The Deaths of Stephen Mineo & Kelly Pingilley

Ep 19

[00:00:00] Mary: [00:00:00] Monsters walk with us in teens, explicit language, adult themes, violence, and may not be suitable for listeners under 18 listener discretion is strongly advised.

[00:00:17] Welcome back friends. Fernando, thank you so much for coming back on as a guest this week. 

[00:00:23] Fernando: [00:00:23] Thank you for having me. I'm very glad to be back.

[00:00:26] Mary: [00:00:26] Just want you to know that this story is about to send both of us to Jupiter and back. So many goddamn times. I am very excited to have you and even more excited to announce that as of the time of this recording, we are super close to 3000 streams. Very excited to announce that I just launched a Patrion for the podcast. Right now I'm doing some polls. I'll put up some extra content as we go. And I'm hoping to eventually do some series and much bigger, deep dives into cases as well as some [00:01:00] mini-sode.

[00:01:00] If you're interested, I'll put the link in the episode description and on the Instagram. So feel free to check us out there. And if you could remember to go to Apple, if that's where you listen, or if you have an Apple product hit the five star review that would really help us out. We are growing in the charts in Ireland.

[00:01:17] What up Irish listeners. Oh man, man, man, man. So... 

[00:01:23] Fernando: [00:01:23] it's about to get... it's something right.

[00:01:31] Mary: [00:01:31] Today we are talking about Sherry Shriner. The sources that I used for today's episode, there was an episode of cults called the virtual reptilian cult an episode of deadly cults. Season two, episode three, called online alien reptiles. I bought this on Amazon. There was a Penn live.com article by Matt Miller.

[00:01:56] Yup.  (laughter) 

[00:01:57] Fernando: [00:01:57] Yeah, these sources that [00:02:00] you're citing, I'm like my face. I'm like WTF. 

[00:02:05] Mary: [00:02:05] The content warning for today's case murder, cults, conspiracies, lizard aliens. And I'm going to make a beyond belief fact or fiction reference. 

[00:02:16] Fernando: [00:02:16] Awesome. I, I love that. 

[00:02:19] Mary: [00:02:19] Yeah. So good. The Pocono mountains are in Northeastern, Pennsylvania.

[00:02:25] The name comes from the  Muncy word, poke a wok NY, which means Creek between two Hills. I actually have been to the Poconos before. 

[00:02:35] Fernando: [00:02:35] Same. There's a resort out there. 

[00:02:38] Mary: [00:02:38] My aunts family had a timeshare or like her friend had a timeshare or something. We went there one summer for like a week. It is beautiful. In the summer it's like this lush green foliage. There's these gorgeous mountain ridges. It feels removed and like very rural. 

[00:02:57] Fernando: [00:02:57] Yes. 

[00:02:58] Mary: [00:02:58] I kind of like went [00:03:00] deep on the Poconos. I don't know why, but I was very interested in this. So here we go. Two of the earliest Pocono resorts were founded by rival factions of the Philadelphia Quaker community. The Inn at buck Hill falls and Pocono Manor, and they were opened in 1901 and 1902. These resorts did not allow liquor or dancing. And evening dress was highly discouraged. The Quakers brought their quiet unostentatious style to the region, but the hotels later developed from religious retreats to these luxurious mountain resorts. Skytop lodge built in 1928 is described as a Dutch colonial style Manor house designed in reaction to the Quaker resorts. It had a dance floor and served liquor in the basement bar. Catch me at that one. 

[00:03:52] Fernando: [00:03:52] It was kind of an F-you to the Quaker resorts. Got it. 

[00:03:55] Mary: [00:03:55] How do you like me now? Skytop has 30 miles of hiking [00:04:00] trails and the main building is surrounded by 5,000 acres of wood, glacial, bogs, hemlock, gorgeous Beaver marshes, and cascading waterfalls. Tamiment was a popular resort amongst Jewish singles from the working and emerging middle-class and the Playhouse there entertained resort guests with an original review every Saturday night during the 10 week, summer season.

[00:04:23] Many prominent Broadway and TV figures gained experience there. And it was often called the Poconos bootcamp for Broadway writers and performers. It was actually described as a more progressive version of the Catskills. So that makes sense. The Poconos is also well known as a honeymoon location. And I remember a lot of jokes growing up about heart shaped jacuzzis, and like, don't get in them if there's one in your room and fun fact, Inventor of the heart shaped bathtub, morris Wilkins was actually born in the Poconos. 

[00:04:56] Fernando: [00:04:56] Oh, okay. 

[00:04:58] Mary: [00:04:58] Around the late two thousands. [00:05:00] They start a rebrand to be a more family friendly destination. As of July, 2015, there are four Pocono resorts with indoor water parks. And one of those is the gray Wolf lodge.

[00:05:11] Fernando: [00:05:11] Right.I was there maybe about like six or seven years ago. I remember it being, you know, not bad.

[00:05:18]Mary: [00:05:18] Family friendly. 

[00:05:20] Fernando: [00:05:20] It was a family vacation. Yes. 

[00:05:23] Mary: [00:05:23] There's a lot of resorts, Lakeside activities, hunting fishing. It's a really popular vacation summer area for most of the major metropolitan cities in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Connecticut.

[00:05:38] It also serves as a commuter community for New York city and North New Jersey. And this commute takes about two hours each way with the regular traffic. Steven Minio is a slender white guy with dark Brown hair. And Stephen's mother Donna had struggled to get pregnant. She gets pregnant and has Steven. And then 18 months later, [00:06:00] she has Steven's younger brother Steven's mother describes his dad as an abusive shit with a horrible temper. She stays with him until Steven is 16. And it gets so bad that she just leaves with nothing to her. 

[00:06:14] Fernando: [00:06:14] Does she leave the kids or? 

[00:06:16] Mary: [00:06:16] She has to leave the kids behind. The boys, really struggled to understand what was going on. And from this interview of her in the episode, she's really upset. You can tell it took a huge toll on her to have to leave them. 

[00:06:30] Fernando: [00:06:30] Right. I guess maybe she figured that at least the one was old enough to be able to take care of himself and. 

[00:06:39] Mary: [00:06:39] If you have to go, you have to go, right? 

[00:06:42] Fernando: [00:06:42] Yeah. 

[00:06:43] Mary: [00:06:43] Steven's father started to play mind games with the two kids and manipulate them into thinking like their mom didn't want them, or they're just not good enough for her, for whatever reason, sadistic prick.

[00:06:57] She said abusive piece of shit, right? 

[00:07:00] [00:06:59] Yeah. Yeah. At a lot of points, the boys wouldn't even talk to their mother at all. Eventually Stephen gets on ye old Facebook and his mom becomes his friend on Facebook. 

[00:07:12] Fernando: [00:07:12] Okay. Oh, when is this? What year? I mean, it's in the Facebook era, so you know, it's not, 

[00:07:21] Mary: [00:07:21] so this is early two thousands.

[00:07:25] Donna, his mom starts commenting on his posts and whatever his pictures, whatever he uploads and she's working to try to build a connection with him. There is a problem with this and the problem is that she fucking catfishes him. 

[00:07:41] Fernando: [00:07:41] What?

[00:07:42]Mary: [00:07:42] She catfishes him. 

[00:07:43] Fernando: [00:07:43] Okay. And how was this approach to bring them closer together?

[00:07:49] Mary: [00:07:49] He has no idea. It's his mom. She's just like some random person that he added to him. 

[00:07:55] Huh.

[00:07:56] I don't know what the profile was. I just know it was [00:08:00] friendly. Not anything weird. But you can't fish your kid. 

[00:08:05] Fernando: [00:08:05] Yeah. That's strange. If you're trying to build a better relationship, why would you do that? 

[00:08:10] Mary: [00:08:10] On behalf of Rachel, I wrote in my notes, when this happened, you shouldn't have called me a fat ass Kelly Price.

[00:08:19] Donna says, well, it's okay because I know if he knew it was me, he would have just blocked me. She quote, keeps an eye on him and watching him over the years through his social media. And he starts to post a lot on social media. He actually starts his own YouTube channel. She's starting to see the posts are getting darker and darker, and he's talking a lot about the end of days, like the nuclear apocalypse.

[00:08:48] Fernando: [00:08:48] Okay. I was going to say, is this like religious in any way or? 

[00:08:53] Mary: [00:08:53] Extremely religious fanatical and from his posts, it's pretty obvious. [00:09:00] Mental health wise, he is going through it and he is struggling. He is posting a lot of things that are clearly paranoid delusions. And he's talking a lot about reptiles and aliens and of course the end of the world is coming.

[00:09:15] So we got to hit that one to make sure everybody knows. 

[00:09:18] Fernando: [00:09:18] Hit them all. 

[00:09:19] Mary: [00:09:19] Right. 

[00:09:21] His mom is becoming pretty concernicus from this dramatic turn. 

[00:09:26] Fernando: [00:09:26] I mean, yeah, I guess I definitely think concern is warranted. 

[00:09:32] Mary: [00:09:32] We may all know some people who have gone through like very public mental health breakdowns on social media, cough, cough my Twitter in grad school. It can be difficult to watch. And I know we both know someone where this happened at like the start of Facebook, where their posts were just getting really dark and scary. 

