well, hey, everyone. this is rick. and i am making this video. i want there to be some record of my ideas, just who i was really. i just hope i don't do something stupid and blow my nose off instead of my [ muted ] head.

>> i don't think he really thought he had a chance in life, that his life was already over. it had been ruined. >> he would tell me, "i just want to die. i'm just tired of this life. i'll never be free from this past and this past." >> the goal is to bring down the sick [ muted ] mom and peter, my own mother. what an evil little [ muted ]. how can you do that to kids? how can you do that to kids and sleep at night? i don't [ muted ] know. anyway. >> you know, everything was backwards, the way we were growing up, absolutely everything. and everything that was wrong, we were taught was right. everything that was really evil and wicked and perverted was done in the name of jesus.

it really does [ muted ] your head up. >> two months after rick rodriguez recorded his video, friends are holding his memorial. like rick, many of them were raised in a bizarre christian sect who practiced free love. >> we're here to say good-bye to a friend that we had, somebody who need not have passed the way that he did. >> like rick, many of the mourners say they were abused in the cult. originally called the children of god, it followed a radical, religious and sexual philosophy

they named "the law of love." >> i want to show how many people that loved ricky, how many lives that he touched. >> the law of love, they could do anything that they wanted, really, as long as they did it out of love, you know. so they used that a lot for a lot of things, you know? for the sharing, you know, for the swapping of couples. so, basically, that was the only law that they lived under. because they certainly didn't abide by society's laws, you know? they definitely didn't abide by those laws. it just gave them an excuse to do whatever they want to anyone, really, or with anyone.

>> the law of love was a creation of david berg, founder of the cult, and promoted and encouraged through its publications. >> i practice what i preach! and i preach sex, boys and girls, hallelujah! when i say [ muted ] you know what i'm talking about? don't you? every one of you know. except for maybe some of the little children. and our quds kids are so smart, they even know what that means. we don't think there is anything evil about it. we don't think there is anything wrong. >> the circumstances of ricky's passing are very tragic and uncharacteristic of ricky as a person. ricky would want this memorial, his memorial, to be a celebration of life, not a celebration of death. >> donna grew up in the cult and was a close friend of rick's. his mother, judy, joined in the early days of the sect. >> i actually joined in 1970 and, of course, i was 20, very vulnerable, didn't know what i

was doing, you know? i had always since i was a kid wanted to do something for jesus. so, you kind of got drawn into the fact that it looked like they were doing something because there were numbers coming at you. and actually, when i joined, there were 200 people. within three years, there were 10,000 people. >> the children of god were founded in 1968 in southern california by a charismatic baptist minister called david berg. ♪ ♪ who will take the stand and heed the call ♪ >> at first, berg preached a simple gospel, prophecying the second coming of jesus. but as his popularity grew, his sermon became more disturbing. ♪ because they live and die for the kingdom ♪ >> by the early '80s, a film from the time shows berg's band of hippy followers had mobilized into a disciplined army of

converts, changing their name to the family. they fanned out across the globe. ♪ the revolution for jesus and david our king ♪ >> kind of got sucked in, you know. and i got sucked in before i knew what -- i really thought i was joining a christian organization. i thought it was what god wanted me to do. i had no idea that, you know, it eventually would turn into dark betrayal. take 4 advil in a day or just 2 aleve for all day relief. honey, you did it! baby laughs!

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to the outside world, the family was a missionary organization spreading their word from mexico city to manila, but behind the closed doors of their communes, free love was their theology. >> at the age of 7, i remember i was in panama, and it was new year's.

and i slept on one of these trundle beds that pulls out from a bunk bed. and i remember rolling over and looking, and there was the behind of one of the sisters in the home, and she was having sex with my father less than a foot from me. i remember her name to this day. i remember getting up and going to the bathroom and looking in my mom's room. and my mom was having sex with the woman's husband. this wasn't an anomaly. >> okay, girls, don't cover up too quick. >> it was part of our doctrine, it was part of our dogma and not something that was restricted to adults. we were taught that as children. >> he doesn't get to appreciate your beauty that often. let's show you how we bed down here at night. >> we love you. >> love you! >> armed with camcorders, the far-flung kmunz often recorded their exploits sending david berg messages of love. >> we love you.

