Episode 11: Bonus Episode

School of Humans.

This show follows the investigation of serial murders and contains material that may be disturbing. Listener discretion advised.

Welcome everybody. Kurt Kubachek here, Thank you so much for tuning in to our bonus episode. I wanted to bring you all back because there was a lot of things we wanted to share with you all, including more in depth interviews with Cecilia Stein. We'll also hear great insight from Nicky Falkoff and more from Merinduz Stein. So I've got Jennifer Tacchini, my co producer, here with me.

Hi.

It's great to be back, and.

Also I'm really excited to introduce another important team member, our lead producer, Julia chriscau.

Hey, good to be here.

We're going to tie up some loose ends of the case, including what we currently know about the open investigation into Colonel Diyager, Captain Johann van Vick, and Cecilia's husband, Officer Jari Stein. We'll also take you through everything, including some of our wild adventures on the ground in South Africa. If you've gotten this far, we appreciate you coming to the bonus episode of Queen havoc Here's doctor Niki Falcoff.

These countries with these kind of really big, opaque governments and these really really complex, angry, difficult histories of violence, and these societies that are very diverse, where lots of people feel left out, you know, in a way that you wouldn't necessarily get in Western Europe. Is there something about those kinds of societies that makes people more susceptible to the sort of charisma that you know, a Manson or a Cecilia Stein has quite possibly?

Well I met Cecilia Stein this week. Oh my god? Yeah, how is that? Most people could fall prey to her? Okay, instantly when we met it began her control. Yeah, she was on it the moment it started.

So she there's some kind of manipulative skill that this person has that is beyond the understanding of most of us.

And if you're not, i mean really hyper self aware, you wouldn't see it.

Wow, imagine if she used her powers for good?

So what was that like being in her presence then? So I know we talked a little bit about it in the episodes, but like, did you feel that she was like working that charm on you all when you were meeting her in the prison.

I think so. I mean immediately when we walked in the room, we were introduced to a lot of the staff and a lot of the people that were there. And it really felt like we had to remind ourselves where we were because it felt like just a casual conversation with friends and you know, just catching up, you know, over coffee.

As a reminder, Sun City is one of the most dangerous prisons in South Africa. She instantly welcomed us. She just went in for hugs. It wasn't like we had a choice. But she was lovely and friendly and I mean she made everybody in the whole area know that we were there to see her. And I mean she's laughing and giggling. She doesn't take anything really that seriously with us. She tried to keep everything really really light. I mean, she brought us into you know, where you forgot.

Yeah, you know, and it seems like everyone had kind of a split personality. I mean Luke talks about that as well. Oh yeah, you know, having feeling like he's one person during the day and then at night he's himself. And it's so horrible to have to put on this mask all the time. But I feel like for Cecilia and eventually Marinda, probably it didn't feel like a mask anymore, right, It just became who they were.

I see myself as I see myself as a vigilante. And then I thought, okay, Marenda, so I fetched my old broken dictionary and it says that a person who takes care.

Of a criminal act.

So you might not agree with the vigilante.

See, the people.

That we killed were bad, but they were.

Potatoes. Okay.

I think one of the most interesting quotes from Cecilia that you all got was that Cecilia means blindness.

Even in court, you listen to people testify and it's the opinion of something that happened. Just example, in court, the prosecutor was explaining to me what might tattoos mean, and I have an eye tattooed on my shoulder and he was saying that it's the eye of run. I'm going no, my name is Cecilia. It means blindness.

She is using her charm to real people in but she's completely blind to their experience. To like anyone else's experience besides her own, which is like the narcissist psychopath thing that's happening.

At one point I asked Cecilia how it felt to be labeled the female Charles Manson, and this was a response.

Well, this is the first time I'm hearing someone saying that I'm the female version of Charles Manson. I don't know a lot about him, but will definitely go check up on that. I was always over to present myself. It's something that inchiegued me. I do believe he was female. Just for the record, it's not a sexisting Females are so much better at everything else. What's this saying? Give what the devil isn't able to do? You'll send a woman.

I believe that she saw this avenue into these people of Let me give you purpose correct, Let me give you I need to be taken care of, I need your money, I need a ride, I need your help. Let me give you something to be purposeful about. And that's what I think is slightly unique about this. You know, this serial mastermind, whatever all the different names they give her, it's just a unique brand into finding people that specifically have this need to nurture.

Yeah.

No, that's actually a very very very good point that I hadn't thought of. I'm thinking about cut leaders that I know a little bit about, people like the Jonestown crime and other kind of massive cut leaders. What they tend to do is they do provide people with the sense of purpose, but in the sense that they go, you must follow me, and then you two will be strong like me. Their charisma is about strength and power, whereas what she did was almost about weakness. She was

Yes, and you're doing something good and you're doing something righteous. Cecilia used pity as a manipulation tactic wherever she could. She never failed to mention her sicknes even with us.

I think, at the end of the day, it was just a group of people really taking care of each other. I was the one that was sick the whole time. Yeah, my lungs and messed up, Yes, all of those things. But it wasn't just taking care of me because I was sick. We were friends. We cooked together, we ate together every day, we visited together every day. I think

Cecilia is chock full of contradiction herself, constantly creating a facade to hide behind. Detective Ben Boysen told us that he believes Cecilia and EPD to be connected to at least four more murders, ones that he couldn't prove.

I linked them actually with were fifteen murders, but I could only prove leven, so I only took that eleven cases to court at the end of the day.

Ben also did some digging into Cecilia's background before the days of Ria grunivald An.