[00:09:52] Fernando: [00:09:52] Yes. I think everyone knows at least one person that, that they've seen on their feed. 

[00:09:57] Mary: [00:09:57] And I also, before we dive [00:10:00] in, I want to say, I love a conspiracy theory, but with the emergence of Q Anon on this like national stage, it's really poisoned the idea for me. 

[00:10:11] Fernando: [00:10:11] Right. Understandably so. 

[00:10:13] Mary: [00:10:13] What we are about to talk to is not a fun conspiracy theory. Like how I know there's a family of big feet slash Sasquatch out in Ohio Valley, California near the Mexican border. This isn't fun like that.

[00:10:26] This is actually concerning. It's this very strange twist on religion. So he's posting a lot about Yahweh and religious devotion and lizard aliens. So this starts when he is like 15 ish, we're going to fast forward to him being 32. And through these message boards and his internet presence, he meets 42 year old Barbara.

[00:10:51] They start dating. They fall very deeply in love and they start living together and referring to themselves as married. So they weren't [00:11:00] legally married, but they called each other husband and wife. Neither one of them has a job and they spend most of their time online together in their one room studio apartment.

[00:11:12] I was gonna say,, how did they survive with no job?

[00:11:16] I am imagining proceeds from YouTube. 

[00:11:21] July 15th, 2017. Police get a call at 2:38 AM. The report says that a male is dead from a gunshot wound to the head. The detectives listened to the nine one one call in the car on the way over. I didn't know that was a thing that they could do.

[00:11:39]Fernando: [00:11:39] Yeah neither did I. 

[00:11:40] Mary: [00:11:40] And they hear Barbara talking about the shooting. She says, Oh, my boyfriend, Steven Minio shot himself in our studio apartment. And Barbara is saying that Steven grabbed the gun and press the trigger. So the nine one, one operator asks, he had it pointed at [00:12:00] himself or what, what's going on. And she says, yes, he grabbed my hand and pulled it on accident, but it was his hands on it.

[00:12:09] That's a direct quote. 

[00:12:11] Fernando: [00:12:11] That sounds legit.

[00:12:17] Mary: [00:12:17] Yeah, they don't even gotta go over and do any investigation. 

[00:12:20] Fernando: [00:12:20] Just that's it. Yup. 

[00:12:21] Mary: [00:12:21] This is strange, because it's a very confusing explanation as for how this gun would go off. Detectives are ready to investigate pretty much. The second they get there and this studio apartment is tinty. The detectives describe it as the same size as a dorm room.

[00:12:38] Fernando: [00:12:38] Oh, wow. That's yeah, that's small. 

[00:12:42] Mary: [00:12:42] Having managed several on-campus buildings here in the United States. They're small. It's not a lot of space. As soon as they enter the apartment, they see Steven's body immediately. He's laying on the ground and there is blood pooling around his head. There's a gun laying next to him and [00:13:00] it's positioned strangely.

[00:13:02] That gun is literally laying next to a box of ammunition for the gun. And it's, it just looks staged. It's like a little bit too perfect for it to just have fallen there after he shot himself. 

[00:13:17] Fernando: [00:13:17] Gotcha.

[00:13:18]Mary: [00:13:18] Immediately, they can also identify from the gunshot wound that the barrel of the gun had been pressed to Stephen's forehead.

[00:13:25] And this is because when a gun is fired, there is contact wounds. If it's on skin, as well as whatever the resulting damage from the bullet, this can present as flash burns powder tattooing smoke, or sit in the wound and sometimes a star shaped scar. All of this is super weird, right? From the jump. This is not a way that people complete suicide with a gun.

[00:13:50] Fernando: [00:13:50] Yeah, typically, you said. It was pressed to the forehead, right? Yeah. It's usually this on the side, like the temple or whatnot.

[00:13:57]Mary: [00:13:57] It's a strange way to position your hand [00:14:00] to try to shoot yourself. Detectives say they've never seen a gun wound like this in any accidental shooting that they've ever seen or any suicide while the cops are on the scene.

[00:14:10] Barbara is put in the back of a cop car. She's super upset. Her emotions are really heightened and she is acting how they would expect if she had actually witnessed. Her boyfriend just complete suicide in front of her. But again, the scene inside the apartment, not matching up with what she said, and the cops want to interview her right away, you know, got to get those deets down, right when they're fresh lock in that first witness report, just in case they're about to start changing the story.

[00:14:39] Fernando: [00:14:39] I was going to say, cause she will probably deviate from that at some point in time.

[00:14:43]Mary: [00:14:43] The same time that they're doing this, they start paperwork for search warrants. Barbara agrees to go to the station with them to make a witness statement. And one of the cops says, they're trying to determine what's fact and what's fiction. And this is when I screamed beyond belief! 

[00:15:01] [00:15:00] Fernando: [00:15:01] Beyond Belief. 

[00:15:02] Mary: [00:15:02] I actually had to go watch a super cut of Jonathan Frakes. If, you know, you know, and I'll link the video in the episode description.

[00:15:11] They swab Barbara's hands for gunshot residue, doing a GSR test. GSR test is made up of testing for burnt and unburnt particles from the explosive primer. This is the propellant for the bullet to fire out of the gun. And it can also test possibly for fragments of the bullet cartridge case and the firearm. Gunshot residue can travel over three to five feet.

[00:15:37] The test confirms the gun was actually in Barbara's hands. Now they need to know whether or not she pulled the trigger. And when they ask her, she tells the cops that she didn't want to hold the gun, but Steven made her. So here she goes, she insists that Steven was telling her here, I want you to shoot this thing, direct quote.

[00:15:56] And the cop says, but he didn't want you to shoot it at him. [00:16:00] Right. And she says, no, he, he really did. He did. 

[00:16:03] Fernando: [00:16:03] He wanted it.

[00:16:09] Mary: [00:16:09] My eyes just now... like. 

[00:16:12] Fernando: [00:16:12] No, he, he insisted actually. 

[00:16:15] Mary: [00:16:15] Detective then asks, why would he want you to shoot him? Did he mention he was having suicidal thoughts? Was there anything going on with him? And Barbara says, well, he did mention this Sherry Shriner woman had left him suicidal and she goes on to say that Steven used to be really close with Sherry and followed her. And one day she turned on him and they asked her, well, who is Sherry? Barbara says she runs this weird religious call. And they're like, okay, are you also in Nicole? And she says, yeah, I used to be. And we were both part of it, but he was way more active and way more involved with it. And the cops say, okay, well, where is the cult?

[00:16:56] Is that somewhere around here? And Barbara says, Oh no, it's [00:17:00] online. The cops are . Because they only think of cults as like a compound, like a physical location. 

[00:17:07] Fernando: [00:17:07] Like Jonestown. 

[00:17:09] Mary: [00:17:09] Anybody who wants to come can come and that's not  what real communes are like, it's actually like pretty selective. For cults. They're like, cut everybody, bring your friends. Just cut off your family, bring whoever might stay. It's not the same thing as an actual commune, but that's what the cops are thinking of. So the fact that this cult is operating only online blows their minds. 

[00:17:33] Fernando: [00:17:33] And this is 2017. 

[00:17:34] Mary: [00:17:34] Yep. Cops start to do some research on Sherry Shriner, they want to know more about the cult and why Stephen was kicked out. One of the cops describes being totally overwhelmed by the sheer amount of information that they found. There is a super regular radio show. There's 19 websites and Sherry has a YouTube channel. Sherry is a big [00:18:00] proponent that minority groups are responsible for the spread of satanic views.

[00:18:08] Specifically trans people, queer people and especially Jewish people serve Satan directly. 

[00:18:16] Fernando: [00:18:16] Oh man. And is this... okay? So is this like rooted in a certain religion or it's just something made up altogether? 

[00:18:25] Mary: [00:18:25] We're going to get there? I would just like to say that I want to know where the perks of my service to Satan are because their late as  fuck. I want my benefits. 

[00:18:36] Fernando: [00:18:36] Same girl. 

[00:18:38] Mary: [00:18:38] I want back pay. 

[00:18:40] Fernando: [00:18:40] Retro.  

[00:18:42] Mary: [00:18:42] So just a quick note from one of her, just a quick quote from one of her videos on YouTube to set the tone. To be clear, I found a screenshot of this. I did not give her clicks. I would encourage nobody to give any clicks to any of this [00:19:00] fuckery. Quote. I am a soldier in the army of God.

[00:19:03] The Holy Bible is my code of conduct, faith, prayer, and the word or my weapons of warfare. I volunteer for war..

[00:19:15] (laughter) 

[00:19:15] Fernando: [00:19:15] Oh, it's that serious? 

[00:19:17] Mary: [00:19:17] When I tell you that writing these notes fully sent me. Sherry has three books for sale on Amazon. Currently, she describes herself in her author's bio saying that she was born in Cleveland, Ohio in 1965. She graduated from Kent state university in 1990, and she has degrees in journalism, political science, and criminal justice.

[00:19:42] She was living in Carrollton, Ohio. Her book descriptions themselves are a little bit less traditional pedigree and a little bit more religious fanaticism and open racism. Sherry's first book released in January, 2005 is called [00:20:00] Bible code. The coming UFO invasion in June, 2005, Sherry releases a second book called aliens on the internet.