>> i've tried so many things. trying to somehow fit in, somehow to find, you know, a normal life. everybody has said, who i've talked to about this, well, you know, everybody has that prob m problem. everybody has a [ muted ] there but those people who say that, they had no clue as to what actually went on, because they weren't part of the cult. >> rick was the result of a grand sexual experiment. his mother, karen zerby, was david berg's favorite consort, and together they devised a revolutionary method of luring new recruits. it was called flirty fishing.

>> so, flirty fishing basically consisted of family women, more commonly, and occasionally men, going to places where they could meet people -- bars and nightclubs and what have you. and making themselves available to these people, fairly readily available for sex. ♪ >> and then there was the expectation that they would lead these people to jesus or pray with them to receive jesus as their savior. >> here you see faith as she witnesses to the vice president of her company from sweden. and he's asking her at this time, do you think i'll go to heaven? very, very sweet man who really enjoyed their contact that

night. >> i was never asked to share until the ff'ing thing came out and then it was kind of a pressurized thing. it was like, you either do it or you're out. >> what was it like to have to do that? >> what was it like? >> yeah. >> i don't want to go there. >> david berg, in his writing, refers to them as god's whores. my mother -- when i used that terminology, my mother took exception to it. and i reminded her that it wasn't i who used the words, god's whores, it was her founder. but, yes, she said she's proud about it and proud to have done it. >> how does that make you feel now? >> it bothers me, to be honest with you. and if you boil it down to its basic, my mother was a prostitute.

>> karen zerby was a hooker for jesus, one of the first. on one trip to tenerife, she records fishing 18 different men. one of them was a local waiter, rick's father. david berg wanted an heir apparent he could mold in his own image, so he adopted baby rick, celebrating the new messiah in the cult's publications and documenting his childhood in intimate family snaps. >> he was almost like, i don't know, what would you compare that to? i suppose he was just very famous, you know? probably one of the most famous, sort of like next to, next to his dad, you know. it's like their family was like royalty, you know, and he was like a prince, and you know, soon-to-be king sort of person. >> but the mantle of leadership came with a price.

berg would also use his son as an ideological play thing, pushing sexual boundaries for a new generation of disciples. >> you know, we may not believe in god. i don't. at least certainly not the christian [ muted ] god. it's a big [ muted ] and he wants to stick it in everybody's [ bleep ]. but, i don't know. i'm starting to think life goes on and that [ muted ] scares me. that really does scare me more than anything, because -- because i -- i don't know. i don't want it to go on. i want it to just be over. >> he talked about suicide a lot. and i would ask him, you know, why he felt like that. why did he want to die? and, you know, he said, you know

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okay. we're back. so, anyway, duct tape. you can fix anything with this [ muted ] stuff. i'm going to fix people with this. anyway, okay, i'm sorry. i'm getting all upset here. where the [ muted ] was i? suicide. yes, suicide. >> 24 hours after rick recorded his video, he left his tucson apartment and hit the freeway. driving west through the arizona desert, he made his last phone call to his estranged wife, elixcia. >> he said he was afraid of dying. i told him that i believed in angels. and i told him that when he died, he would feel love that he never got to experience in this

world. and he told me, keep telling me nice stories. different parts of the conversation, he's like, oh, i think i'm going to pull in here and kill myself, and i'm just freaking out! it's like, what are you going to do? by this time he was really tired. i think he had been awake for like two days. and he just started mumbling words. he was like, "i have to go now." he goes, "i'm so tired. i'm so tired of thinking." you know, he just, a lot of just expressing thoughts, everything that was going through his mind. and then he, he was like, "i have to go now." >> i got in contact with my sister.

well, i consider her my sister, because to me she is. she's not flesh and blood. but i'm talking about davida. she calls me sometimes and we talk and tells me the stuff she's going through, and that just breaks my heart, you know? >> david berg frowned upon conventional families, and rick was raised by a coterie of female acolytes along with a baby girl called davida. the pair grew up almost as brother and sister. as the family's patriarch continued to break sexual and religious taboos, rick and davida became his latest play things. >> growing up as a kid, i remember everything revolved, in our lives, around religion and sex.

