Original subtitles

Good.

It's been 19 years since I've been out of

prison, and by some

miracle, I got a second chance at life. A

lot of people that know me don't. know

the depth

of what, uh, of what happened.

Ordinary people struggling to survive the

farm crisis became immersed in

extraordinary evil. I can't take it

back. I can't ever

change it. I just, you know, I gotta...

You gotta live with it every day.

If I would have a different dad, maybe

things would have been different. He went

off the deep end.

And he took me with him.

As a little kid, you know, I mean, just

growing up, I thought he walked on water.

He was the greatest. I thought he was the

greatest guy in the world. I don't know

how many people reallyknew exactly what

type of man he really was.

It's like you don't know what happens in

somebody's house when the doors are

closed.

I understand why my mom didn't try to get

away. I understand.

But I'll never understand

why my dad would want to raise me

like that.

This is Anthony Cardinals,

third grade.

Right here is me.

It's a pretty special summer.

Dad took a big interest in making me a

good player 'cause he wanted me to be a

starting catcher on that team. We

went and bought a catcher's mitt. He told

me we had to break it in. You know, I

just remember oiling it up and putting

the ball in it and tying it over and

trying to make it fit in my hand. He

didn't teach me how to be a good person.

But he taught me how to catch that year.

I'm not sure exactly what age it was. I

was pretty young, though. So my parents

were going out for the night, and we had

never been left alone at night before.

Dad comes up to me and tells me that I

have to take care of my little brother in

case something happens. I need

you to protect your brother and sister.

All right. And he was going to show me

how to defend ourself if if a grown man

come in into the house when we were

there. I need you to

use this. And give me a knife.

And he told me, when they come through

the door, they can swing it and stick it

out like this and and cut their

throat with it. Cut across somebody's

throat, just like that. Right like that.

Then start to bleed out. I mean, he was

serious. OK. All

right. See y'all later.

When Dad was around other people, he was

a likable guy. But underneath, he,

you know, he was a madman. He

didn't want to make Dad mad at all,

because he has a real violent temper.

He didn't do what he says. He's going to

smack you upside your head and knock you

on your ass.

I remember I'd done some math homework,

and I just had a real hard time with

math. And so it took me a long time to do

this project, and I was all happy I got

it done. Well, then my little sister, she

ripped it up, and I was

upset.

And Dad come through the door and

heard me complaining and just... he just

exploded on me. You got a problem?

She ripped my things. You need to quit

being... Such a wuss.

You got a man up.

He hit me in the face two or three times

with his fist, knocked me to the ground.

Little girl pushing around, huhI was

trying to scramble away. You gotta start

acting like a man. He started kicking me.

And there was nothing I could do

to stop him.

Worthless little boy.

Mom tries to tell him that's enough, and

he just turned around and just pushed her

and knocked her to the ground.

Well, I think I ended up with two black

eyes out of the deal.

But it was like, no matter

how how many times I'd seen him,

abuse mom or degrade mom or

slap me around or beat me up, I never

faulted him for it because

obviously we did something wrong.

Otherwise, he wouldn't be acting this

way. I didn't want to disappoint him. I

didn't want to let him down. I wanted to

be good enough. When I grew up, I wanted

to be like my dad.

My dad drove a truck for a living, and I

just remember him being gone a lot. It

must have been the summer between fifth

and sixth grade. When he come home, I

remember he's all gung-ho about

something. I need y'all

to listen to something.

We are the children of Yahweh. Not some

dirty Jews or some damned homosexuals.

We are the ones who will inherit the

kingdom. He met some radical...

anti-government religious fanatic. I

remember sitting around the kitchen

table, and Dad played a tape for us.

These mongrels are the armies of Satan.

We are the chosen ones, and we will

cleanse this nation of their filth and

make it worthy of Yahweh's people once

more. And that's when he started

explaining to us what our new religion

was. This is what we believe now.

He was a follower of Yahweh.

He went by the Old Testament. When we

talked about God, we called him Yahweh.

We're family of Yahweh.

If you were notbelieving

with Yahweh you were evil.

Then he starts talking about how the

Battle of Armageddon's coming.

This world's in trouble.

It's spiraling down.

There's a battle coming between

God and the devil.

It's called Armageddon. What's

Armageddon?