[00:20:09] Fernando: [00:20:09] So is this the sequel? 

[00:20:11] Mary: [00:20:11] I'm going to read the sleeve for this one. 

[00:20:13] Fernando: [00:20:13] Okay. 

[00:20:13] Mary: [00:20:13] The Lord has not left us defenseless in the last days, two groups of 144,000 will rise up to battle against the antichrist and the false prophet. And to witness you always salvation to the world at a time when the world will be right and judgment destruction and horror, there is nothing new about the new world order.

[00:20:33] It is the same type of government. Lucifer tried to run as a high ranking Sherryff before he rebelled against the most high God. Before he lost his rank kingdom and even home planet. 

[00:20:43] (laughter) 

[00:20:43] I'm sorry. I can't. 

[00:20:45] Fernando: [00:20:45] No, it's fine. Honestly, that just like, I'm like, I don't even know what to make of that. Like I just feel like there was so much coming at me.

[00:20:54] Mary: [00:20:54] I only made halfway through. 

[00:20:56] Fernando: [00:20:56] Oh god.

[00:21:00] [00:21:00] Mary: [00:21:00] Author, Sherry Shriner reveals the terrifying reality of aliens in our midst, in aliens, on the internet. She exposes Lucifer's alleged tactics of using the internet chip implantations abductions and how to fight back by deactivating implants and stopping abductions. She also reveals how churches have been used to bring about Lucifer's rise to power and how America has become the home base of operations for Lucifer and his aliens.

[00:21:27] Today, the governments, militaries, churches, and religious television networks of the world. Work in cahoots with Satan behind the scenes to help bring the world under his control. The saints are under attack. 

[00:21:40] Fernando: [00:21:40] Oh, that's a lot girl. That's a lot. Plus also, how did we get like Lucifer and aliens. 

[00:21:48] Mary: [00:21:48] You put the lime in the coconut.

[00:21:53] Fernando: [00:21:53] Or like alien overlord. 

[00:21:56] Mary: [00:21:56] There's some more branches of it though. We can get into [00:22:00] Sherry's third book interview with Lucifer is released in May, 2016. Hey girl, heyyyy! 

[00:22:08] Fernando: [00:22:08] Exclusive.

[00:22:13] Mary: [00:22:13] For several days, the most high pulled Lucifer up to heaven so that I could ask him questions and talk to him. 

[00:22:20] Fernando: [00:22:20] Well, I was right exclusive interview. 

[00:22:24] Mary: [00:22:24] Yeah. 

[00:22:25] In Heaven.

[00:22:26] In Heaven no less! 

[00:22:28] How was Heaven?? 

[00:22:31] Uh, to quote one of my favorite videos from Kelly, the YouTube shoes I've already been to heaven. And after five minutes, I was like, let's go.

[00:22:44] So this book is part of that conversation between Sherry and Lucifer, back to the blurb. This book gives an Epic account of who and what the biblical elect really are, what it was really like during Lucifer's rebellion and the war against heaven. What really [00:23:00] happened in the garden of Eden and what's really going on.

[00:23:03] At the Vatican today and Lucifer's plans for the future all from Lucifer himself directly, as I've spent many, many hours in conversations and interviews with the devil himself directly don't believe it with God, anything is possible. So jot that down. Oh, my God, God made this possible. So the truth can be known.

[00:23:24] The truths Lucifer himself has tried to suppress for thousands of years and throughout the ages. He now reveals to the world in his own words. All I can do is put the truth out there. What you do with it. Is up to you. 

[00:23:37] Fernando: [00:23:37] Thank you, Sherry for your service. And also what the fuck? 

[00:23:44] Mary: [00:23:44] Last bookhas 73 ratings and overall is at four and a half stars, which makes me eye roll so hard.

[00:23:52] Fernando: [00:23:52] I'm going to have to read the reviews on that, on these. Yes, I. 

[00:23:56] Mary: [00:23:56] I wasn't brave enough. So enjoy, feel free to send me [00:24:00] screenshots for the instagram. 

[00:24:01]Fernando: [00:24:01] I will definitely will do.

[00:24:02]Mary: [00:24:02] Sherry says her blood line can actually be traced back to King. David explaining her direct line to God. Be dial. Basically. I got God programmed number one on my speed dial. That's a landline joke for my younger listeners. You had a button for speed dial on your land line. So, I don't know if you know this, but my bloodline can be directly traced back to the Cylons so... 

[00:24:27] Fernando: [00:24:27] well, actually, no, I'm not going to say anything. I don't want to spoil it. 

[00:24:30]Mary: [00:24:30] No spoilers. Watch Battlestar Galactica. 

[00:24:36] Fernando: [00:24:36] Please do it is absolutely amazing. 

[00:24:39] Mary: [00:24:39] Sherry's YouTube channel has 26,000 subscribers. And she currently has 240 videos live on there again, please don't click it, like it, subscribe. Just find whatever you need on other videos or other websites, because let's not give any thing related to this at a positive [00:25:00] engagement or interaction.

[00:25:01] Sherry also has a really big presence on Facebook. And I did go ahead and take a peek at that and Whoa, Nelly. It was a full dumpster fire. If I've ever seen one, Sherry is very much serving the full deep state shadow government precursor to Q and on fantasy. Sure says the government has been taken over.

[00:25:22] They're no longer human. What are they? Lizard alien people, 

[00:25:28] Fernando: [00:25:28] alien people. 

[00:25:30] Mary: [00:25:30] Sherri uploads, a video saying quote. Their idea of Ascension is to take a UFO load, a bunch of humans up, take them into space, kill them and put them in freezers. 

[00:25:41] Fernando: [00:25:41] I mean, that makes sense, but also no. And to what end?

[00:25:46] And no probes?

[00:25:47] No probe like we're just going to kill them. We'll put them in a freezer. We're going to kill them in space. 

[00:25:51] So the reasoning behind this is that most people are really susceptible to being quote unquote, soul scalped. Which is [00:26:00] when aliens take a soul out of a body and they just put that somewhere else up on a shelf or whatever for a little bit. Like you do.

[00:26:07] Mary: [00:26:07] Sherry says that the aliens covet human bodies and that they use this to quote unquote, walk in or possess human bodies. They can also do this to dead bodies in this cult. There are also vampires and fallen angels. So this call has everything. 

[00:26:27] Fernando: [00:26:27] Yeah, it's very inclusive except if you're queer or Jewish or... 

[00:26:33] Mary: [00:26:33] right, right.

[00:26:34] Sherry says that spotting, the aliens is actually super easy. Barely an inconvenience. She says that facial bruising is a classic sign and fainting is a very obvious indication. Sherry is really feeling her false prophet. Holy oats. And people are buying it. I cannot imagine the money that she's making off the books. The radio shows. The YouTube AdSense [00:27:00] money. When you have that many subscribers and clicks and the engagement, I don't know if she was using sponsors or ads or any of those things, or if she just was able to make this money off her cult members just scamming.

[00:27:13]Fernando: [00:27:13] Scamming. 

[00:27:14] Mary: [00:27:14] Drive in on a scooter with a license plate that says $cammin. She's making a tidy profit however she's getting her money. And one of Sherry's old websites talks about her special blend of 11 herbs and spices of religion, aliens. Jesus as we know him was actually big fake, that was actually an alien. And she's really getting further and further into this stuff that she's promoting.  Sherry is very devoted to literalist Christianity. And what this means is that Sherry believes that every single word in the Bible is literal and factual. Chapter and verse. Nothing in the Bible is a parable. I [00:28:00] have actually read the Bible a couple of times because I was raised Roman Catholic and there is some shit in the Bible that is not based.

[00:28:07] In fact, like the earth is not flat. It is not set a top pillars that do not move. As far as we know it, there is not like an edge of the flat earth ocean where sea monsters live. This, in this description, they believe literally the world was created in six days. Eve literally ate an Apple and all of the stories around the garden of Eden that all literally happened as it was written.

[00:28:35] So there are hours of radio footage. There is transcriptions of all of her old videos and all of her old shows. And there's one video where Sherry talks about God pulling her out of her broadcast journalism career and showing her the alien agenda with the new world order. And God wants Sherry to bring this message to the nation.

[00:28:57] Our Sherry just wants to give back. So [00:29:00] charitable. 

[00:29:00] Fernando: [00:29:00] So she does this by having an interview with Lucifer . 

[00:29:04] Right? Right.

[00:29:06] I mean, it makes sense. 

[00:29:08] Mary: [00:29:08] She's been doing this since the early two thousands, since God spoke to her and Sherry doesn't post many pictures of herself. What few pictures of her are available are older. And she loved the idea of people just listening to her voice for hours and hours. And as I am doing that now, I it's cool. Like, it is a fun little brain fuck, but they don't know anything about her real life. It's just her views. She keeps herself like totally separated. And a lot of Sherry's followers later describe entering trance-like States when they would listen to Sherry, which is possible hypnosis.

[00:29:48] Fernando: [00:29:48] I was going to say, this is like a, sort of a ASMR  type thing?

[00:29:53]Mary: [00:29:53] It's just her bitchin.

[00:29:58] Fernando: [00:29:58] So no. 

[00:30:00] [00:30:00] Mary: [00:30:00] Picture like Joe exotic podcast, but this.