they expected us to have some interaction between ourselves, with the intent that we would marry, get married, and become the future heirs to the throne so to speak, meaning that we would be the next teacher leaders, the next gurus, the next david berg or the next karen zerby of our time. >> not only were rick and davida encouraged to have sexual interaction, they also shared david berg's bed. >> i must have been 5 years old. i was married, supposedly, to -- i was going to become one of davidberg's brides. and there was a ceremony with the ring and everything. and once i turned 5 years old, was when i was implicated to being one of his queens so to speak. and i remember, actually i used to look forward to going and spending time with him in the evenings, me and rick, because it was the only time he would actually let us watch cartoons. we were absolutely not allowed

to watch any tv whatsoever. and it was the only time that we watched cartoons. he would always let us watch "scooby-doo." well, we didn't look forward to love up time, but that was part of the package. you get to watch "scooby-doo" and eat chocolate and have, you know, loving interaction with grandpa. there was never penetration. but up until about 12 years old, it was never penetration. it was just really all the other forms of molestation, touching and oral and mostly just that. except it was different with rick. he always had intercourse with the adult women. because as a little boy, i suppose it's a little different, you know. >> it was actually very common in the family for the adult women to have sexual relations with young boys.

the women not only had sexual relationships with the young boys. they were also facilitators. they also gave their children to the men. it wasn't just the case of sort of, you know, sticking up for your mate or for your partner or the woman defending the man and being in denial because of it. no, they were active enablers and active participants in our abuse. >> rick and davida even starred in their own bedtime story, printed by the family as an example for all their children to follow. chapters dealt with potty training, discipline, and sex. >> the book was just written by my mother, because my mother was the one that raised -- like i said, had raised rick and myself. so, she had just written these chronicles explaining, on a day-to-day basis how we interacted and what she was teaching us and what we were learning, and that included

sexual encounters that she had had with him and how she used to masturbate him to sleep and how she would make sure that he would have his love-up time before bedtime. it was just so -- it's really -- i don't know. you have to read the book. it's really -- so that's what the davidito book was. it was just a book written about our lives and how we were raised and how other people should imitate the way we were raised and try to do the best to raise their children accordingly. cshe is the greatest thing ever.

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[ cheers and applause ] ♪ by the early '80s, david berg was on the run from interpol on suspicion of pimping. moving with rick and davidito from one secret compound to the next, he never met ordinary members. now he commanded his female acolytes to send him strip videos. when his message extended to young girls, english sisters, celeste and kristina also had to perform for his cameras. >> that, to me, is disturbing,

because this was just the start of much more. we were told we were dancing for god as well as berg, didn't we? >> yeah. glorify god. yeah, it's just -- it's just sad. it's just -- ♪ >> david berg wrote a letter called glorify god. that's where he gave specific instructions about what he wanted to see on these dance videos. >> you're a sick [ muted ] pervert. and you don't have anything better to do with your life than to [ muted ] up your little kids. it's just so far beyond me, i just can't [ muted ] imagine it. but, yet, it happened. it happened right before me. it happened to all of you. >> celeste's strip video was filmed at the family's commune in greece.

led by berg's lieutenant, paul pelecrin, this was the unit that most enthusiastically followed the example with rick in the story of davidito. >> i hold berg responsible because he ran the communes. his word was gold. and he was the one that did the dance videos when i was in greece. i remember him yelling, being quite physically violent with me on many occasions throughout my childhood. i remember particular sexual abuse when i was 9 years old. >> john came to me and said, well, since dad suggested that i make love to him in the latest commune tape, do you think i should masturbate? and i said, of course, that sounds beautiful. >> he was the one that would use david berg's writings to support his position and also help to

