in Cheryl's group, dedicating their money, their lives, their time, everything to Cheryl. You know, we got into a little bit of a conversation about how the podcast has played a role in their lives now, about what it feels like to tell your intimate and traumatic story on a true crime podcast, and also about some updates that they'd heard from the group. So here we go. you know, we haven't really communicated that much even since the podcast came out.

32:12And so I'm curious, you know, what, how that affected anything for you? Maybe just give us kind of an update on where you are now with things. It's a 10 year journey for me. And of course you can't fit 10 years worth of all types of weird and crazy stories into it. But I felt the show did a great job with the timeframe it had to tell the story. Mary told me that since the podcast came out, she has used it as a tool, sending it to her friends and family so that they can listen to it and hopefully understand a little more fully what she went through by being in the cult and how it has affected her life.

32:53here's this show that was well done take a listen to understand a bit more a lot of the feedback i got from those friends and family members well done uh it helped them understand me a little bit more maybe it opened their minds and hearts to a story that maybe they just got bits and pieces about from me uh yeah but after life kept ticking away anything uh it's as good as when we talked last time and things are going very well. So remind me how long now it's been since you got out next April of next year, it'll be 10 years. Thinking back about this last 10 years, you know, how do you feel now versus sort of when you first left?

33:33Like, is it still something that you think about, you know, every day, every week, or how, how have, how has it sort of like evolved and changed over time? Yes. Yes. Coming out of the call, it was a, it was very hard, not to the point that I wanted to leave. I was desperate to leave. The hard part was a lot of the instilled fear conditioning that I'd gone through and it, you know, all the palpitations of the heart. Am I making the right decision is yes. Cheryl is a fraud and she's a charlatan. And then there's that little C from the years of conditioning that's going, well, what if she is who she says she is and this is a major mistake you're making and you're paving your way to hell.

34:16So it took a lot of heart work and brain work to get through those times. Ten years later, do I think of them? It comes up in my mind. Definitely not every day, but it does come up. I'll see what's going on in the world of Cheryl and animal rescue and find out, you You know, all they've done is renamed Eva's Eden to Da Vinci's Dreams or whatever. And they're still like out there trying to put a face to the front that everything's cool and they're doing great things for pets in the world, but it's all just a front. So, yeah. And there is still at times that conditioning that will come up, like even right now talking to you or when I was getting ready to talk with you.

35:06and my wife and I were running errands, I start feeling that palpitation in my heart. Like, oh my God, I'm going to reveal myself and reveal Cheryl or, you know, put her out there in front and center. And that little bit of fear pops up a little bit of PTSD. But now, I mean, I have done therapy now and I've gone through some really great healing things in my life. And now I can logically look at it and like, this is bullshit. Mary, you're going to be okay. This is okay. She is someone that deserves to be exposed. And so let's do this. And that was good to go. So here we are. Yeah. Wow. Thank you for that.

35:46And so Rachel, yeah, let's hear from you a little bit. When the podcast came, I don't know if that like changed anything for you or, and then how, how have things sort of been going for you since? Sure. Thank you. So doing the podcast with the opportunist with you, it definitely was a good and trying experience. When y 'all came to me to start this discussion, I was weary. But I was so thankful after talking with you for a bit to feel that I could trust your direction and trust the integrity of how you wanted to tell the story that at that time a few years back with y 'all, I wasn't ready as I thought I was to unbury those stories and unbury those feelings.

36:35But I'm glad I did. Post from that time, I still have strangers that will find out what my name is and be like, I heard you on The Opportunist, Cats. and I'm just I get fan groups sometimes out in the wild it has happened on multiple occasions even just yesterday another person said I listened to your podcast but nowadays as far as how I've come out of all those experiences like Mary I'm a year ahead of her on getting out these days I'm learning that while I think Cheryl is laughable and like Mary said worthy of being exposed and worthy of being laughed at. The effects that are lingering with me to this day are not religious, are not supernatural.

37:26I have no feelings in that way, but I think the lingering psychological deeper things are still something that I'm coming to grips with, of needing approval from a person that was the focal point of my life for a decade. how that changes you as a human and what so many people can identify with of being with an abuser for that long. That you can come to grips and find healing on more surface levels, but years and decades later still realize you have things to work through that still hurt. And I'm still coming to grips with that. And I'm still paying the price of that. and like Mary, I've started therapy to, and I'm taking a little break from it right now, but therapy is to help me understand what parts of me are still stuck back there.

