School of Humans. This show follows the investigation of serial murders and contains material that may be disturbing. Listener discretion advised.
Michaela Valentine, heart pounding, waits in the car for her husband Zach. She stares at her reflection in the mirror. In her blond wig and heavy makeup, she barely recognizes herself. Inside, Zach carries out two fatal attacks on Natasha Berger and her neighbor Joy Burnside. The plan was for Michaela to help him, but she couldn't bring herself to go through with it. When the executions are complete, Zach flees from
the townhouse and runs toward the waiting car. He jumps in next to his wife, his hands, his face, his clothes all covered in blood. Zach and Michaela speed away from the scene, bolting across the darkened city. Zach calls to check in with Mirinda. The job is done, he tells her. Marinda hears Michaela crying in the background, and orders them to get rid of the murder weapons and report back immediately to the flat where Cecilia is waiting.
When they arrive, Zach explains to Cecilia what happened and how Michaela couldn't bring herself to kill joy Cecilia was not pleased. LaRue and Marcel are ordered to scrub the car clean of blood. Ria Grunivald rushes to Natasha's place as soon as she hears the tragic news. She has to see for herself if things had actually gone this far. Rhea watches the slack jawed as the bodies of Natasha and Joy are carried out, both covered in white sheets in the dark of night. No one recognizes Rihea, but
the following day a witness comes forward. I heard screams coming from Joy's home, she said. When I looked outside, I saw a blond woman running from the house to her car. That woman was Mikaela in a blonde wig. But strangely, the witness tells the police with some certainty that who she saw fleeing the murder scene was Rhea. As if things weren't bad enough, Rhea's life was about to take yet another turn for the worse. She was about to become the primary suspect from School of Humans
and iHeart Podcasts. This is Queen Havoc and her murder cult. I'm your host, Kurt Kupchek episode three, Eyes of a Killer. In untangling the web of this case, we discover a long list of bad actors, but we also encounter people like Rhea, vilified for their good intentions. Among these well intentioned individuals is the man we've been calling Luke. His involvement with Cecilia Stein would come at a steep cost.
Luke is something of a vigilante. He met Cecilia and Electus Perdaz in twenty twelve as the murders were picking up steam. His friend Aria introduced him to the Know Your Enemy pamphlet, which piqued his interest.
The book's name was now your Enemy. So I convinced a lot of people, how do you PreTect yourself if you don't know are your enemy operates? Makes actually aren't the same scenes? So I started reading this boon. I didn't agree with anything.
He shared his skepticism with Aria, so.
I told him, I've got all this questions. She told me she'll take me to the person who read this book. And that's when I met cecil Lasting for the first time and Zach Valentine and Makai La.
Luke challenged Cecilia's ideas in person and strangely enough, she seemed to enjoy it, bantering back and forth with him but not providing any real answers. Luke remained unconvinced that she was as cunning as she said she was, but was intrigued by the group's reverence for her. But then, only a couple of weeks after he came into Cecilia's orbit, people started dying.
This One friend found me about a week later and she told me and Natasha Burger and friend's been murdered.
In his gut, he knew they were to blame.
I couldn't believe it. Something that don't make sense.
And so he decided to act, going.
To my knees and I prayed and I told her Lord he can use me. I will go into Cruge if you can just partect me and I'll open up this whole hole. And it's next.
Luke planned to conduct his own investigation. He would infiltrate electus perdeis, posing as a devotee. He could get close to them and confirm his suspicions. Then, once he had hard evidence, he would go to the police. Luke tread lightly at first, so that no one would suspect anything. He needed to earn Secilia's trust, the rest would follow. Not aware of the malicious inner workings of EPD, Luke began to spend time with some of the members socially,
Zach Valentine in particular, and up close. He took note of how Cecilia played them all.
Anybody was extremely scaped of Cecilia, and that's how she got everybody to listen to her and follow the instructions.