set up the schedules that i would be put on for sexually servicing all of the men in the home. >> i said, zach, keep filming. >> they didn't report to anyone else except for berg. what happened in that location is they began to institute and institutionalize the pedophilia that berg was already practicing in his personal household. and sadly, what happened with that inner circle as far as some of the guys were is it essentially became a pedophile ring. they viciously abused my sister and her friend, amy, as well as celeste in a very systemic way over a very, very long period of time. now the pernicious thing about this was the children were inculturated to believe that this was all normal. >> it was really a beautiful experience. it really -- >> despite the allegations against paul pelecrin, he had never been convicted of any child sexual abuse. >> what about these, you know, [ muted ] perverts, you know, aren't they the real terrorists,

terrorizing little kids? driving them to suicide? isn't that like murdering them basically? you [ muted ] up their mind so much that they can't go on, they really can't go on. isn't that like killing them? [ male announcer ] at northrop grumman, we've always been on the forefront of innovation. when the world called for speed... ♪ ...when the world called for stealth... ♪ ...intelligence... endurance... affordability... adaptability... and when the world asked for the future. staying ahead in a constantly evolving world. that's the value of performance. northrop grumman. i'm sure you know what this meeting is about.ce.

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located inside a vehicle parked where you can see my car is now. some of the things that we discovered in the car was a key card for the holiday inn express. it looks like he probably took a shower, cleaned up, he drank some beers, looked like he had laid in the bed but that he hadn't slept in the bed. and possibly watched tv and just rested after cleaning up and then drove this short distance over to here. i think it was just a place where he thought he wouldn't be bothered, he could do what he felt he needed to do. it's a very sad story. >> i can only imagine what my sister goes through. she has nightmares about, you know, being dragged out of bed in the middle of the night to go have sex with berg.

[ muted ] them. >> it was very strange because during a lot of these sexual interactions, david berg would be getting prophecies where he would speak on account of ghosts that he believed were possessing him. you know, that were good ghosts that were saved or christian, but had gone on to heaven and that were living with jesus and he would burst out speaking in tongues just exactly like they do in a baptist church where they have tongues and prophecy. he would lift his hand in the air and get a prophecy and say that was amazing sex that you had with the ghost gypsy. the gypsy ghost is saying, thanks, that was -- like a whole prophecy. it was really disturbing. >> now aged 12 and sequestered in the family's secret hq, rick's degradation reached new extremes.

in his father's eyes, incest was virtuous, and he encouraged rick's mother, karen zerby, to join in their sexual games. >> i specifically remember a couple of accounts where we were all in the same bed. i was required to be having sexual interaction with the guru at the time, david berg, and i would be on his right side, masturbating him while rick would be having full sexual intercourse with his mother on the other side of the bed. but it would be like a big happy family time in bed between the four of us. >> there are a lot of things that i have sort of come to terms with, and i understand the issues of control in the family. but what i haven't come to understand yet is how such a large group of people, of diverse background, of diverse ethnicities, of income levels can so readily turn to wholesale pedophilia.

not everybody engaged in. but if you were in the family you knew about it. >> the family denied karen zerby ever had sex with rick and say he, himself, never made this allegation. nevertheless, whatever happened in david berg's bedroom had a profound effect on rick and his sister. in recent years, davida has struggled with drug abuse and today earns her living as an exotic dancer. >> jesus christ, you know, anger does not begin -- does not begin to describe how i feel about these people and what they've done. you know, i mean, rage. >> we want to release doves for

ricky, and i'm also going to read off the names of the people that we've heard of, people who passed away who were not remembered, but this first dove is for ricky. abe. amos. andrew parker. ben farnsworth. cheris lloyd. daniel parker. johnny, steven, and gina. jonas. richard p. rodriguez. river phoenix. >> rick rodriguez is not the only child born into the family driven to suicide or to fatally overdose on drugs. over the past ten years around 30 have died including the actor river phoenix, whose family were once members. >> wow. when rick and i grew up together, we were born in the same country, the same hospital.