[00:30:03]Fernando: [00:30:03] Gotcha. 

[00:30:04] Mary: [00:30:04] Yeah. 

[00:30:04] Fernando: [00:30:04] But also lizard aliens.

[00:30:07] Mary: [00:30:07] And reptilians. Yup. And that's Sherry's biggest thing. All about the lizard aliens. She very strongly believes that almost everyone famous or with power, they are wearing human meat suits. Just some of the people on her list include Justin Bieber, the NFL Madonna, Selena Gomez, queen Elizabeth. And the Pope. 

[00:30:30] Fernando: [00:30:30] Okay. So she's definitely yeah, like she said, anyone with power, because those are very disparate people. 

[00:30:36] Mary: [00:30:36] Taylor Swift, obviously a vampire as all of her social media, music videos, and very public beef with Kim Kardashian and Kanye West clear proof for Sherry, snake, emoji, snake emoji, snake emoji, snake emoji.

[00:30:51] And in her free time, Sherry is fighting Lucifer out of the goodness of her heart. 

[00:30:55] Fernando: [00:30:55] She's fighting him, but also interviewing.

[00:30:57]Mary: [00:30:57] Yes. 

[00:30:58] She [00:31:00] actually posts a transcription of a little chat that she had with Lilith and the morning star. You know, I love my names for Satan. They live in a remote castle in France, obviously, and Sherry , and this chat defense God and teases Lucifer saying, you must be so frustrated that I consistently kick your butt.

[00:31:23] Fernando: [00:31:23] She's a volunteer for war, is that what she said? 

[00:31:26] Mary: [00:31:26] Soldier geared up for holy warfare. 

[00:31:30] I got go. Like I just. 

[00:31:34] Fernando: [00:31:34] Leave this. I don't know, just leave this planet, but not to go in a UFO and get killed.  

[00:31:40] Mary: [00:31:40] She claims that this zinger convinces Lucifer to reveal his evil army. KISS. It's the band KISS - Knights In Satans  service. Gene Simmons, obviously. Come on. The top lizard. Come on. 

[00:31:54] Fernando: [00:31:54] I'm seeing it now. It's really undeniable. 

[00:32:00] [00:31:59] Mary: [00:31:59] Sherry says that the evil troops of Satan live deep underground in these old military bunkers and that president Eisenhower had made a deal with good old scratch after a fiddle contest down in Georgia. No? Devil went down to Georgia.

[00:32:15]Fernando: [00:32:15] No, I get it. I just don't know. I'm like, I just, I just, I can't, I can't even, Oh my God. I need a minute. Cause this is all obvious. This is clearly the truth. My entire life has been a lie. 

[00:32:31] Mary: [00:32:31] Really Sherry said was that the devil traded with Eisenhower, technological advancements for keeping his secret and this pact between Lucifer aliens and the government has stood strong to this day.

[00:32:47] And they are lizard aliens, just waiting for their moment to strike at Satan's behest. The apocalypse is going to start and the chosen few Sherry's devout followers will be spared, but [00:33:00] Sherry  also has access to materials that can help protect them from alien possession. So no worries, Sherry's  gotcha. 

[00:33:08] Fernando: [00:33:08] I'm curious to know what these materials would be.

[00:33:12] Mary: [00:33:12] Sherri knows about this wonderful material Orgone. This material has strong healing properties and radiates positive energy. It also cleanses the earth. So they take this organ and to make the organ blasters it's. A solid block of basically quartz with copper wire, penny and aluminum wrapped all around it.

[00:33:39] And then that gets smushed down into a little hockey puck and resin coated. Sherry's followers believe this is their only protection and they stock up because Sherry has that gas Orgone blasters that good. Good. The Oregon blasters retail between $6 and $750. [00:34:00] Something for every price point. Yes, you can DIY it, but only Sherry's blasters will work a hundred percent.

[00:34:08] Fernando: [00:34:08] If you want full protection. Give me your money. 

[00:34:11] Mary: [00:34:11] You have to buy the 750. 

[00:34:14] Fernando: [00:34:14] Yes. 

[00:34:16] Mary: [00:34:16] Sherri posts a lot on social media. She's really active. She loves to interact with her followers, collect donations, hustle them books, and get YouTube subscribers. So she's rolling in the money. She eventually opens up a go-fund me and she raises $150,000 to continue her ministry.

[00:34:39] Fernando: [00:34:39] This is crazy that she could raise, like sustain herself. And then on top of that, the go fund me, like that's a lot of money for something that's so. 

[00:34:51] Mary: [00:34:51] That you're running online from a room in your house. That's what blows my mind. Like the fact that people want to listen to this. At [00:35:00] all in the States, let alone in all the other countries that people listen from. Thank you so much. I love you so much. I can't believe it. I can't imagine this, this much exposure like this much of a platform. It just seems really big. 

[00:35:16] Fernando: [00:35:16] Definitely to raise that much money. 

[00:35:18] Mary: [00:35:18] So earlier today I checked and we had a stream in a new country. So we're at 59 countries, which is amazing. Sherry has over a hundred countries visiting her websites every day.

[00:35:33] She's got a lot of click baity type videos, and she's got all these Illuminati graphics and well, I guess not Illuminati, but she's got all these graphics and bright images. You know what I'm saying? Sherry describes her followers as outsiders. Those who never fit in. Did you ever watch Riverdale? 

[00:35:53] No. 

[00:35:53] Very Jughead Jones from Riverdale in case you haven't noticed, I'm weird. I'm a [00:36:00] weirdo. I don't fit in and I don't want to fit in. AKA me in high school.

[00:36:09] Fernando: [00:36:09] Yeah, I feel that yeah. 

[00:36:12] Mary: [00:36:12] If the black converse shoe fits, right.

[00:36:14]Fernando: [00:36:14] I definitely had a period of that. And then. I quickly reversed course. And I was like, nah, I just want to like fucking be kind of like a normal 

[00:36:26] Mary: [00:36:26] let's enjoy shit. 

[00:36:27] Fernando: [00:36:27] Yeah. Yeah. Like my last year of high school, I was like, like, where am I trying so hard?

[00:36:32] Like, I just want to fucking like enjoy myself and have fun. 

[00:36:35] Mary: [00:36:35] It's okay to be different, but not if it's like a force where you're like, I have to put it out that I'm so edgy or so different. Which is something I think we both did for a bit. 

[00:36:45] Fernando: [00:36:45] Yeah. I feel that I definitely was guilty of that. You know. 

[00:36:49] Mary: [00:36:49] So Sherry says that her people are quote the black sheep square pegs people, mock them and people desert them.

[00:36:56] And so these are people that are vulnerable. Her [00:37:00] audience is people who have you know, really kind of gone into the deep end of this stuff and become very radicalized over time. Stephen's specifically like 15 to 32. That's a long ass time to be indoctrinated into a cult. 

[00:37:16] Fernando: [00:37:16] Yeah, that's more than half of his life.

[00:37:18] Mary: [00:37:18] And the thing I think that people don't understand about cults and I am definitely going to do a series on cults the second that that becomes a feasible opportunity. You don't get in it usually in this way, where it's this extreme from the jump. Usually they bring you in over time and a lot of what Sherry does is kind of like this weird twist on all this biblical stuff. So she gets access to some people that way. One of Sherry's followers is 22 year old Kelly Pengelley Kelly is sweet and very kind. She was very, very happy as a child she's really popular in school. And she was [00:38:00] a cheerleader. She was raised religious. She attended Lutheran schools and Kelly lived with her older brother, Nate, and she had been working at a rehab facility when Nate talks about Kelly, he talks about her sweetness and kindness, and he mentioned seeing her get up at a restaurant and help an older man cut his steak when she saw him struggling. Sweet angel. Kelly started following Sherry when she was around 18. And Sherry has said that at this time, Kelly was trying to decide between going to college or focusing on trying to spread the word of God and doing quote what he needed done in these last few years on earth.

[00:38:44] And Kelly decided to start transcribing Sherry's news broadcasts, and she becomes one of Sherry's closer disciples. Kelly is perfect for Sherry. Kelly has been wanting to study religion and do research and just kind of expand [00:39:00] her horizons and she ends up even creating her own blog. And she does journal entries and she does posts about research that she's done and she comments a lot in forums. So she starts to get really active online as well. 

[00:39:15] Fernando: [00:39:15] And this is all related to the stuff that Sherry is preaching. 

[00:39:20] Mary: [00:39:20] Yes. 

[00:39:21] Fernando: [00:39:21] Okay. 

[00:39:22] Mary: [00:39:22] She becomes like an ardent follower of Sherry's Kelly along the way becomes more insulated. She loses a lot of friends and family because of these radical beliefs. And this happens a lot in cults, but especially  in onlinecultss like this, and with Q Anon, you're in this environment where everything is proof for your theory at people can find everything. There's all these symbols and Taylor Swift's music videos. Like people can find the proof that they want. And as you get like more rabidly into that, and it's all you can talk about. People are like, okay, I can't get through. In most cults, they just try to separate [00:40:00] you from having communication until they can like brainwash you deeply enough that you don't want to get in touch with them, or you don't want to talk to them about how you actually feel because you have no feelings.