I'm getting to the final battle.

The problems in the world begin with the

Jews, the bankers. The country has

become mongrelized because we let

we let blacks and Mexicans and Italians

and non-whites into the country.

It's getting worse and worse. They're

Satan's people. There's 144,000 people

that's gonna fight the Battle of

Armageddon for Yahweh and gonna wipe out

Satan's army, and then Yahweh's gonna set

down a New Jerusalem right on top of the

United States.

And be a warrior for Yahweh.

Hearing Dad describing the religion

and the belief system that we were now

going to be living under,was totally

different than how we had been living.

I didn't understand it. But Dad

tells us, you know, if you want to eat at

this table, this is how you're going to

believe. Otherwise, you're not going to

live here. What are you going to do?

I wasn't grown up enough to debate with

him or argue with him. It was just the

way it was.

I'm going to show you. How we talk to

Yahweh. Dad said they could

talk to God, directly to God. And it was

just so insane. That's

when everything started really changing.

Now,

you're gonna hold your arms straight.

Now I want you to bow your head. We're

gonna ask a question. Dad said they could

talk to God, directly to God. Do this

arm test where you held your arm out. The

person would stand that two people stand

up facing each other. One person would

hold their arm out like this. Another

person would put an arm here and an arm

here facing them. They would bow their

head. They would ask Yahweh a

question. Are we talking to Yahweh?

They'd push down on the arm. If it stayed

up, it was yes. If it collapsed, it was

no. And.

that was talking directly to God.

Him and Mom did the arm test.

Are we talking to you, Yahweh?You know,

and are we part of the 144,000?And things

like that to reinforce to us that God

sees everything I'm saying, God's telling

you is true. Are we the chosen

people?

We're the chosen people. We're the

chosen people. My mom believed

what my dad was saying to be true. And I

I never, I never questioned it. That's

probably one of the biggest things that

I'm ashamed about of the whole, the whole

ordeal, is I never questioned any of it.

And never once. I mean,

that's what dad said, and that was that.

Dad was supposed to be the man that

everybody turned to for leadership in

this area. He's gonna be a voice for God.

We gotta ask ourselves, how are we gonna

stay pure in this corrupted world?

You gotta rid yourself of anything that's

impure. People would come to our house,

and everybody would just gather around,

and we'd talk about the Bible, we'd talk

about, you know,

what we needed to do to prepare for

Armageddon. How are you gonna

prepare for the upcoming turmoil?

We'd all pray together, and it just got

to the point where they were-- there was

somebody always over. How are you gonna

protect your family?Jews,

blacks, Mexicans, Japanese, Chinese--

none of these is gonna make it in

Yahweh's new kingdom. What can we do?

Armed, ready to pull that trigger. It's

the only way. You come home from school,

they're there. On the weekends, they're

always there. Everybody started becoming

close-knit. Whole family started staying

for nights on end, days on end at the

same residence, ruling with a total of 20

people on the farm. It

quickly went from a religious belief

to an obsession.

Dad pulled me out of school, and

I felt cut off from the world.

Daily life on the farm was planned out by

people talking to Yahweh and

getting yes or no answers from Yahweh

through the arm test. What

the women were supposed to eat, who was

supposed to do guard duty, am I gonna

help watch the kids today, or am I gonna

help in the classroom today?He never did

anything without approval from Yahweh.

And like people listening to music, we'd

listen to teachings from different parts

of the Bible, talking about Armageddon.

Everything was in preparation for the

end of the world as we know it.

They started going out committing crimes

together, stealing stuff, stealing

people's farm equipment and and stealing

people's livestock, people's crops.

You know, and Dad was their leader. All

the thefts that took place was

considered our property to begin with,

because the stuff that was being stolen

was taken from Satan's people. They had

no right to it. So you just go out and

take whatever you want and...

It wasn't a crime, because we didn't have

to follow man's laws. Our laws were

set by Yahweh.

Jamie Haverkamp had a sister, Cheryl.

Dad was just head over heels in love with

Cheryl. He thought Cheryl was the

greatest. And eventually,

they were married, and he had two wives.

And then he ended up marrying Maxine,

Cheryl's mom. He was taking all the women

as his wives. We are all

truly blessed to be here today in the

presence of Yahweh. Seeing dad

with other women wasn't

abnormal for me, 'cause you could have up

to seven wives, because that's how it was

in the Bible.