38:23And it has nothing to do with a woman that claims she is the Christ on earth. It's more of just what happened to me and creates how I react today based on what I went through two decades ago. Yeah, I went through Mary and I and many others went through a crazy cat cult, but there are lingering psychological effects we are still dealing with decades later from this time. That's what I'm learning. If there can be anything for y 'all in this world listening to this podcast that watch true crime documentaries, podcasts, I have an awesome respect for those that come forward and tell their stories. Because I know if I'm feeling what I'm feeling, they have as well.

39:04And it takes a lot of courage to share something that's so deep, painful, and in a lot of ways embarrassing. Understanding that cults have been for a number of years now such a big selling point for entertainment. And I watch it too. I've watched several of them. And I feel with them. And I see my experiences in them. And like Mary just said, is each one of those people talking, there is a cost to speaking to your story. There is a pain that you have to bring up and you have to relive. Even if you've come so far, you are still reliving that pain just to bring it all back. That's so important to me.

39:49And I feel like it is to my sister, Mary, to remember that we, that you listening, that us talking, we are humans and we experience pain and it's worth remembering that side. Yeah, absolutely. It's something I think about a lot, you know, as having done this show for three years now and interviewed so many people that really are, you know, sitting down and telling me about the most traumatic things that they've been through. And I always take that so seriously because it's a weird thing to be working in true crime and thinking that ultimately this is entertainment. But I've had to kind of grapple with that over the past few years.

40:31And to me, the meaning always comes in when I am speaking to people who've been wronged, who feel a sense of purpose and being able to tell their story. But I also understand that it comes with a cost and it's difficult to revisit. it. And so I just really appreciate both of you telling your stories to me for the opportunist. And then also jumping back on here for a little, you know, catch up. And I guess I'm curious if, you know, if you do keep in touch with anyone from the cult or a few, like how much are you interested in like, sort of keep like learning about what's happening? Do you check up on it?

41:13Or is it sort of like, I don't want to even spend my time looking at that? It finds us. I don't think we could stop the information from getting to us at this point because we're so heavily associated with the group, with Cheryl, that the information finds its way to us for better or worse. I mean, someone said, hey, there's Da Vinci's whatever dream and now they're inclusive of dogs. Yeah, it's not just cats anymore. yeah that was 80 cats and dogs i i'm gonna be very careful on information i have been given chunks good chunks of information in recent history but i don't feel at liberty to provide names or circumstances but um there are there have been individuals who have left in the last year individuals that on one side are very still scared of Cheryl, worried of what threat she could pose to them if they were to open themselves up to talk.

42:18And I know of another individual, again, going nameless that has left and is guns blazing. And I don't have the permission to speak about their story or their name, but I am happy to know that even if it's one and two in the last year or two years, that people are recognizing the abuse. And even if among 40 people, two people have left and two people have claimed their own lives and livelihoods to themselves. That's awesome. Without mentioning names again. so I helped Mary Walker on the Facebook page and somebody who I assume they're still in the occult accidentally liked the post about the opportunist and they must have been checking out the website behind Cheryl's back or maybe for her, I don't know maybe they're one of her spies and they accidentally liked it and unliked it immediately so whether it's her sanctioning them to take a look or they're curious, something inside them, you know, making them curious to kind of go behind her back.

43:27People are looking. And I'm sure if they're listening to this right now, those that are the, you know, pro Cheryl spies, they're probably going to take this right back to her. And unfortunately people will probably get browbeaten, you know, who's talking to Mary and Rachel or who's looking on the Facebook page and accidentally liking, like, this is going to get back to them. You can bet it, Hannah, that your name and opportunities is a part of their bad history. Bad, bad, bad list. The bad list. Hey, I hope that people that are in her cult have listened to it. And maybe that'll be the seed of something that could, you know, maybe make them question.

44:09Who knows? I don't know. You know, maybe not. I hope so. I'm thinking of this one person that is still in the group that their family life, their relationship is still heavily controlled by Cheryl. They do not have permission to leave the abusive situation they're in because of Cheryl. I hope they see the love outside of that circumstance and gravitate towards that love, that kindness that exists for them outside of Cheryl's control. and finds a way to get out, but it's scary. It's so, so scary when you're stuck in it for your entire life, your entire adult life. But I hope they hear us and hope that they find a way out, find a way to give themselves permission to leave that abusive relationship someday.