[00:40:10] They shut that part off. Kelly is really happy though, because she has found a lot of like-minded individuals in this online community. And she says that she actually feels reboard. She goes on these cults mission trips. To Kentucky and to New York city to quote, fight the new world order. And if you don't know about the new world order, in a nutshell, what it is is a conspiracy that the most wealthy families in the world are aliens.

[00:40:41] Kelly becomes really paranoid and unstable over the next two years that she has found Sherry and got involved in this life. She starts hallucinating and she's in a really rough mental space. She starts posting about Sherry's work with aliens on her [00:41:00] blog, but she is saying that Sherry's experiences are actually her own.

[00:41:06] Her blog moves further and further away from just a journal. And she starts to write really long nonsensical posts. For instance, she'll use different meanings for the same words throughout one post. It's clear that her grip on reality is really fragile at this point. 

[00:41:25] Fernando: [00:41:25] Yeah. I mean, it was clear as soon as she's got involved with this.

[00:41:28]Mary: [00:41:28] Right.

[00:41:29] In December, 2012, Kelly writes more and more about the apocalypse. And on December 28th, 2012, 24 year old Kelly leaves home. She tells her brother, Nate, that she's going to see her daughters. Nate does a double take because Kelly has no children. Yeah. 

[00:41:47] Fernando: [00:41:47] I was just like, Oh, you didn't mention that she had kids. 

[00:41:51] Mary: [00:41:51] He says, what do you mean? And Kelly explains, Oh, I had daughters in a past life. Kelly leaves a note behind, under her pillow that [00:42:00] says I'm off to fulfill my destiny. I don't know when I'll be returning. She drives to a wildlife preserve about 50 miles from our home. She finds a spot to pull off and leaves the car.

[00:42:11] Kelly completed suicide in the woods by overdosing on pills and laying down in the snow. She was wearing an Oregonian necklace that she had bought from Sherry for $44. 

[00:42:22] Fernando: [00:42:22] That's really sad. 

[00:42:23] Mary: [00:42:23] It's awful. 

[00:42:24] Fernando: [00:42:24] Yeah. 

[00:42:25] Mary: [00:42:25] Kelly's family speaks out about Sherry's manipulation of Kelly, but no laws were actually broken. 

[00:42:33] Fernando: [00:42:33] Right. She just, everything she did, she did on her own. 

[00:42:38] Mary: [00:42:38] In the eyes of the law. 

[00:42:39] Fernando: [00:42:39] Yeah. 

[00:42:40] Mary: [00:42:40] Yeah. Sherry denies responsibility and says Kelly actually did not complete suicide. She was murdered by NATO. 

[00:42:51] Fernando: [00:42:51] NATO. And I like that the North American trade organization?. Okay.

[00:42:57]Mary: [00:42:57] Sherry also says Kelly was never [00:43:00] actually a follower and Sherry never would have associated with her because Kelly's last blog was quote, actually crazy. Sherry says that Kelly was actually a demon trader and turns her back completely to the situation. 

[00:43:16] Fernando: [00:43:16] I don't think Sherry can, uh, has the right to call anything crazy. 

[00:43:20] Mary: [00:43:20] One of the hard and fast rules on this podcast is that we don't call people crazy actions or situations. I'm fine with that. I really do not like calling people crazy.

[00:43:33] So the fact that Sherry has the goddamn nerve infuriates me, infuriates me. How dare you.  Something that I have learned over this last year of COVID is that your media intake is the diet for your brain. It's what you're consuming into your body. And there was a lot of points leading up to the presidential election that I had to just stop reading the news.

[00:43:59] I [00:44:00] deleted Facebook off my phone for a while, because I feel like my PTSD was getting triggered a lot, just scrolling by, seeing people's ignorant comments on stuff. And if this is what your everyday source of news and socialization is, you're in this echo chamber, everyone holds the same opinion as you.

[00:44:18] You don't have an individual opinion, everybody around you is saying the same stuff. So there's nobody who can get a foot in that door. To say, I think some of this is not rational, or I have some questions about these things. And like Kelly, this is what Steven had been doing for a good long time. Now, half of his life, basically Steven had become really close with Sherry and they had even started to talk.

[00:44:45] One-on-one Sherry gives him advice and he is all in on her religious leadership as he calls it, Sherry even starts having Stephen on her radio show as a guest, Donna. Shouldn't call me a fat ass [00:45:00] Kelly Price. Stephen's mom still creeping starts listening to the show. Anytime Steven is on, she starts to get more and more worried about how Sherry is talking, but Steven is really committed and she knows trying to confront it head on means that he will get upset and he might cut her out again.

[00:45:18] And she describes it as if it was a drug addiction. He couldn't get enough and he. Kept getting deeper and deeper and there is no reaching him. I could not establish if they reconnected. I think at this point, maybe he knew, I wasn't sure from the way that Donna is talking about it. So I don't know if he ever knew that Donna was that Facebook friend or if anything, I don't know how that shook out.

[00:45:42] Steven quickly is one of Sherry's most loyal followers and speeds, right. To the trusted inner circle. And he is one of her most loyal cult members for the next 15 years of his life. 

[00:45:55] Fernando: [00:45:55] So at some point, is he [00:46:00] and Kelly both like. You know, top disciples. Yeah, 

[00:46:04] Mary: [00:46:04] sure. Like around the same time, but I don't know if they actually knew each other.

[00:46:08] It's all virtual too, so, 

[00:46:11] Fernando: [00:46:11] right, right. 

[00:46:12] Mary: [00:46:12] Right. The night Steven is shot. Cops continue to interrogate Barbara for about two hours. They're asking her questions. And she's getting asked about her relationship with Stephen, the shooting and the call, but her story keeps shifting and changing. And she's saying a lot of things that just are not adding up.

[00:46:32] She's maintaining that she shot him, but accidentally. So the story has kind of shifted again. The cops started to question, where were you physically positioned in the room? Where were you standing? Was anyone sitting. Because what she's saying about how they were standing doesn't match the scene crime scene, forensic techs are able to follow the path of the bullet into the mattress [00:47:00] in the room.

[00:47:00] They put dowels into the path of the bullet to show where the position of the body would have to have been to match the wounds found on Steven's body. This confirms that Steven would have had to be sitting up on the floor with his back against the side of the mattress. The other physical evidence at the scene confirms this too.

[00:47:20] And Barbara had claimed she was standing on the other side of the room when the gun went off, but we all know contact wounds don't work that way. Cops have access to all of Steven's digital records. They have his phone, they have his Facebook, his internet history, everything. And they start digging in.

[00:47:38] They find threats in the DMS from other members of the call and they still can't figure out why the other cult members would be turning on him. But eventually in the midst of all of this research, they realized that Sherry suspects him of being a lizard alien, maybe. [00:48:00] They that's their working theory. At this point in the episode of deadly cults, Barbara is actually interviewed and she describes how she grew up in a military family.

[00:48:10] And she moved around a lot. She was in the army for seven years, but after being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, she left and she says she got really into the internet because it allowed her a way to communicate with the outside world. Without having to let anyone know how she was actually doing in relation to her mental health and struggles with bipolar disorder in 2011, Barbara comes across Sherry's webpage and she likes all of what she finds.

[00:48:38] Sherry talks about talking to aliens and even killing some aliens in the past and all Barb's super impressed. Sherry welcomes her with open arms and Barbara starts to feel really connected to the community even more so when she joined Sherry's Facebook group and meet steven.

[00:48:56] So how does she wind up meeting Steven? Like [00:49:00] they just decided to meet up? 

[00:49:01] They begin as friends meeting through the forums and the internet. And they then start having DMs and they start kind of flirting. They have a lot in common, including this fixation on aliens, conspiracies, and Sherry as the prophet, who's going to help save everyone.

[00:49:20] Steven had actually never had a girlfriend before and he was really invested in Barb. He was really happy to be in this relationship with her. And they had like all the same things. Seems like it's a great match, right. For them. 

[00:49:35] Fernando: [00:49:35] Sure. 

[00:49:36] There's a lid for every pot. 

[00:49:38] Yes. 

[00:49:40] Mary: [00:49:40] Steven actually tells Barb that he wants to move to the Poconos and he asks her to come with him and they find this small studio. And in February, 2017, they moved there. They spent all of their time together. Most days watching Sherry's videos. And just being on the internet. [00:50:00] So just the two of them, tinty studio apartment, both on like their computers.

[00:50:05]Fernando: [00:50:05] Steady stream of lizard, alien nonsense. 

[00:50:11] Mary: [00:50:11] They would often speculate together about who might be a reptilian or alien. And whenever they did this, it would always set off Steven's paranoia. He felt very persecuted by the world and he was afraid about people that he believed were working against him. Sherry, around this time had started talking about death rates. The government was using in an effort to depopulate the planet.

[00:50:35] Like, what you think is like oxygen around you is actually the death rays.  I listened to her say that in a clip. 

[00:50:43] Fernando: [00:50:43] Uh, in the news recently we heard of a certain member of government believing in Jewish lazers.

[00:50:53]Mary: [00:50:53] Yeah. 

[00:50:53] Can't make this shit up.   And that's like in league with what we're talking about.

[00:50:59] Fernando: [00:50:59] Right. 