She didn't like it. She was always

getting in trouble for having jealous

thoughts about Dad and his other wives.

She tried to leave. One time when Dad was

gone, she packed up a suitcase and

went to her sister's house. And when Dad

come back, instead of being angry,He

starts trying to sweet talk her and

telling her he's sorry and, and you

know, it'll never happen again.

I need you. Let's come get you by my

side. And of course, she

gave in to him and went back.

As soon as they get back in the house and

he shuts the door. Knocked her down,

slapped her. He grabbed her by the

throat, threw her against the wall.

I was scared he would kill her.

As soon as they get back in the house and

he shuts the door, he grabs her up

and tells her, you're not going to take

my boys away from me, I'll catch your

throat.

Stop. Don't you ever leave me again. You

understand?

She knew if she ever left again, that he

would hunt her down and he would kill

her. There was no place she could go.

It was the truth. He would have.

As time went on, over the

next two or three years, he became more

intense. He was telling

everybody on the farm, I mean, all the

women, the kids, for the United States is

gonna be the New Jerusalem. That was

gonna be our land. It had to be cleansed.

Is your heart true?

The purification was gonna be by killing

everybody. We are God's

acts, and we will wash in the blood of

his enemies. It will drive those

heathens back to their foreign lands.

All white people that didn't believe like

us are

part of Satan. They would die. All Jews

had to die. Help cleanse the world of the

sinners, of the unclean.

And if he was black or Italian or or any

other nationality, he was you had to you

had to return to your land. If you

refused to turn to your land, you would

die.

You are one of the chosen.

It wasn't murder. You could do whatever

you want to people that weren't. Part of

Yahweh's 144,000 because they're

part of Satan, so in Yahweh's eyes, it's

not murder. I never once heard

anybody say, Well, are you sure that's

what that really means?There was no

independent thinking. All of a sudden,

we're starting to see machine guns and

ammunition and started seeing him work

with explosives, making pipe

bombs. Nobody ever went unarmed.

You got to fight for Yahweh.

He said it was time for me to become a

man and start training. You got

to fight for your family.

But don't question me. I made the

comment that I wish I didn't have the

responsibility of being a soldier, and I

sure wish I was a kid again so I could be

playing with other kids. Don't question

my wishes. Don't question Yahweh's

wishes. He was holding an AR-15.

He told me, You're gonna take this gun,

and, uh, you're gonna kill everyone that

you need to kill for Yahweh, and you're

not gonna let it bother you a bit.

Time to man up. And

he said, When this is all over, you can

cry and let it all out, but until then,

you don't cry no more. It's what I

expect of you. I need to be

cold and heartless. I know he's mad at

me, and I'm trying not to have

problems with it. I couldn't disappoint

Dad. If I disappointed Dad, it

disappointed God. I'm

ready.

I wanted to be just like him, you knowAnd

and

he got so angry and so mad when you

didn't do what you're supposed to do.

I mean, like a

mixed excuse or something. It's like you

just, you know, after a while you just

kept beating it in, beating it in me. And

finally it was just like,

you know, all right, that's that's who

I'm going to be. And that's what Ibecame.

Oh, there we go. Yeah.

This was taken in October of

'84.

My brother, my sister, mom and dad and

me, I just look back at this, and I

just-- I just shake my head about. I

dressed exactly like Dad.

I was an alter ego of my dad. I was

like a mini-me of my dad. I was becoming

what he wanted me to become.

I wish that I could

go back to this time and tell my mom to

grab the-- grab us kids and just run.

Get in the car and just go and don't

stop, don't look back. But,

you know, you can't.

Look and I know she wanted to do

something, but she-- there's nothing she

could do. And she knew it.

She knew she couldn't come to me.

She said she thought...

about how to get away.

But she knew I wouldn't-- I wouldn't let

her. And I wouldn't have.

I'd have turned on her. If I would have

known she was doubting anything of Yahweh

or Dad, we would have went after her.

And he'd have killed her.

And so she just stayed and kept her mouth

shut.

And I

can't fault her for that.