45:02I thought it was really interesting how Rachel compared being in a cult with being in an abusive relationship. And I don't know that all cults are like that or feel like that necessarily, but I can really see the comparison when it comes to Cheryl Ruthven and how controlling and abusive she was to both Mary and Rachel and to many others. I just hope for anyone who's in an abusive relationship to be able to make their way out of it and to be free from that. Thank you so much, Mary and Rachel, for speaking with me. okay here we are now at the voice messages from listeners we have a couple left and I'm really excited to share them with you okay this is from Rosa she lives in Los Angeles and Rosa moved into a house two years ago she's renting the house it's in LA she said that before she moved into the house.

46:01The house had been sitting empty for maybe a long time. She doesn't know how long. So then it was renovated and she rented it. But then pretty quickly after moving into this house, things got strange. I started to receive mail packages under people's names that I didn't recognize nobody showed up to claim the packages and I would look into who the prior tenants were through the landlord and I couldn't find who the owners of the packages were. Not too long after receiving the packages, I started having people show up at my door, ringing the doorbell. The first person I remember, it was really early.

46:50The gentleman said he was sent here. He was called to come and do a repair at this house. That was not true. No one had called him and he claimed to have had some sort of request to be here. Anyway, the years have gone on and we have had people show up to our house looking for their lovers that they met online that are catfishing them. I've met numerous people who've arrived to my home having driven cross-country to meet the love of their life that they met online who told them to meet them here and they don't live here no one by that name lives on this property we've also had the police called to our home falsely by people interacting with the scammers who might be asking their scammy to send money immediately or the or They're being held hostage So the police have showed up at my home Asking if I was being held hostage Other examples include Pizza deliveries to my home Under unknown names Flower deliveries Fraudulent EDD Credit card Opening new credit cards New cell phone accounts We've gotten burner phones sent to our home We've gotten an iPad sent to our home and letter mail daily.

48:19I get packages a few times a month and visitors probably a couple times a month as well. And if it's a holiday, it's usually a little bit more visitors. I call them people who are coming to my door. Rosa told me that she just started to believe that her address was being used by a scammer or multiple scammers. Then one day she received a router and a modem to her house under some woman's name. But then this woman showed up to her house and at first she was relieved, like finally, some of this random mail I'm getting, there's a person here to collect it. But it was actually so much worse than that because what she found out was that this woman believed that she had signed a lease on this house and she was like ready to move in.

49:12And we found out that she had seen a post online of my place for rent. And she thought she had obtained it to rent. She shows up here thinking she was moving in and sent the router here and the cable box here. And I had to tell her, no, I live here. I mean, I have a legal lease and I know the owner. I can put you in contact with him. She asked me if I'd be willing to talk to the police for her. And I said, absolutely, if it's helpful. I've talked to the police and they pretty much said, I'm sorry, not much we can do. But she did lose$3 ,000 on a deposit fraudulently to someone claiming that they were the landlord here.

50:00There was another time in which a person showed up to Rosa's house looking for dogs. I guess they'd seen a Facebook post listing puppies for sale and listed Rosa's home address. But Rosa didn't have any puppies for sale. And the person who came to her door had not given this Facebook scammer any money. So Rosa said it just didn't really make sense. Like, what was the scam? Just to get them to drive across the city for no reason. So not all of the scams made that much sense. And she thinks that probably what happened was back before her home was renovated. It was just sitting empty. It looked like an abandoned house.

50:42And a person or a group of people found out about that and started using this sort of, quote, quote, abandoned house address as a scammer address. And they've continued to use this address, even though now she lives in the house. She thinks maybe her address got posted somewhere online, maybe the dark web or something as an address that scammers can use. Maybe someone's even selling this address. She doesn't know. She's tried to find out what's happening to no avail. To this day, she's getting so much mail from random people. And still about once a month, she'll have strangers showing up to her house.

51:22And then she has to be the one to deliver the bad news to these strangers that they've been scammed. It's quite a bit. And most recently it was an angry man last week who showed up with having having driven from Seattle. I think it was Seattle. My neighbor intercepted him because I was out. I was not home. but he had driven here pretty long distance to help who he thought was his girlfriend from online I assume online actually his girlfriend move so really to pick her up and help her move back with him and she wasn't here I've tried googling a few times my address and I haven't really gone down the reddit rabbit hole but we've googled and I'm in contact with the landlord a bunch about this and he still doesn't seem to understand what it is.

52:22But we've also talked to the postal worker who has agreed to hold mail if they know it's not in our name or names of others on this property. You know, I was hoping I could find someone with resources just to dig enough to find the next missing piece because the police won't help. And they said there's no crime really being done to me. I'm just being inconvenienced. But I have been keeping detailed notes. There's a chunk of time where I lost track of the detail, but it's there. I just don't have it pinpointed to a day. I have recorded videos. I have doorbell pictures. I have doorbell recordings of people, of these stories, of packages, of mail, and just hoping to just figure it out.