[00:51:00] [00:51:00] Mary: [00:51:00] So the government's plan is to destroy 5.5 billion people. 

[00:51:05] Fernando: [00:51:05] Oh, so almost everyone.

[00:51:07] Mary: [00:51:07] Like most cults, Sherri views, outsiders and non-believers as threats. And those threats will burn in hell if they cross her. Don't forget, she's got that hotline to God. I know when that hotline bling, I fucking cannot. Are you there? God. It's me, Margaret. 

[00:51:26] Fernando: [00:51:26] It's me, Sherry, 

[00:51:29] Mary: [00:51:29] Sherry get fucked. I blocked your number a thousand times. How does this keep happening? 

[00:51:36] Only by following Sherry, will you be admitted to heaven when the apocalypse starts. That's the only way. And at this time, Sherry had started referring to Stephen as a son and fulfilling this mother role in his life that he didn't necessarily have before. Sherry though is a little bit jealous of Barbara, Barbara, and Steve both believe that Sherry is a prophet from God. So when Sherry [00:52:00] turns on Barbara, It gets really bad, really fast. Sherry is recorded talking about Barbara's Facebook post, where she mentioned craving raw meat. I shit you not. The image the screenshot of this Facebook post is a plate of ground beef. Surrounded with like capers and some peppers and it's looks like it's supposed to be prepped into being like a tartare. 

[00:52:27] Fernando: [00:52:27] I was going to say the capers make sound like a tartare. 

[00:52:29] I don't think you're supposed to use ground beef for that. 

[00:52:32] You can. It depends on the grade. 

[00:52:36] Mary: [00:52:36] Just the regular. I thought it was steak tartar.

[00:52:40] Fernando: [00:52:40] I don't know. Steak tartare. Yeah. I know there's a different, a couple different types of. 

[00:52:46] Listeners is, is there is ground beef tartare thing, write in let us know.

[00:52:51] Sherry's argument. Quote, what Christian girl goes around ingesting raw hamburger meat. Sherri. You got me [00:53:00] there. I can not co-sign someone eating raw hamburger, meat.

[00:53:03] Sherri declares, that Barbara is not only a witch. She is also reptilian to boot, double whammy. 

[00:53:10] Reptilian, which, is she an alien though? 

[00:53:14] The same. I'm very confused about the layers at this point.

[00:53:19] And then there's vampires. 

[00:53:20] And Jesus was a lizard alien. And so there's a lot. Sherry also accuses Barbara publicly of being a Satanist and drinking pee pee and eating poopoo.

[00:53:33] Number one, number two. What a thing to be publicly, what public allegations to be fighting. 

[00:53:40] So she's saying this in her videos on  her.. 

[00:53:42] Mary: [00:53:42] Her videos and her radio show. Yep. Barbara is horrified because she just likes her raw hamburger meat, but she says that a Steven had actually believed she was a reptilian. He would have left her immediately and he would have wanted nothing to do with her lizard ass, obviously being a [00:54:00] reptilian, which alien is a very bad thing in this cult. 

[00:54:02] And Sherry really holds this to use against Barbara maybe cause she she's jealous because Steven's attention has been like solely focused on her and the Cole and his own YouTube channel and stuff. And now he's got someone else that he has in his life. So for Sherry, this is a wonderful excuse for why she dislikes Barbara because now Barb has crossed over from a loyal devotee to the most dangerous thing there is to the cult. 

[00:54:31] Lori Alexander is another online friend of Steven's and she runs a website that reviews the daily news for updates that are relevant to biblical prophecies. In may, May, 2017. She gets a message from Steven saying that Sherry had accused Barbara of something bad. Laurie is ready. She says she's been warning people about Sherry for a long time and she's ready to help him get out. Steven sends Lori some [00:55:00] questions around Sherry's teachings. And what he wants to know is what lines up biblically with what Sherry says. Lori is like, sure. I'm happy to research this for you.

[00:55:12] She finds that a lot of things that Sherry has said go directly against what the Bible says from reading it twice. I'll tell you right now, lizard aliens. Ain't up in there. That was not there. 

[00:55:23] Fernando: [00:55:23] I'm not sure, but the Bible, does it make any reference to any other life besides that on earth, right?

[00:55:31]Mary: [00:55:31] On earth and the kingdom of heaven, you know, mention of hell.

[00:55:37] Stephen is shook, shaken, and stirred. He has no idea what to do, and he's realizing what he's been following for such a long time and has invested his whole life into is based in lie. And he's devastated. Life was built around. Do not [00:56:00] only believing this, but furthering it and spreading it. He asked Lori if she thinks Barbara could possibly be a reptilian and Laurie, with a very hot husband. Mike look of disbelief on her face says of course not. No, I don't think she's a secret lizard alien, which, and Laurie in the interview is saying this had to have been such a massive internal struggle for him because. This is huge, huge cognitive dissonance. He knows that Barbara, his first love is not evil and they spend literally all of their time together.

[00:56:39] There's no time for her to be getting up to secret lizard alien shit, but Sherry his cult leader and this religious prophet, as she's told him, says that she is that. So it's gotta be tearing him apart. 

[00:56:53] Fernando: [00:56:53] Yeah. And she's almost like you said, he called her mom, right? He's got basically the two [00:57:00] main women to only women in his life. I'm assuming. You know, telling him two completely different things. Well, he's got Laurie, you know, telling him 

[00:57:09] Mary: [00:57:09] this is a lie, actually, this is all a lie. You know, Lori was like, yes, girl, fucking ready, whatever you need. What? I'll give you a fucking cited research paper. Like I got this, you highlighted pages. I got it. 

[00:57:25] Fernando: [00:57:25] Right. 

[00:57:26] Mary: [00:57:26] Steven is having a lot of big, big feelings and he's really messed up over this. Sherry is really powerful. She has 20,000 followers at least. And Steven is totally spiraling. Facebook is the big spot for his social stuff. And there's evidence of all these grievances over time, starting to get worse and worse and worse, really fast.

[00:57:50] And eventually it devolves to everyone just kind of fighting behind their keyboards and it's their entire life. So it's just all [00:58:00] consuming. They're not taking any breaks or doing anything to step away. Steven chooses. Barbara Barbara says she was very flattered because it shows how much he truly loved her.

[00:58:10] And she and Steven have realized that Sherry is a fucking con and they've been totally duped. This is a really bitter pill to swallow for Steven, especially because he has excessive devotion. To Sherry Stephen's mental health is also extremely fragile and he is just marinating in all these really dark feelings of anger, betrayal, humiliation, and he starts to become really jaded and really dark.

[00:58:39] And his social media posts reflect this. In mid May, 2017 Steven messages, Laurie, and says he's ready to start making videos and exposing Sherry as a fraud. 

[00:58:49] Fernando: [00:58:49] Okay. That's good. I mean, you know, he's started to kind of turn a corner a little bit. 

[00:58:54] Mary: [00:58:54] Yeah. Lori questions him, because this is a very risky decision. Sherry's [00:59:00] followers. Undoubtedly will be going after he and Barbara hard as a motherfucker. The second that he starts putting his accusations out there and there will be no turning back once he burns this bridge. He goes ahead anyway. And he starts recording about his relationship with Sherry, all the hard work that he put into the ministry of her call, all the money that he sent her over the years, thousands of dollars and all the hours of prayer.

[00:59:29] And he openly starts telling everyone that Sherri is a false prophet Steven's goal is to get other people to wake up and start seeing the Colt and Sherry clearly for what they are. And he wants to prevent other people from sinking so much of their life into the call. The way that he did, he maintains that his videos and posts are not attacks on Sherry.

[00:59:52] They're just helping him to defend himself and Barbara. And in one of his videos, he says, it's not a sin to expose the truth. [01:00:00] And I will agree with you there. What is done in the dark will come to the light, Sherry gears up for war. She is ready to set her followers on Stephen, like the tic talkers coming for John Mayer because he got on Tik TOK after dating Taylor Swift, when she was 19. It ain't pretty.

[01:00:17] Donna is seeing all of this drama unfolding on Facebook, as things are getting worse and worse. And she is seeing Stephen and Barbara getting death threats from another follower of Sherry's. So not even in the DMS, it's just out in the open now. He has been sending them images of their home on Google maps and saying he's coming over to kill them and drink their blood.

[01:00:40] So random, another follower from the cult, just Tuesday things. I thought also blood drinking vampire. Is that not. There's no, again, no logic, no logic whatsoever. 

[01:00:55] Fernando: [01:00:55] Yeah. I keep on trying to wrap my head around it and I feel like. 

[01:00:59] Mary: [01:00:59] It's probably better [01:01:00] if you can't 

[01:01:00] Fernando: [01:01:00] Fair enough.

[01:01:02] Mary: [01:01:02] This follower is also saying that they are going to feed Barbara to the queen of heaven. Sherry. Yes, dahling.. 

[01:01:10] Fernando: [01:01:10] She is the queen she's got God on speed dial. She's she. She went there. She went to heaven for a week to interview Lucifer, now she's queen, and she's just somehow.