my mother raised us both. and i just wanted to say that if it wasn't for my family and friends who have been there for me, i can't say that i wouldn't have killed myself a long time ago. >> rick was amazing in every way. for the time in my life that i got to share with him, i have so many memories from the first time we kissed to the first time we got our apartment. >> these are all his driver's licenses. i kept them all. him as a baby. that's what he looked like when i first met him. he went through a long-hair

stage. he was quite skinny at the time. i always liked taking pictures of him. he would always get mad at me. but i am lucky now because i have all these pictures of him. >> rick was 19 when he met elixcia at a family commune in hungary. >> when he came down the stairs with a beautiful smile, he said, "what are you doing?" and then we just started chatting. he's like, "do you know how to play cards?" and i was like, "no." he was like, "do you want me to teach you?" so we went up to my room. he brought some music an we just started playing cards. i think we played cards until 2:00, 3:00 in the morning. and we just talked and talked. i went to breakfast the next morning, went back to my room to get my stuff, get ready for the day and he had put a rose on my bed, and never the same after that. ♪ after you're gone ♪ oh, dad it's gonna break my heart ♪

♪ the love you've shown to me >> with the spread of aids and international authorities hot on his heels, david berg was finally forced to act. in 1986 he banned sex with children. eight years later, a new band of altogether more wholesome disciples were saying good-bye. in 1994, he was dead. ♪ oh, dad we're gonna carry it on ♪ >> god bless you. it's hard for me to quit. when i say good-bye, just start fading me out because i can't quit. >> rick's mother, karen zerby, took over as leader. at the time, zerby, rick and elixcia were living in portugal. zerby and her entourage left the house in 2001. while in portugal, increasingly reclusive and going blind, she

kept a tight rein on her son. >> she didn't give him much responsibility. he didn't have much responsibility in the house. and that was surprising to me, because as a child, we were taught that he was going to be the leader, the next leader. i think she saw him still as her little boy and not as the man he had become. >> although pedophilia was banned, under karen zerby's command, wife swapping remained the norm. >> there was a prophecy given that this house was called the house of the open [ muted ]. the essence was that sex was the medium to god, to jesus. >> everywhere we went, rick was always, you know, a topic of interest for people. there were always girls that wanted to get a piece of him. and for me, it was really hard to share him. >> shoot [ muted ] my brains. he used us as slaves. because that's we were, every last [ muted ] one of us.

no matter how we were treated, we were [ muted ] slaves. just there for their sick [ muted ] pleasure. that's all it was. that's the way it was at grandpa and mama's house. >> rick showed little appetite for the mantle of leadership forced upon him by david berg. as he grew older, he became increasingly angry with his mother, rejecting everything she stood for. in 2000, with little education and no money, rick and elixcia left portugal and the family for america. they went northwest to tacoma where they knew several ex-cult members. the couple's new life began in a cheap apartment on the edge of town. >> just waking up every morning was just amazing because it was just the two of us. every single time you ever

discussed the topic of his past, of karen, of his childhood, there was anger in there that i had never seen before. he just boiled. >> the couple married. rick found a job as a shipping clerk. and for a time, it seemed they had escaped their past. but ex-cult members began contacting rick, pressurizing him to take a stand against their abusers. raised to be leader, it was a role he found difficult to refuse. >> people would ask him, why aren't you doing something about it? if you told the truth, you more than anybody else will be believed because of where you were. they're like, you owe it to us. you know? and here he is, he has got a good job, he's got a happy life.

in his heart, he didn't think it was fair for him to have been given a second chance when there were kids out there that were hurting. >> rick's thoughts turned to revenge, and he began forming a plan. in the summer of 2004, now age 29, he left elixcia in tacoma and drove south to arizona. >> my mom is going to pay for that. she is going to pay dearly. one way or another. if i don't get to her -- man, if i don't get to her, and life goes on, i'm going to keep hunting her in the next life, let me tell you. day of doing if starts with back pain... and a choice. take 4 advil in a day or just 2 aleve for all day relief. honey, you did it! baby laughs! ameriprise asked people a simple question: in retirement, will you outlive your money?

