Sex cult's messiah turns killer

[emad]

Sex cult's messiah turns killer

The 'gentle' heir to a Sixties sect killed his former nanny and then himself on an Arizona desert highway

Paul Harris
Sunday January 23, 2005
The Observer

Ricky Rodriguez grew up being hailed as a messiah. Born into the notorious sex cult The Children of God, Rodriguez was raised amid a bizarre blend of free love and apocalyptic Christianity. Its founder, David Berg, prophesied that one day Rodriguez would lead it.
Yet now he is dead. Two weeks ago 'gentle, caring' Rodriguez brutally murdered a cult member, and then shot himself in the head on a lonely stretch of desert road in Arizona. The deaths have shocked America and highlighted the dark history of the cult, which has branches in Britain and across the world.

It has revealed graphic allegations of sexual abuse, surreal beliefs and countless shattered lives in a group that sprang from the counter-culture of Sixties California. It is also a tale of 29-year-old Rodriguez's doomed struggle to come to terms with his past after leaving the cult and the terrible revenge he plotted against members he claimed had sexually abused him as a child.

Gradually a picture of his last days is being pieced together. Friends of Rodriguez said he had struggled to cope with entering the world outside after his exit from the Children of God in 2000.

For Sarah Martin, another former member, the first sign something had finally gone dreadfully wrong was when Rodriguez phoned her in the middle of the night just before the murder.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1396501,00.html
CHILDREN OF GOD: one nasty criminal cult that both the US and UK spent $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$s on eradicating from security/intelligence files in connection with its former high disciple Ronald Reagan.

[pnorman]

1. Here's some more detail on that religious sect:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_God

It mentioned some connection with a few low-level celebrities at that time, but I saw no mention of Reagan.

pnorman

[emad]

2. All Reagan references are classfied as being "potentially

damaging to the security of the US and UK" - ie. too horrible to ever acknowledge to voters on either side of the Atlantic who might find revision of history too nauseating to deal with rationally....