[01:01:22]Mary: [01:01:22] All of this Facebook feud, it's drawn out over like a few months. And it's really vicious. Stephen's feelings of betrayal keep growing deeper and deeper because as he describes it, he's losing his family. He grew up with this piece of shit, dad. He didn't really his mom wasn't in his life. And the cult has become his whole thing. Not only has he lost them, they're calling him the devil, which ironically your members probably did to any gay children or relatives, but Kermit sipping tea. Laurie actually speaks to Steven just two days before the shooting and he is emotionally [01:02:00] wrecked.

[01:02:00] She recommends to him. Stepping fully away from the internet for awhile, which was not something he'd ever even considered as an option. His whole life has been built around the internet for 15 years. Logging off completely is incomprehensible, even though going on, there is just a torture and a constant comment war, flame Wars with people.

[01:02:25] Fernando: [01:02:25] He just didn't see that there was an alternative.

[01:02:27]Mary: [01:02:27] right .To him. He has to defend himself and defend Barbara cops find the videos that Sherry had made about Barbara. And in one video, Sherry goes in depth on the Facebook posts that kicked off this whole mass and her evidence that Barbara was a vampire witch who liked to eat feces and raw hamburger meat. And I mentioned in the picture there's like capers and maybe some pepperocini's. I don't know exactly. But her [01:03:00] evidence is that one of those things for the quote tartare with was a pile of feces, actually. 

[01:03:09] Oh, it's just okay. Just on the side. 

[01:03:12] Duh. She says that Barbara is dark, evil, conniving, and just awful. She says that she warned Stephen to stay away, but he did not. And she throws up some pictures of Steve, like before and after quote, unquote pictures. Saying that Steve had been turned demonic by deciding to stay with Barbara. The cops really want to understand why Sherry felt Barbara was such a threat.

[01:03:41] So they want to track her down from the way the cops talk about it. It's really obvious that they were like, Going at this with the focus of why would Barbara want to kill him and not, how could this cult be involved? Like they're just viewing the cult is this secondary thing. That's not even really that related and there had to be some [01:04:00] problems otherwise between Barb and Steven. 

[01:04:03] Fernando: [01:04:03] I get that because that question. Was weighing in my mind earlier on, I was like, why, why did she kill him? What was going on with them? 

[01:04:11] Mary: [01:04:11] They find Sherry's email address, they email, and she does not ever answer. She just totally ghosts  them.

[01:04:18] Barb and her interview says that it was really hard watching Steven descend into, as she called it this madness. As his world basically imploded all around him. He, on the day of the shooting had a really bad feud online with two of Sherry's followers. And he had made comments on Facebook about feeling suicidal.

[01:04:41] She says that she really wanted to get his mind off things and they decide to go out to a local pub while at the bar. He is still really upset. And they end up staying until closing time. You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here. Steven was fixed.  [01:05:00] on this online fight still. And when they get home, he's getting more and more upset and more agitated.

[01:05:06] So obviously he's been drinking. It kind of exacerbates all the feelings for me personally. I cannot drink when I'm really upset. You asked about how this happened, right? How did the shooting go down? Barbara eventually says that Steve got the gun out, put it into her hands, wrapped his hands around hers and was pressing the barrel of the gun into his forehead.

[01:05:31] And he is begging her to shoot him or kill him because if he commits suicide, that is. A mortal sin. You go to hell like straight to how he wants to get into heaven. And he needs her to shoot him so that he will be judged kindly by God. And so he wants her to kill him. She is really upset and she. In the interview is saying Stephen was her whole [01:06:00] world.

[01:06:00] She loved him and she feels bad about what happened. It's obvious that she's really upset still. She does shoot him and he falls down and she's kind of in a state of shock. Like she's crying, she's begging him to get back up, which that's not going to happen. 

[01:06:16] No. Direct shot in the forehead. 

[01:06:19] You know, what would have been just great. If you actually took the gun and took all the bullets out of it and like threw them outside in the dark bushes or something like any other thing, besides I understand he's upset and you might not have known what to do, but come on. 

[01:06:38] Fernando: [01:06:38] Call nine one one, something any, anything, you know, calling nine 11 doesn't necessarily result in him being taken away or anything like that. Whoever shows up can at the very least lead you to a resource.

[01:06:52]Mary: [01:06:52] In an ideal situation, the cops would be able to deal with whatever kind of mental health crisis [01:07:00] that he was experiencing. In the best possible world that he would maybe have been transported to a facility to get mental health assistance or something could have been done nonviolently to deescalate the situation.

[01:07:15] I would love to live in that world. So let's just say like, maybe that could have happened in this situation. Barbara is charged with criminal homicide and when they tell her that she's just like totally stoic, she doesn't react. It looks like she just kind of like cold water on your body shock and then you freeze. Donna talks about waking up and having a really bad gut feeling that she needed to turn the TV on. And she finds out that her son had died through the news, which is just awful. She immediately starts screaming and she also goes into a state of shock. She just does not know what to do. 

[01:07:54] Fernando: [01:07:54] Yeah. And at this point they're not there. She was still catfishing.

[01:07:59]Mary: [01:07:59] I was [01:08:00] never able to figure that out. It sounds like maybe they reconnected and he eventually found out, I don't know if he ever knew she was catfishing, but from the way she was talking about it and the editing, I, I couldn't tell. 

[01:08:12] Fernando: [01:08:12] It's really sad. 

[01:08:14] Mary: [01:08:14] Yeah. Just the whole situation from start to finish just because she had to leave.

[01:08:19] It's really sad. But it's, it's fucking weird to catfish your kid. 

[01:08:24] Fernando: [01:08:24] It is. It definitely is not, not, not saying that she like. 

[01:08:28] Mary: [01:08:28] Well, intentioned catfishing is a no, my friends.

[01:08:33] The investigation into Barbara am the cult and the crime continues into the trial. And the da is now investigating further into other witnesses and specifically Sherry's feelings about Barbara, February, 2018, Sherry emails them back and she offers to meet with the cops in person.

[01:08:54] She goes back and forth with them a little bit. She even gives her home address like she's ready. And then [01:09:00] she ghosts them again. Then they learn months later that Sherry Shriner had died of a heart attack. Sherry's YouTube went silent for a bit. Her Facebook group was posted on last in 2018. From what I could tell before she died by  other prominent group members. However, her daughter has now taken over the cult reins and is somehow keeping it going strong Barbara's trial begins in March, 2019. And Donna says that the trial was extremely upsetting. She does not believe that this was an assisted suicide and all of the evidence shows this. The cops and the da feel exactly the same. They think there's no justification for Barbara saying the cult could have impacted and it seemed to me that they brush off entirely that he was suicidal. I also want to say it's almost impossible to determine most of the time, if someone is actually suicidal. There are definite factors here that would indicate huge issues. Let [01:10:00] alone that he was posting about it on social media. That is a clear cry for help. I don't think it's fair for these small minded cops. With no clear understanding of mental health to say, there's no reason that he could be depressed or suicidal. They keep saying, Oh, well, why would he be so upset about this online stuff?

[01:10:19] They don't get it.  

[01:10:20] Fernando: [01:10:20] they don't get how much of a part of him it was. 

[01:10:24] Mary: [01:10:24] Right. 

[01:10:25] Fernando: [01:10:25] You know? 

[01:10:26] Mary: [01:10:26] The trial lasts five days. Barbara does not testify in her own defense. The jury deliberates. And ultimately they find her not guilty. The prosecution failed to meet the standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt that she had intended to kill Steven. Barbara is found guilty of third degree murder, and she is sentenced to 15 to 40 years in prison. Barbara's interviews in the deadly cults episode is all her in prison. She says that it's really, really sad that Steven essentially died over a Facebook fight because of a feud [01:11:00] with a woman that he had never even met in real life.

[01:11:04] Fernando: [01:11:04] See, and that's the thing it's wasn't over a Facebook fight. . Yeah, that might've been the last straw but it was a culmination  of events. 

[01:11:12] Mary: [01:11:12] It's a lot of factors at play here that brought him to this state of extreme agitation. And all of the paranoia, the betrayal feelings, everything that's been building for years and years. That you now know is a lie. It had to have been horrible. 

[01:11:30] Fernando: [01:11:30] I was going to say like extreme mental duress, you know, just your world turned upside down. 

[01:11:37] Mary: [01:11:37] And Barbara says that she hates being blamed for Steven staff because it's not that cut and dry, which I can see that there are shades of gray to this. I don't think it was fair for the cops to completely discount Steven's mental state or right off his mental health struggles. She also says, quote, be [01:12:00] careful of what you decide to believe. 

[01:12:01] Fernando: [01:12:01] That, you know, I mean that yes, if there's one takeaway from this, that's it.

[01:12:08]Mary: [01:12:08] They manipulate people so deeply and over a years, Indoctrinate people into only seeing things from their specific point of view using their value system and the way that the cops are talking about this case. It's so obvious they don't understand mental health, but even more, they have no basic understanding of the way that cults can impact an individual, much less the cult turning on you and kicking you out after 15 years. And again, Stephen had no social circle outside this. There was no real life friends. There was nobody  else that got interviewed besides Donna, he's really on his own. And his only socializing is the internet cult people. [01:13:00] And then eventually Barbara, who is an internet cult person. And then they get together and do internet cult  people things. I can't talk right now. I'm doing virtual reptilian online cult things. 

[01:13:12] Fernando: [01:13:12] Reptilian alien. Well, he did legit eat, breathe  sleep this. 