EPD even began going back Cecilia's husband had a girlfriend in two thousand and five, and eventually she was also killed in a brutal way. But in two thousand and five, Zach Valentine and Marenda and those people was not part of her So I don't know if Cecilia did that killing by herself or was there at that stage other people in her life that she was convincing to kill people.

Ye, it's like Suside said she could open a university to teach people manipulation.

Yeah. I mean she had them believe that. You know, she gave everybody a teddy bear, and they believed that she embodied the teddy bear and that she could watch them through the teddy bear and all their actions. And so Marcelle and the room believe that they're being watched at all times.

Let go of that.

She never admitted anything to us with regard to the crimes and told us her versions of everything. We knew that there was a dark side or a shadow version of herself that she didn't show us, which was capable of saying and doing whatever it took to get what she wanted.

I was believed there's no biggo small sense citizen, whether you lie or kill or steal. Some people steal chocolates, some people steal people's lives. Yeah, waither it's it's shoplifting or murder or there's no bigg or small citizen. So yeah, I don't have the right to judge anybody. I think we just.

As you know, we'll be right back.

A lot of those common and grifters end up being religious leaders and then they just become common and grifters at a larger scale, right. I'm just I'm thinking about the kind of really extractive evangelical churches that are popping up all over South Africa, where people who have very very very little are giving most of what they have to a preacher.

I would love to dive into that, because we've also found our way to attend one of the church that one of the police officers who's under investigation right now is pastoring.

Oh wow.

Basically we found out while we were there that Diyogart had opened up some kind of a small congregation of his own. I know, this is absolutely insane, right after hearing everything we just did. So on the day that I was set to go into the prison to see Merinda Stein, Jennifer was very interested in obviously joining me, but the only time of this church service was the day I was set to go in to the prison.

Yeah. So I really was curious about Diagar and wanted to ask him some questions. We really wanted to get the perspective of the detectives that we hadn't spoken to. We hopped in a car with one of our colleagues from South Africa and drove two hours outside of Johannesburg and pulled up and unfortunately I was left my own devices to go and by myself, and we were running

Of the universe was like, go nack it out. The fact that you were locked in where you're like, I feel like I would have been like shaking, Like my hands would have been shaking.

Oh yeah.

I mean the thing is once the door locked, knowing doom right now, Yeah, knowing the door locked, knowing knowing what I knew about Deoger, I think was the scariest thing because here you have this guy who's at the pulpit, you know, giving a sermon for families, for there were children in there, you know, like it was a family church, and he presented himself as this family man you know, that was helping the congregation. And that's one side of him, and you know, we knew another side of him.

But so it was all different kinds of people.

Family, yeah, family.

Young people yes. And then at one point, so they were singing hymns, and he asked a couple of people to come to the front and and then a person started speaking in tongues, started convulsing and then collapsed onto the floor, and Dioger and some congregation members came and helped her up. As this was all going on, our colleague, who was out in the car outside texted me saying, look, you need to tread carefully because this is a private church,

Were you said at ease a little bit now that you had witnesses?

So you yeah, there were I think I was a little bit more at ease, but at the same time, my anxiety was, you know, peeking, because I didn't know what I was going to do, because I thought, oh, I was going to approach him ask him some questions about the case, and then realizing that that's probably not the best idea, and the congregation surrounding me and then his wife. His wife comes up to me and was

So in seguence of events, so Cecilia gets convicted in August of twenty nineteen. Then, I mean, obviously Dreams was implicated in some of the testimony, right, because he was living there, so he had to be aware of some of it. Is it safe to say that Ben Boyson was like, Okay, this is not over and in order to like actually end this, like there's a larger problem here, which is there's corruption and organized crime happen in the police force, which Dion Venvick talks about a lot.

As a young prosecutor in nineteen ninety three, you would have blind me out of the wood if you told me then this is what South Africa would become. So there is an element of how shall I explain cancer in our model fiber on On ground level.

It's safe to say that Ben wanted to get these guys behind bars.

Ultimately, what we know of is the Yager was removed from the police service without a pension.

This was November twenty twenty two, right, and you all were there in August of twenty twenty two. So November twenty twenty two, Diyager was removed from the force I think, a month before his pension was supposed to kick in. Yes, and there's currently an open investigation that could put him by bars.

I'm curious what you think Diager's motivations might have been because you know, we obviously know from what we just heard from you Jonnifer, that he is like a god fearing individual. And I wonder, you know, do we know anything about how Cecilia may have manipulated him, Like was he just terrified of her because he also believed the

I don't know, but my gut tells me that this is money from learning everything we did when we were there and the investigation and how underpaid and overworked the police force is. I think this is just something where you know, he was able to make a little bit extra money. He had known and had a prior relationship with Cecilia, so there was kind of a give and

The problem is the global system of capitalism that if a woman was in charge, she would also be stuck with And I think that's also why this particular case caught people's attention so dramatically, because we are all so horrified by the idea that women could do this, particularly by the idea that a mother, a mother would sully her daughter in this way. It's absolutely horrifying and you know, fascinatingly sensational at the same time. So I think that's drawn a lot of attention to this case.

Colonel Henny Diyager has been released from his duties as an officer of the law and his pension revoked. Cecilia Stein's husband, Drees, is still working as a cop for the South African Police Service. Captain Johann van Vick came back to the force after resigning for a bit after Michaela's murder. He too, still works for the SAPs. I want to add one more thing before we wrap things up. Something I thought was interesting while we were in South Africa.

At the end of the day, telling you aside of what happened it is it is very much liberating in a way.

As we conclude this series, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to all who have supported this podcast and everyone in South Africa who welcomed us into your beautiful country. Thank you again for joining us on this journey through the