She used fear and of course scripture. The story of King David, who was told by God to destroy the Philistines, worked especially well on Mirinda.
I remember she manipulated Miranda out of David. David killed all the people, and the women, and the children and the dogs. Everything must be killed, and that's how she manipulated Miranda to participa the killings.
Cecilia reinterpreted biblical teachings to her likings so that members believed that what they were doing was God's will, just like so many Zelots throughout history who murdered in the name of God. Cecilia would speak on behalf of the Almighty, and who were they to argue against such divine authority? That made Michaela's unwillingness to kill joy burnside, an affront to Cecilia and an act of existential defiance. Zach tried to reassure Cecilia that Michaela was loyal and that she
could still be trusted, but Cecilia was unsparing. She berated Michaela for not following through on the kill assigned to her, and decided all of them Zach, Mirinda, Marcel, LaRue and Michaela should all be better prepared for next time. In fact, they should practice. Luke wasn't yet deep enough into the fold to be included in this macabre exercise. The core members, however, arrived at Cecilia's flat one evening to find her in the bedroom. Laid out under stackxa newspaper, was a boar's
head from the local butcher. She handed knives to each of her followers and instructed them to have at it, a depraved rehearsal for killing a human. She watched for a while and then left the room, returning a few minutes later with an axe. While their blades were plunged deeper and deeper into the boar's head, Cecilia fed her followers stories of the conniving ways of Rhea and her mentor Pastor Reginald Ben Dixon. He was the aggressor, she
told them. He turned Rhea against them all he let OTC to heard praying incorrectly, thereby forcing them to dispose of Natasha. And he, according to Cecilia, had plagiarized her Know Your Enemy pamphlet and repurposed it for an OTC course. Finally, Cecilia's devotees, breathless and bloody, surrounded the mangled pig's head, ready for their next kill. This time it would be Mirinda's turn to prove her loyalty. And this time we'll hear about the murder.
In her own words, no one ever screamed when I killed him. They were dated in seconds.
Merenda Stein, guided by her undying loyalty to Cecilia, was outraged at Pastor Reginald Ben Dixon's inequities. He had stolen both Cecilia's intellectual property and Rhea's admiration. In her book The Kruger's Dwarf Cult Killings, journalist Jana Marx details the scene where Cecilia called an emergency meeting and informed them, quote, we have to take him out. This is war. We are living in the end times and redg has turned against God. What you're hearing now is a maximum security
correctional facility south of Johannesburg. It's popularly known as Sun City, after a famous holiday resort in South Africa's Northwest province. The inmates ironically chose this name, implying that any time spent there was the furthest thing from a holiday. It's a kin to calling Riker's Island Disney.
World with you.
When I entered the prison, I was fristed from head to toe. I boarded a rickety old bus that took us to the women's prison. Next, we slowed to a stop in front of a high razor wire fence that surrounded a large brick building. The sun was out, there was a bite in the wind. I followed a stream of visitors off the bus and through layers of fence. We were all frissed again and again. Each time I
became more nervous. After what felt like an eternity, the guards checked me in his curs who would check excitement and fear course through me. I was about to come face to face with the greatest evil I had ever known, Marinda Stein herself. Like with the first murder, the group heavily scouted at the location. Pastor Reginald ben Dixon lives on a one way street. His house has a long driveway,
a security gate, and a surrounding cinder block wall. Mikayla rents a car, LaRue replaces the license plate with a stolen one, and Zach, Merinda, and Marcel pile in and had to rege his house. On the drive, fourteen year old Marcel becomes suddenly nauseous. She asked them to pull over. The murder squad decides that Marcel is too sick and they all returned to Kruger's sturt. This was not a good look for Marcel or Mikaela, for that matter. When Marcel got sick, it was Michaela who tended to her.