[01:13:19] Mary: [01:13:19] Yes. 

[01:13:19] Fernando: [01:13:19] You know? 

[01:13:21] Mary: [01:13:21] Donna does not agree with the verdict. She feels that Barbara should have been found guilty of the charge of first degree murder. And she says that she has a huge hole in her life. I would really love to know if she ever got caught catfishing or not. And if they reconnected and what that relationship was like. 

[01:13:40] Fernando: [01:13:40] Curious about that as well. Yeah. 

[01:13:42] Mary: [01:13:42] So that is the story of Sherry Shriner and the deaths that she is indirectly or directly responsible for, depending on how you want to look at it. 

[01:13:52] Fernando: [01:13:52] It's it's yeah, it's nuts because yeah, she caused all of this strife and [01:14:00] pain, but she never laid a hand. And I think that speaks to the power that cults can have. 

[01:14:06] Mary: [01:14:06] Yeah. 

[01:14:06] Fernando: [01:14:06] You know, which is scary, especially with what you said with like QAnon. 

[01:14:11] Mary: [01:14:11] The emergence of these online groups. And the echo chambers that they get into is really radicalization. And that's what happens to some extent with my social media feeds. I don't want to see the opposing view on whether or not I should have rights as a human, if you've co-signed people to believe that. And that's your jam, that's fine, but I'm not going to be seeing it. So, yeah, I really feel like. I get why people are concerned about the echo chamber. For me, that's a safety thing, not a I'm becoming deeply radicalized in this lizard jesus vampire, witch alien UFO [01:15:00] genocide did I miss any fecal eating fecal, eating raw hamburger meat, eating. 

[01:15:06] Fernando: [01:15:06] Apocalypse 

[01:15:07] Mary: [01:15:07] Non orgone  blaster wearing, 

[01:15:10] Fernando: [01:15:10] Oh my God. 

[01:15:12] Mary: [01:15:12] It's the $750 Oregon blaster for me. 

[01:15:15] Fernando: [01:15:15] Yeah. So it's like, you can have, you're can have protection or you can have a lot of protection. . 

[01:15:19] Mary: [01:15:19] How much protection can you afford? We'll see what percentage of your body we can avoid. Maybe you can keep your thumb or your pinky and then we'll go from there. 

[01:15:29] Fernando: [01:15:29] Hey, she was making money. Which is scary. 

[01:15:32]Mary: [01:15:32] It's awful. 

[01:15:33] Fernando: [01:15:33] Yeah. 

[01:15:34] Mary: [01:15:34] Scammin'.

[01:15:35]Fernando: [01:15:35] And people were buying, obviously.

[01:15:37]Mary: [01:15:37] The books  still being for sale on Amazon reading the dust jackets. Also. 

[01:15:45] Fernando: [01:15:45] Is there any, do you, do you know, like where, where there, where, where the cult is?

[01:15:52] Like as far as now, I know you said the daughter took over like. What have they adjusted any of their beliefs or are these still along this [01:16:00] bullshit? 

[01:16:00] Mary: [01:16:00] I haven't found anything. The last post that I found on the Facebook page was like, Sherry is the true profit. If you say otherwise, you're a demon, a lot of that. So I don't know how many people stayed and stuck around. So the YouTube page is silent and. She has a lot of old web pages that aren't active. So I'm not sure what they're up to now. I also don't know, like, did they start other websites? That are just without Sherry. Are they still pretending sherry is giving them messages and like speaking through her daughter now?

[01:16:37]Fernando: [01:16:37] That wouldn't surprise me.

[01:16:38]Mary: [01:16:38] She inherited the land line with the number one speed dial up to heaven where Sherry's the queen. 

[01:16:44] I mean, the daughter contacts Sherry then Sherry contacts God. 

[01:16:48] Sherry is a middleman  and a woman. 

[01:16:51] Sherry's like, God, excuse me. Ma'am this phone calls for you? 

[01:16:55] Yeah. 

[01:16:56] Could you say happy birthday. That's my daughter.

[01:16:58] The literal [01:17:00] Biblicism aspect of it to me is fanatical. And unbelievable to believe that every single thing that happened in the Bible is the literal truth. The Bible was written by man. I guess I, as much as I am not a Christian or a Catholic, and I don't identify with any of that anymore. I'm a witch. I. I feel like theologically, I have issues like my philosophy of what my understanding of the Bible is.

[01:17:31] I have too many direct challenges with what they're saying asthe truth. . 

[01:17:35] Fernando: [01:17:35] Absolutely. Yeah. It's not, it's not supposed to be literal.  

[01:17:39] Mary: [01:17:39] Thank you so much for coming on, Fernando. I can't think of anyone better to go on this wild reptilian UFO ride with. 

[01:17:47] Fernando: [01:17:47] Thank you for having me. I would definitely say this is the most bizarre, true crime case that I've ever heard of. It's unbelievable. 

[01:17:57] Mary: [01:17:57] Devastating for the families [01:18:00] of both Kelly and Stephen and Barbara and anyone else who got involved with this call and got sucked in. These are just the people we know about. And I'm sure there are thousands of other people who were led astray by this stuff, and really believed the end of the world was coming. And those people have probably graduated to Q Anon now. 

[01:18:23] Fernando: [01:18:23] Quite  possibly, or these people, you know, they sunk all their money into this thing 

[01:18:28] Mary: [01:18:28] It's very similar to the Illuminati where it's like this new world order of you secret aliens. And so I feel like that. The Illuminati, conspiracy theories becoming more prevalent combined with like maybe some of the subsection of believers of Sherry gotta be playing together. Right? 

[01:18:53] Fernando: [01:18:53] Yeah, of course. 

[01:18:55] Mary: [01:18:55] Quick aside, have you about the conspiracy theories at Denver [01:19:00] international airport? 

[01:19:02] Fernando: [01:19:02] Um, I know it's a bull statue. 

[01:19:06] Mary: [01:19:06] Not quite. There is 

[01:19:09] Fernando: [01:19:09] there's statue with blowing with like red eyes, right? 

[01:19:13] Mary: [01:19:13] Gigantic. There's a gigantic blue Mustang statue outside of outside DIA. It's called Blucifer. It does have the glowing red eyes that glow at night and it actually killed its creator. 

[01:19:31] Fernando: [01:19:31] He fell on it, right?

[01:19:33]Mary: [01:19:33] A part of it,  it, I think punctured like his, one of his arteries in his thigh and he bled to death underneath it, and then they still finished it and put it together. But there is also a lot of allegedly Illuminati icon.

[01:19:52] Iconography all around the airport. There's some really weird murals that have all of these [01:20:00] symbols that people say represents the new world order and genocide and all this weird, weird stuff. There are theories that under DIA or around DIA, there are like thousands of miles of underground tunnels and just a lot of really weird stuff around there.

[01:20:19] Um, Last year, at one point or a couple of years ago, they were doing this promotional thing in the airport where they had animatronic gargoyles set up and people would like talk to the gargoyle and it would make these Illuminati wink, wink kind of references. It's really strange. The airport itself is kind of weird.

[01:20:41] It looks like tents on the outside. I mean, you've been there. You've seen it. 

[01:20:46] Fernando: [01:20:46] Yeah. Yeah, it was definitely, I mean, I haven't been in a ton of airports, but it was different from any other airport that I've seen.

[01:20:53]Mary: [01:20:53] Next time you're coming back. I will send you all the locations of these things. So I'll track them down so that you can take a [01:21:00] look for them when you're in the airport.

[01:21:02] Fernando: [01:21:02] Yes, please do. Yeah, sure. 

[01:21:03] Mary: [01:21:03] In the After Times!. 

[01:21:06] Fernando: [01:21:06] Yeah. Yeah. You know, usually when I'm leaving the airport, I'm just so glad to be off the plane and out of the airport. Get me to where I have to go. 

[01:21:17] Mary: [01:21:17] Yeah, exactly. 

[01:21:18] Fernando: [01:21:18] I will take the time next time I come.

[01:21:20]Mary: [01:21:20] I've been ending things on a positive note. What is something that has made you happy this week?

[01:21:26] Fernando: [01:21:26] Same Skyrim has been very happy. Yes. They recently re-released a DLC size. The mod, when I started playing Skyrim on the PC was not available. It's been really fun. Delving into that. 

[01:21:43] Mary: [01:21:43] Let's see, what's   my thing. Oh, I started a Patreon for the podcast. Really excited about it. Feel free to join if you have the ability to do so. And eventually I'll be putting up some more extra content up there right now. It's just getting started [01:22:00] special. Shout out to our first patron friend of the pod, Caitlin, who was a guest here for the Pamela smart case. And if you are interested, I will post the Patrion link in the episode description. 

[01:22:10] I'll put it up on the Instagram, make sure to check us out on there and as always, thanks so much for tuning in. We'll see you next week. 

[01:22:17] Hi friends. If you like the podcast, I would love if you would go ahead and leave me a five star rating and a review on Apple podcasts. It's the only place that I can actually get ratings and get reviews and get ranked.

[01:22:31] Please check us out on Instagram. At Monster's walk with us all one word and I'd love. If you could send us an email and tell me where you're listening from, maybe suggest a case. The email address is hitting period monsters, period of block@gmail.com.