53:07One is a huge nuisance to me and my family, but also like what is happening? If you have any ideas about how Rosa can stop these scammers from using her address or how she can find out, you know, if her address is posted somewhere on the Internet, send me your ideas on Instagram or Twitter slash X at Hannah podcasts. And I've also asked Rosa to keep me updated if there are any breaks in the case. And here is our final voice note from a listener. Hey, Hannah, my name is Andrea Wilson Woods, and I'm the president and founder of Blue Fairy, the Adrian Wilson Liver Cancer Association. I just heard your recent podcast episode about wanting stories.

53:56So here you go. When I was 22 years old, I was living in Los Angeles, and I ended up getting custody of my eight-year-old sister, Adrian. We have the same biological mother, different biological fathers. Her father died in a car accident before she was born, so she never knew him. Ultimately, I ended up suing our mother for custody and won. So I raised my sister, Adrienne, throughout my 20s. We were 14 years apart in age. And through a loophole in the California law, I was able to get health insurance for her, but not for myself. And then in the spring of 2000, I received a call from the state of California, accusing me of fraud, saying that my sister was not eligible for health insurance, and that I was getting a check from the state.

54:47And I, none of that was true. I had no idea what they were talking about. I managed to work it out, but I didn't know what was going on. Fast forward one year later, in May of 2001, my now 15-year-old sister is diagnosed with stage 4 liver cancer. But we have health insurance, so I'm not worried. During the first two weeks of her treatment, we discovered something was amiss. and it came out that our mother, our biological mother, had been embezzling social security money that belonged to my sister, which is why the year before we almost lost her health insurance. Our mother had been getting almost$700 a month for years and never told us and did not send child support to me.

55:41And Hannah, we struggled. I mean, we really struggled. So ultimately, I helped the Social Security Administration and the federal government. I helped them prosecute my mother. It took several years. And my sister died in October of 2001. And I continued working with the federal government to prosecute my mother. It took many years. But in March of 2006, I spoke at her sentencing hearing. And she received the maximum at the time. She served 10 months in federal prison. She had to pay back all the money she stole from my sister, which was over$50 ,000. Had my sister still been alive, it would have gone directly to my sister.

56:33Unfortunately, it went back to the federal government. It was devastating. knowing that she stole from my sister, knowing that she didn't confess to it when my sister was diagnosed with cancer, broke my heart. And the last time I saw my mother was at that sentencing hearing in March of 2006. Blue Fairy is the organization I found in a memory of my sister. And we've been working with liver cancer patients and families for 20 years now. The website is bluefairy.org. Thanks, Hannah. Thank you, Andrea, for sending that in. And I'm so sorry for the loss of your sister. It is a reminder that not all scammers are strangers.

57:23Sometimes there are in your own family. If you want to check out Andrea's nonprofit, you can go to bluefairy.org. Her sister Adrienne loved the color blue, often dyed her hair blue, and then eventually wore a blue wig. She also loved to wear wings, and thus she got the nickname Blue Fairy. Thank you again, Andrea. Before I wrap up this episode, I did want to include one note about the previous mini episode I put out. I had a few people reach out to me and ask me why Lindsay didn't report the scam that she was witnessing. at the guardianship nonprofit. And I just want to say I had to cut that interview down with like because of time.

58:07But basically, I did talk with her about this and I should have put it in the episode because I don't want it to seem like she didn't do anything about it. She acknowledged to me that she wishes she had reported it. And if she were in that same situation now, she would absolutely report it. But at the time, she was so young and inexperienced and she just didn't think to do that. And while I don't want to make any sweeping generalizations about young people, because there are brilliant people of every age, I do think that sometimes scammers who are running fraudulent businesses, they look for inexperienced and young people to hire who they think that they can more easily manipulate.

58:53That's not to say that they always can, but I have heard that time and time again from people. Okay, well, that's all I have for you. I know this was a long episode, but I just figured I didn't want to cut anything out of it. I just, it was really meaningful to me to get to hear from some of you. It really, really was. I so appreciate every single person that wrote in, whether it's a question or a suggestion or a voice note. Thank you so much. It really was lovely to hear from all of you. I hope that you all have a great end of the year, a great holiday season, and happy new year. We're taking a short break here at the end of the year, but there'll be new episodes soon enough.

59:39Thank you again.

59:52Thank you.

1:00:35We'll see you next time.

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