Those of you who have been here from the

beginning will not be surprised from the

start. Yahweh had big

plans for us. They had made it known to

everybody that Yahweh had deemed

Dad the King of Israel. And as

King of Israel, I am

his voice. And

that all of Dad's wives were Queens,

and that Dad had the Archangel

Michael's spirit in him.

They did the arm test. Dad asked

something along the lines of, Do you

consider Michael Ryan the

king of Israel?And the arm would stay up,

and it would be yes. Like it says in

the Bible, The Word has become flesh.

Yahweh speaks through me.

Yahweh and Dad were one and the same.

He was the king of Israel, he was God's

voice, he was God.

Come up here, Dennis. I knew then that

I could do whatever was asked of me to do

and I wouldn't. I would not feel bad

about it.

Those of you who have been here from the

beginning will not be surprised.

From the start, Yahweh has had a big

plan for

us. Yahweh had deemed Dad the king of

Israel. There was no distinction

between my dad

and Yahweh. Come up here,

Dennis. That's when Dad announced that

since he is king of Israel, I'm the

Prince of Israel. He has done

everything that has been asked of him.

It made me feel important, made me feel

good. I knew I was going to be the

leader. Praise Yahweh!

I knew then that I could do whatever was

asking me to do, and I wouldn't feel bad

about it, because what we were doing was

Yahweh's work, and I

accepted my role.

Dad started losing control.

The people out there, they started

doubting and and thought, man, this is

wrong.

And there's no doubt that that made him

more controlling. He clenched his

fist tighter on the group. It's going to

be my way or no way.

And the only way to

Get more of that control back is to

instill deeper fear.

He chose the weakest person,

the one that he knew would give the least

resistance, because he's a bully. That's

what bullies do. Bullies don't want

someone that's going to fight back.

Bullies want someone they can push

around. James Timm

was the meekest of everybody there.

Dad said James Timm angered Yahweh.

But so Jim Tim had to be punished.

He was taken to the hog shed.

He was chained up out there.

They were stomping on him and kickinghim.

Then I went out to the hog shed.

And, uh..

I mean, it was brutal.

Tim broke one leg, I broke the other.

And Dad was just telling him, you know,

this is this is all punishment because,

you know, you you're doubting Yahweh, and

if you doubt Yahweh, this is what happens

to you. Your actions have

led you down a different path, the path

of the non-believer. Please, I'll do

anything.

And then Dad said...

He told us that he was going to show us

how to skin a man alive.

Had me go get, I don't know, a razor and

some pliers.

That went on all afternoon.

The whole time all this is going on, Jim

Tim's asking Yahweh, please forgive me.

I'm sorry for what I did. And he looked

right at me and he asked, Yeah, Yahweh,

forgive me.

And I remember thinking then that, uh,

it's too late.

You had your chance to be forgiven, but

you chose, you chose this instead. I

didn't feel one bit sorry for the pan.

I

don't remember how long after that or

whatever, Dad said that he was dead.

He was put in a grave facing east,

and Dad said that if anybody asked Jim,

Tim went south.

I didn't feel oneounce of

sorrow or guilt.

If anything, I felt pride because we just

did the work of Yahweh. And

no one needs to die like that.

My entire life, I wanted to please Dad in

everything I did, whether it was learning

to play baseball all the way up until the

time that he told me I had to killpeople.

I didn't want to disappoint him. I didn't

want to let him down. I wanted to be good

enough.

I seen it. I witnessed it.

That's little Luke, Luke Stites.

The little boy died hard, man. He didn't

do anything wrong. Dad said he was

like a a mutt puppy,

a mixed-breed dog. He wasn't

purebred like we were.

God.

That's terrible.

See, those are the two victims right

there. Their last days were horrible.

Officers made their gruesome discovery in

a farm field near Rulo. Michael Ryan, the

leader of a self-styled religious cult,

along with his teenage son Dennis and

several others, brutally tortured A

fellow cult member to death.

For the first six months of my

incarceration, he was the only person I

was allowed to see. Dad said angels

were going to come and open the gate,

open the cell door and let us out, and

we're going to carry on the work of

Yahweh. These angels never-- I kept

waiting for them. Every day I kept, Okay,

this is the day. This is the day. This is

the day. And they never-- they never--

they never showed up.

The next time he sees me, whether it be

on the battlefield of Armageddon or

wherever, he's going to kill me. Said

he'll kill me and step right over my body

and go on right to the next guy.