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as leader of a cult with many enemies, karen zerby's whereabouts were a closely guarded secret.

when rick left the family, he broke off all contact with her. so when he decided to challenge his mother over the abuse he had suffered, he had to find her first. >> i think he really wanted to confront her face to face and ask her, you know, and get some answers. >> he was searching for his meaning in life. he really was. and i think he finally came up with the conclusion that his, his reason for living was to make right his mother's wrongs. >> in the summer of 2004, news reached rick that his mother had recently visited his grandparents in a tucson retirement home. in september, he moved to the city and waited for her to make an appearance. he made contact with his aunt, zerby's sister who lives in tucson and shuns the cult. >> this must be very difficult

for you because so much of his anger is directed at his mother, your sister, and you were caught in the middle of it? >> no, i wasn't caught in the middle. he was my nephew. he needed help. he was the one that was going to be helped. and any anger he had, he had a right to it. his mother didn't take care of him. he didn't have a mother. >> growing up where he was and not doing drugs, getting out, you know, i thought, you know, you're amazing that you've gotten out. >> he sat one time and just said i don't know. i don't know if i can go on. this was probably a week or so before. and i had known that it was coming. it wasn't a matter of maybe it will come.

it was a matter of when is it going to happen? >> rick rented a room in a rough part of town and found a job as an electrician. he practiced martial arts at a local gym and joined a gun club. and he waited for his mother. four months after arriving in tucson, rick set up his new video camera and pressed record. >> this need that i have. it's a need, not a want. it's a [ muted ]. i wish it wasn't, but it is. it's a need for revenge, it's a need for justice, because i can't go on like this. >> blythe, california, police

department contacted us on the morning of january 9th. they found a suicide victim by the name of ricky rodriguez. and upon contacting his wife in washington, they found out that ricky lived here at this apartment complex. and he had mentioned some things to her that were somewhat alarming that there possibly might be a murder victim here in his apartment. we walked in. the apartment was relatively clean and well kept. and a female victim was laying -- an elderly female, she was laying on the carpet. it appeared that her throat had been slashed. there were some defensive wounds to her arms, some cuts on her arms as well. >> the woman rick killed wasn't his mother. did was her close confidante, angela smith. smith had helped raise rick and features in the story of davidito under the pseudonym

sue. he arranged to meet her early on the evening of january the 8th, planning to force her to reveal his mother's whereabouts. >> i'm not trained in torture methods, which is why i'm going to have to make do. i don't know how to [ muted ] do this. i don't even want to [ muted ] do this. but i have to. >> as rick drove to his death, he called his wife, 1,500 miles away in tacoma, one last time. >> he said, the hardest thing about it is that as she was dying, he said, she didn't understand what she had done. and i'm like, who? like, she didn't get it. these people don't get it. he says, i wasn't expecting that answer. i don't understand how they cannot see what they have done. >> despite the savagery of the

murder, there was no evidence of torture. and it's not clear whether angela told rick where his mother was. nor is it clear whether he set off across the desert to hunt down his mother or see his wife. or simply find a quiet place to die. >> it's pretty extraordinary to want to kill your own mother, isn't it? >> well, when your mother [ muted ] you as a child, and instead of being your mother, loving and, you know, and endearing and teaching you in the right ways and stuff, when you [ muted ] your little boy, that will do that to you. that might make you want to kill your mother when you grow up. it really does [ muted ] your head up. >> but yeah, i mean, i guess i said all i can say. what can i say, you know?

oh, have a peaceful, happy life. i tried. i did. maybe i didn't try hard enough. i gave it what i could, you know? i did. >> he wanted to understand. he wanted to care. and he wanted to do something about the pain that i had suffered and others had suffered like himself. >> you know, i think many times about why, why did you have to do it that way? why would he cross that line to actually kill someone? and you know what? and the only thing i can think of is because i think he realized that that's what it would take, something like that, in order to get people's attention.

>> hey. >> hello, cassie. i'm getting you on tape, okay? say hi, please. >> hi. >> what they planned and what they were capable of was far more than we can imagine. >> you're dead. >> you are sick. a psychopath. the pleasure of killing other people. >> that sounds good, baby. >> there's no doubt in my mind they would have followed through with the bloodiest school shooting in history. >> this is not a [ muted ] joke. i stabbed her in the throat and i saw her lifeless body just disappear. >> they are the essence of evil. >> i mean, it went by so fast. >> that's so [ muted ] up. we've got to get her out of here. >> nobody's going to get away with killing my daughter. i'm going to find out who did