Over the past few years, Marcella and Michaela had bonded while Marinda focused squarely on her duty to Cecilia. Michayla became Marcel's sole ally and confidant. Marcel looked up to her. Both were relieved that their deadly assignment was aboarded. That night, Thursday, August ninth, twenty twelve, Reginald ben Dixon receives a call from Zach Valentine. Zach uses a fake name and says he's seeking a spiritual counselor. He flatters him and says
Reg comes highly recommended. The two men make an appointment to meet the following Monday at a local coffee shop. Reg jots it down in his date book. On the day of the appointment, the thirteenth of August twenty twelve, Zach, Marian, and Marcel make their way to Ben Dixon's home. They call and ask for a rain check, assuming he would be at home for a while, before making other plans. The scouting mission conclude that Ben Dixon's wife would be
away until later that evening. About that same time, Ria Grunivald gets a text on her phone from a number she doesn't recognize. Have you said your goodbyes to Reg? I hope you did. Ria immediately forwards the message to the police officer she's been in contact with, the same cop who was a no show at the coffee shop sting operation. Not Surprisingly, he doesn't respond. Ria tries calling, and yet again the police aren't there for her when
she needs them the most. Meanwhile, the novice assassins were nearing Regg's house. MICHAELA. Was ordered to stay home for this mission. She'd stay by Cecilia's side while the others followed orders. Cecilia no longer trusted Mikayla to get the job done. Marcel, on the other hand, was not given an option. Marinda made sure her daughter was there to learn by example. Cecilia ordered Marcel to bring a video came to record the killing. She wanted evidence of their devotion,
and she wanted to see reg Bend Dixon die. Interviewing Mirinda for this podcast meant giving her a platform. The ethics of that concerned us quite a bit, But after months of pouring over the facts of this case, we were missing a critical piece. What on earth motivated these seemingly normal people to become killers? I believe that talking to her might provide more insight into Cecilia's mindset and
the group dynamics she cultivated. I wanted to figure out why Mirinda and the rest of EPD did what they did and how they justified it in their own minds. In the visiting area, there were about ten other inmates facing their loved ones in an echoy and sterile room with a folding table that held handmade crafts for sale, crocheted holders, and beat a jewelry, all made by inmates. I walked past the tables and then heard a voice saying, Curt,
how are you there. She was the face I had seen peering back at me, frozen in mugshots and courtroom photographs. She smiled at me and thanked me for coming. We sat down on a long, wooden picnic bench in the center of the room. I was now a foot away face to face with Merinda Steyn. She was as nervous
as I was, and told me so. Honestly, I felt disarmed, mostly by her politeness, her seemingly normal demeanor, but that light soon dimmed, clouded by who I knew her to be, and that storm only grew as she started telling me what happened with Ben Dixon. Now, as you can tell, the audio quality of this interview was pretty rough, so that an actor to read some of what Marinda shared with us so that you can clearly understand her chilling words.
I knew the interaction would be tense and a bit awkward, but what I really didn't expect was how casually Mirinda would talk about the act of taking someone's life, and so brutally she was proud of what she'd done.
I had a bad child.
I had a bad child, did and he looked exactly like my father Sam. He was such a trusting idiot.
The kill team disguised themselves in police uniforms, their weapons of choice knives and an axe. Marinda described calling Redge from the front security gate using a burner phone. She claimed they were detectives from the South African Police Service who needed to speak with him about the recent murders and a possible connection to his friend Ria Grunewald. Ben Dixon, of course, wanted to help with the investigation, so he let the killers in.
He was sort of a bit suspicious, and he was sort of a bit suspicious, and then he started talking to us, and he opened the gate for us, and we're walking out like a long driveway.
Marinda came up with a ploy to come their way, and why.
Don't we go into speaking?
Then I said to them, well why don't we go and speak inside the house, you know, because now the walls are high, but the neighbors would see.
As the pastor and EPD walked up the front yard toward Ben Dixon's home, Marinda and Zach locked eyes.
