Cult Girl

She was convinced she was poisoned by a religious cult leader. Plain and simple.
I had received no less than six calls from her  regarding this case and not a penny.

I knew she wouldn't pay me because she was 24 and said she was broke.
She claimed to be the daughter of an heir to a fortune. Her real father, she said, lived in Germany with a new wife and owned a castle. Her  mother, also rich, died and the case was in probate with her brother and sister, who she did not speak to.
So, she said, if I help her now I will be paid down the road.
I hear that a lot... the part about getting paid down the road.
The longer and more complicated the excuse, the less I believe it true.

The first conversation, I focused on her story, taking notes by hand on every word I could capture over the cell phone. She spoke fast.

The second phone call, I assessed her sanity based on the first call.
She had only a message number, she said, she was living with various friends and was homeless. She began to provide specifics about the cult, they way they lured her in, courted, then captured her heart and money.

The third call (and all these calls were from her to me), I found myself vacillating between the validity of her story and her sanity.

Normally, I avoid private clients and work directly through attorneys. Private clients require a whole lot of time and many are either unwilling or unable to pay for my time.
Yet some cases, like this one, are a mission of mercy to me...  pro bono... and possibly tax deductible, IRS permitting.  I was still trying to determine if this would be one of those pro bonos or this caller, this young woman, was a few beers shy of a six pack.

She was from a questionable, rural area of Washington state where bad and most would say, perverted, things recently happened and continue to do so.

Google this: "enumclaw+horse+perforated colon" and you'll know the area I am talking about and what went down... or up... there recently.

The religious cult the young woman called me about operated a web site and operated close to the aforementioned "horse incident" site.

On the fourth call, I asked for every name she could give me about the cult leader and members.  Dates of birth, AKA's (Also Known As), addresses, etc. I did  some background on her subjects.... and her.

On her fifth call, I told her there is indeed a religious cult she described and yes there are people who've had issues with them, but none like hers. I said if she'd be poisoned and defrauded, she needed the police, not me for this.

She said she'd already gone to the police.
They referred her to a retired police officer who referred her to me.
She said everyone said there as nothing she could do.
She willingly joined the cult,  she willingly slept with the leader, she willingly tithed them and she never took blood tests so there was no proof she was poisoned.
I suspected the police suspected she was a nut case.

She said she'd begun her own investigation and just wanted to meet me, talk go me, have me mentor her, infiltrate the cult, and help her put these people away.
She said when her mom died, she got a small inheritance and gave it all to the religious cult.
This contradicted her prior claim that her deceased, rich mom's estate was still in probate.
Major red flag. 

I said I was not a cult expert, though I could refer her to one.
I told her she needed an attorney. If the police weren't going to pursue this, maybe a civil attorney would. 
I said everything I could to convince her  I was didn't want her case.
Every inner alarm in my gut was ringing. There was no snooze button.
However, she was 24 years old, alone and scared. I spoke with caution and compassion.

On the fifth call, I said very little. I just listened as she said she'd begun calling  parents of cult members. She rambled on so quickly, her thoughts leaping so sporadically, I wondered if she was on speed.
She said she wanted to pick my brain and she'd pay for the coffee.
I said no, she needed the police or an attorney, not me.

One the sixth and last call I was blunt. I said we had spent almost 6 hours in phone conversation, yet she was not a client and had not paid a retainer. I told her again she needed to work with the police or attorney. 

I also told her I felt it was in her best interests to walk away from the whole thing and consider the experience a lesson learned. The cult she referred to, she joined willingly. The money she gave them was not coerced from her.  She handed the money and her body over to the cult leader.

I explained  some cults try to pass themselves off as religions. They are seductive and police are limited in their abilities to intervene. I suggested she be grateful for being out of the cult, living in the city, away from them now. I said maybe she should see this past problem as an opportunity for change.

She would hear none of it. She insisted she wanted justice.

I tried one last time. I said she needed to re-frame the picture, look at it from a different perspective.
The fact that she was still alive meant her glass was half full, not half empty. And perhaps she should put her energy elsewhere --  towards an education, a job, reuniting with the sister and brother she was alienated from by her choice, not theirs.
She hung up on me and I never heard from her again.

I follow the cult on the net. I haven't seen any problems with them since I first looked. Nothing criminal, nothing even worthy of a civil suit. Just a whole lot of whining on message boards. 

Truth be told, I'm not even sure they are a cult --  they're more of a like-minded group of people who gather in the name of their version of a religion, tithing to a set of beliefs which they believe will result in eternal salvation.

My job is to investigate, not judge. Though I made a judgment call on that case and I feel it was the right one.

A Private Investigator who works for private  clients instead of attorneys runs real risks because we never know what's under that mask of sanity.