And he meant it.

Prison saved my life.

Prison was the only thing that got me

away from my dad. My

entire life, from as far back as I can

remember, my dad was who I wanted to be.

My contact with my dad had to be broke.

That That umbilical cord had to be cut.

And of course, everybody knew who I was.

I got my life sentence, and that's the

first time in my entire life that I've

ever been around a black person.

And an old black guy,

he pulled me aside. And

I'll never forget it. He said, Son, your

dad's lying to you. And

I'm like, What do you know?You're Satan.

You're a Christian, right?

What we did was right, you know?You know,

Armageddon's coming. And he says, Show me

where it says this in the Bible. You

know, where where does it say that Jews

are sons of Satan?John 3:16.

For God so loved the world that he gave

his only begotten son. And I kept arguing

with him. But he kept proving

me wrong at every verse I pulled up that

we used to justify what we did.

It didn't say what it, what it was

supposed to say. Your doctrine, well,

your father's doctrine, has got

you screwed up.

And he's like, I'm sorry, son. What you

did was wrong. What your dad's teaching

you is wrong. This book is about

love, son, not hatred. And he wanted to

help me. A black guy wanted to help me. I

mean, I'm a hardcore racist, and here

he's, you know...

I talked to him for a long time.

I struggled for a couple years.

Was it really a lie?Did he really lie?

It took me a long time to break his

control.

Once I knew Dad lied to me, I wanted to

understand why. Why did you

believe this?Why did you raise me this

way?I wanted answers.

And he refused to give them to me. He

wouldn't even talk to me.

That really hurt because, I mean, I

wanted to-- you know, I wanted him to

know that, hey, man, I'm my own-- I'm

becoming my own man. You know, I'm not

like you. I've become my own person. He

denied me that.

And it wasn't long after that that I got

a letter from my dad. He said that I was

lower than on the bottom of the sea, and

that the cycle's complete, and I'm part

of Satan now, and when he sees me, the

next time he sees me, whether it be on

the battlefield of Armageddon or

wherever, he's gonna kill me.

Said he'll kill me and step right over my

body and go on right to the next guy.

And he meant it. That was his way of

having the last say by not confronting me

or letting me confront him. He kept

control. And by doing

that, he got the last word.

I'm sure he died a bitter old man, a

bitter, lonely old man, and that's what

he deserved. He was sadistic.

He was demented. He was a

stone-cold killer.

Good riddance.

My mother moved to live with her sister

and started trying to put her life

together. When

I first got locked up, I hated my mom.

She didn't save me from my dad.

My counselor at the time, in prison,

told me the only way I was going to get

healing and start building a relationship

with my mom was to express

how I feel, tell her how I feel.

And I called him on Thanksgiving and my

mom got on the phone.

And I told her that I hated her

for

for not saving me.

At the time, it was probably one of the

hardest things I ever did.

Because I loved my mom, but yet I

hated... I just

had so much hate and anger.

But

we talked and...

and started repairing a relationship.

April 15th, 1997,

I'll never forget it.

The nightmare's finally over.

I did 11 years, seven months, and 29

days.

I was 27 years old, and I'd never been a

free man, a free person. And I just

didn't know what to do. I just couldn't

believe it was real. It's a disgrace to

the United States of America to release

men that had done anything like that.

I can't I can't fault him for feeling

that way. There was a lot of people that

didn't think I should get out. I had

to prove a lot of people wrong.

I'm not the dentist from

1985. I've been out of prison for, what,

18, 19 years now, you know, and I've been

away from that belief for almost 30

years. I

wish-- wish life could have been

different, but if life would have been

different, I'd never had my son. I'd

never had my wife. And... He's a

good kid.

I used to tell myself years ago when I

was still in prison that if I ever got

out, I would never make my child

do anything he didn't want to do. I

wanted to make his own mind up on things.

I told my son a long time ago, if you

want to go to church, I I have no

issues with you going to church, but it's

not something I can do

because... I don't know if I believe in

God, because

I I helped kill a man for God.

It's always going to be with me. I just

hope I'm not remembered for the farm. I

don't know if I'm remembered for...

taking advantage of the chance I was

given. Raising a good

kid and being a good husband.

Leading a good life when given thechance.