So we went just around the bean, and we went just around the bend, and he walked in front of us. And then Zack didn't even wait for me. He just started eating him over the head and he fell there in front of us. So we were never even in his house.
Zach got impatient and hit Bendixon over the head with the back of the axe. They didn't even make it into his home. Then Marinda joined in, stabbing him with her fishing knife. Marcel fourteen years old, watches and muted horror as this gruesome reality unfolds before her. Sitting there in her prison jumpsuit. Marinda twisted this into some distorted form of grace. Well, person, I.
Believe in killing a person quickly.
I believe in killing a person quickly. No one ever screamed when I killed them. They were dead within seconds.
Here's Christelle Boisen recalling Mirinda's court room testimony.
She was explaining that between her and Zuk, while they were busy with Rex Benedict and stabbing him and slashing him, they actually got so excited that Zuck accidentally hit her with the ex and she was telling him, hey, just you know, stay clear. She was explaining this in.
Court Even when it was obvious that reg was dead, Marinda continued to stab him. Her depravity was not only proof of her loyalty to God and to Secilia, but the result of some research.
She says, she one time remember watching a documentary or something, and they say that if you want to know if someone is dead, you must look at this space on the throat, and if the space stops throbbing, then you know that the heart stopped pumping. And she was stabbing rex Bena Dixon and waiting for this not to throb anymore, and then she would know that he's dead.
With their work done, they leave Regg's lifeless body on the grass in the front yard, locking the security gate on their way out. When they pull up at Casana Flats, Mikaela is outside sitting in her car. Zach, still hyped on adrenaline from his second murder, boast to his wife about what they'd done. Marenda and Marcel follow behind, corroborating Zack's account of their kill like a hunting party celebrating
their conquest. Mikayla, numb with shock and careful not to show any indication of fear or disapproval, forced a crooked smile inside, though she trembled terrified at what her husband had become a monster of his own making. At this point, I think it'll be helpful to sort out all the police and detectives involved in the investigation of these murders.
It can get confusing since the police treated the first couple of crimes as unrelated the car and church bombings, Reggi's murder and the killing of Natasha and Joy, so what became known as the Kruger's Dorf killings were investigated in stages. It's hard to pinpoint the exact chain of events and police involvement at each stage. Many statements from the cops make it sound as if they were there the whole time, even if they were not. Everyone we spoke to seems to have an opinion about how it
all went down. So here we go. From what we can gather. Captain Venvick was aware of the cases surrounding the car and church bombings, and may have even been briefed on them, But when we spoke to him, Benvick told us that he wasn't officially assigned as a lead investigator until after Pastor Reginald ben Dixon turned up dead.
So it happened Onion of August that I was called to ic a person was deceased, and that is actually I became involved in this guys.
Then there's his associate, Colonel Henny Diager, a career cop with a brooding, tony soprano type presence. Colonel Diyager had been part of the investigation team since the car bombing incidents, assisting. We think it's not totally clear when exactly Diyager became part of this investigation, but he's a major player and would soon become a pebble in the shoe of the detectives seeking truth and justice. Many of the facts surrounding both the Yager and Vinvick's involvement in the Cecilia Stein
case remain opaque. Then there's Detective Susette Knotse, graceful and bold, she is called in a bit later, followed by the brazen Detective Ben Boisen and a team of seasoned investigators. Both Detective Susette Knotse and Ben Boysen each had to re examine a string of suspicious events and reconsider the evidence from every angle, essentially rebuild the case and track
where and how it all began. The other two law enforcement officials are Colonel Kobas Yonker, Suzette's mentor, who started the Occult Related Crimes unit, and Colonel Christelle Boisen, a well respected officer in the South South African Police Service. She remains the acting Operational overhead Commander for the West Rand District. She's also married to Ben and they often help each other out with cases. So here we are August thirteenth, twenty twelve. Pastor Reginald ben Dixon's body lies
on the grass. It's a horrifying scene. Detective Sussette Canotze recalls the crime scene photos.
He was hacked from behind. When he turned around, he was hacked from the front.
The pastor had axe wounds to the back of his head and had been stabbed more than ten times on his chest and Torso here's Captain Johann Benvick.
On the scene. It was one of the most gruesome motives which I've seen in the even thirty four years in this Athrican Police Service.
Standing there in Ben Dixon's front yard, Captain van Vick suppose met Colonel Di Yager for the first time.
There was another policeman that arrived on the scene of Colonel Dia. He said that he was from the occult unit of the reservice. I've never met him before. He then informed me that the murder had some sort of occult connection.
Here is where the window of truth begins to blur. Though according to Yana Marx, who was present at all of the court proceedings, both the Yager and Van Vick had been at least adjacent to the carbomb investigations. Colonel di Yager may have even been assisting on them, so it's very likely they would have met before. The other strange thing is that Colonel di Yager was brought on as a consultant to assess the potential for ritual murder in the case of Natasha Berger and Joy Burnside, even
though their murders were technically outside of his jurisdiction. He was reportedly an expert on the occult. The Yager has bravado a man's any room he finds himself in any crime scene too. His arrival on the scene of Ben Dixon's murder was kind of like what we've seen in movies when the FBI shows up and takes over, but in South Africa, the case remains in the hands of
the lead investigating officer, which is now then Vick. The Yager was confident that Ben Dixon's murder was a ritualistic slaying, the work of a Satanic cult, and likely related to the previous killing of Joy and Natasha detectives, who said Canotse and Ben Boyson, on the other hand, both believe that an under resourced police department coupled with the nationwide fear of the occult often resulted in a rush to judgment, and that dynamic resulted in poor police work, especially when
a crime aligned so neatly with the biases born of their imagined fears.
The two invesiguiding officers working on the chist concentrated more on the Syitanism side, and they totally lost focus on the actual murders that needs to be investigated, which actually, yes, it was part of the story, but that wasn't why the murders took place.
The yager argued that there should have been more blood on the scene, given the brutality of Ben Dixon's wounds.
He was saying, no, there was a lot of blood, and the blood just went Missy, where's all the blood?
The Yager told his team that whoever committed this murder must have consumed the blood, a clear mark of ceremony.
So then he said, no, no, no, no, somebody must have drank it.
The police worked earnestly with the yager's theory that this was the grizzly act of satan worshiping blood drinkers. However, Detective Susette thought it was obvious where the blood had gone.
Now that person is laying on the grass. So it went into the grass and sorted by the gross us that is where it went. Nobody drank it.
In other words, all the satanism stuff was nothing more than a powerful distraction.
You have to follow facts.
The facts was right in front of them, but their attention was drawn to sensation, dragging their attention in the sensational route, and you can't investigate like that.
Ben Poison, also looking at this retroactively, agrees that this was a huge mistake.
And that's why the twenty twelve meters were never solved.
They were investigating satanism.
Satanism is not a crime. You investigate the crime. So clearly the police started off on the wrong track. In fact, they began to suspect that it was actually Ria who is behind it all.
I regarded Riochronvode is also a person that just was legitimate and just wanted to help the people and assist the people. But because all of the these things that escalated at the latest stage, I also became suspicious of According.
To Reginald Ben Dixon's phone records, Rhea had an appointment with him on the day he was murdered. When the police confronted her about this, she said it must be the Satanists impersonating her, and that's when she decided to find a lawyer. Because of this scheduled meeting and the fact that she was connected to both Reginald Ben Dixon and Natasha Berger, Rhea now officially became the primary suspect.
They reached out to Ria's old mentor fhavinga for comment havinga mentions a Colonel X here he means colonel the yager.
I got a colonel from the SIPs contacting me who said, listen, I need to speak to you. There's been murders. It's occult related. It's in Krugerdosdorp area, connected to overcomers in christ And I say, whoao overcomers in Christ? Yes, Krnival And you know it was that moment. It was that shock, it was that disbelief.
No, this gon't be when we spoke to him, there was still an open investigation into police misconduct, thus our use of Colonel X. More on that post mortem investigation in a later episode. At this moment in time, havinga knew right away that the police must be barking up the wrong tree. They were ignoring the facts that were staring them in the face, preferring to focus on the illusions from a now antiquated satanic panic. I say to.
Colonel x'sit, Colonel X, your suspect is Cecilia Stein. Please follow her, kick her. That's your man suspect.
But the yager wasn't convinced of Rhea's innocence until it became clear as day. Rhea's new lawyer told her to document her whereabouts every day so that moving forward, she could always prove her innocence. But right after Ben Dixon's murder, the police confiscated Rhea's cell phones, hard drives, and laptop, disconnecting Riha from the world.
A big breakthrough came when on the morning of fest at Ben Dixon's funeral.
Ria woke up on the morning at pastor Reginald Ben Dixon's funeral. She stepped out onto her porch and felt the sun on her face. She looked down and found a parcel waiting at her feet.
Ria found me and she said that she found a beckage in front of a door. Beckage was repped. It was some sort of meat.
Rhonnfolded the damn newspaper. Inside was a large chunk of bloody meat.
Pinned to it was another note leta written in blockwoods, look what the doggies lift you've of Richel something to that effect.
The note read, look what the dogs have left you of your precious past her. The detectives now had to let go of their pet theories that either Satanists or Rhea were to blame for the murders. Now they were forced to consider the case with fresh eyes. On top of that, the haphazard criminals from EPD had fumbled again.
Fingerprints was found on the letta that repped this piece of meats.
Once again, police found fingerprints.
I took the fingerprints, and the fingerprints indeed belonged to Moderndas think.
Then Vic took the opportunity to bring in everyone he could from EPD. The police had all of them in custody, even Secilia. But despite all the evidence and the possible motives pointing to Mirinda and Cecilia as the culprits, both were released from police custody. In fact, all the members of EPD were let off the hook. Before we go, there is one other police officer you should know about. He didn't work on this case, at least not in
the way the others did. But he is the reason Ben Dixon's attackers wore police uniforms, the reason Cecilia was never worried about them getting caught.
She was extremely confident that nothing will happen to them.
She was constantly telling them, don't worry. We know the cops. They will do nothing.
Don't worry about it.
This other officer, his name was drees Stein and he was Cecilia's husband.
Even just see us responsor to the police, So do you trust?
On the next episode of Queen Havoc.
She came to realize God will never ask you to murder anybody.
So that there was styles where they used to study.
She likes to provoke. Then again said when.
She said she's going to the police thing the publix, she ended.
Up date the batting, the read board, the wall and the roof was full of blood.
Queen Havoc in Her Murder Cult is a production of Schooly Humans and iHeart Podcasts. Queen Havoc is hosted and created by me Kurt Kupachick, produced and written by Jennifer Takini, Julia Chriscau and Kurt Kupachick. Lead producer is Julia Chriskau. Story editor is Saren Burnett. Senior producer is Amelia Brock. Production manager is Daisy Church. Original music composed by Claire Campbell, editing, sound design and scoring by Jesse Niswanger. Associate producers are
DaShan Moodley and Jermaine Kriher. Additional producing by Ben Melman, fact checking by Dennis Webster. Recording engineers are Graham Gibson, Clay Hillenberg and Josh Hook. Brind Stein was read by Angelique Pretorius. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, L. C. Crowley, Brandon Barr, Jennifer t Keeney and Kurt Kubachak. We want to thank all of those who so generously welcomed us
in South Africa and shared their stories. We're incredibly grateful to you all We also want to acknowledge how traumatic these events are for the victims and their families. Please respect their privacy. If you or someone you know has been affected by cult behaviors, there are resources available, including Voices for Dignity at Christine Murray dot com.