Episode 8: Vile Hearts

School of Humans.

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

Listener discretion advised.

Jared Jackson went missing on December sixteenth of twenty sixteen, the same day that Zack Valentine was apparently killed in a car accident. This was no coincidence. After both men disappeared, Alectis Perdaeis worked feverishly to get their hands on Zack Valentine's life insurance PEA, and when a friend posted about Zach's death on Facebook, the group thought they were in the clear. They saw this as a green light to file the claim, but these things take time, something EPD

Read something on Facebook and she was like, oh, this may be a link.

To my pace.

Although she was not working on the case, it had stayed with her these last four years, so Suzette called it in. She warned authorities to be extra suspicious of anything involving Zach Valentine or Cecilia Stein. Her instincts were, as usual, right on the money. Zach was in hiding pretending to be dead until the coast was clear. Here's Detective Ben Boysen.

Zack Valentine became an issue for him because he wasn't hiding. He said diabetic. He needed medicine. I didn't have money.

Life on the run was hard for Zach for obvious reasons. He couldn't get a job, so he spent his days and nights hold up in a cheap hotel outside Krueger's door, living on cup of noodles, cigarettes, and the insolent brought him. It would make sense that Laru would be genuinely concerned for Zach. After all, he was the closest thing Laroux

Maranda was working as a teacher. Salary was not enough for all those people to live and to buy Zach Valentine's medicine. So I think at the end of the day they would have killed.

Him because they had gotten away with so much already. Though Secilia and Marinda thought they were untouchable, here's doctor Nikki Falkoff we met earlier in the series.

Once you realized that the thing that is the most taboo thing imaginable is actually possible for you to do, your sense of yourself as being subject to the same rules as everybody else in society probably starts to slowly disintegrate. For these things like murder, like stealing, They've become lessonless to booth for you as time goes by.

Because you think you were different, do you think you're exceptional?

When the money didn't come. After Jared's death, EPD returned to their old ways of haphazard, over zealous murder. While some of epd's final victims were acquaintances and fellow members of the Krugersdorp community, they were, ultimately, to Sicilia and Mirinda, a means to an end, raw resources to be mined in pursuit of a financial windfall. EPD now treated murder

It could have been me and you. They were doing regular jobs, showing up for appointment and they were killed.

From School of Humans and iHeart podcasts. This is Queen Havoc and her murder cult. I'm your host, Kurt Kupachek, Episode eight, Vile Hearts. If you've come this far with us, you know this story is a bramble, a mess of moving parts, a not that titans in the stomach and won't let you rest until you've untied the narrative. There's no way to tell this story without becoming sort of consumed by it. Our colleague Jamaine Kriher warned us about this actually while we were in South Africa.

Every time you think you understand what's happening, you realize that you're wrong. If you let it, this is the type of story that will absolutely take over your life because I don't think there'll ever be an end to it. I think every time you turn a corner there's something new.

Pulling at all these dark and twisted threads is heroin, even for a seasoned journalist like Yanna Marx.

I had to work through every single piece of information to be able to portray it accurately, and that meant I had to like relive or try to put myself there on the scene, try to relive through the dockets, to photos, the different narratives, and yeah, I mean it took quite at all.

And I will struggle to sleep. I would get bad dreams because it was hard. It's hard stuff and if you're close to something like that, I mean, I can just imagine if that's what I went through, how it must have been for the family members of these victims.

Between the whiffs of Satanism, the manipulation of Christianity, the crooked cops, the slaughter of innocence, and the gross human capacity for this level of brutality, this story took over our lives too. It was quite a daunting challenge to unravel truth from fiction, to detangle lies from hearsay and memory. This long after the fact, there are pieces of this story, details that we were forced to omit for the sake of clarity, because, as Jamaine pointed out, every time you

John Barnett used to lift opposite him actually knew exactly where he was living.

McGregor wasn't rich, but he was a tax consultant that qualified him. Surely he had money squirreled away somewhere. John Barnard told his cohort what he apparently knew. For a fact, McGregor didn't trust banks, so he must keep all his money at home. Cecilia and Mirinda also knew McGregor. He was a local. He lived just outside Krueger's Torp, but his office was only a few blocks away from Cassana Flats.

Now you see Wheeler MacGregor and Associates, and this was his office.

Mirinda met McGregor at that same office, claiming she needed tax advice. True to form, she talked him into a business meeting later at his home. McGregor was surprised when he opened the door to see Mirinda and her two grown children standing there. She never said anything about bringing her kids, but he graciously invited them in. They chatted for about twenty minutes. It was friendly enough, some get to know you chit chat. Then, without warning, Mirinda pulled

Scholfield to us, the first murder felt like Anthony Scholfield because that's actually when it started falling a botch.

You know, here's Colonel Christelle Boisen who spoke to Anthony's wife.

This was like the pilot murder for them, you know, trying out a pilot plan and if this works, we're going to do it again. And surely they did it again with the two other murders that followed after.

Other than the Myers and McGregor, all the appointment murders took place in Kruger's door proper. In fact, the remaining three murders would all be carried out inside Mirinda's own apartment at Casana Flats.

Playing with Marinda was John Barnat and LaRue. Marcel stayed with Cecilia downstairs. Marinda stayed in the living room and that's where they killed, and she was sleeping d every night after the Quler.

On May tenth, twenty sixteen, Anthony Schofield, a financial broker that Marenda had worked with in the past, got a call. LaRue, using a fake name and a cheap SIM card, set the appointment through Schofield's wife and bookkeeper, Heather. They were to meet their prospective client at key West, a shopping center and krugers Dorp. Here's Colonel Christelle Boison, who spoke to Anthony's wife.

Mister Sheffield, informed us that on the day of the murder, she was actually packing the caravan because her and a husband would have gone on this long camping trip on the first one that they've taken for a very long while, and Shelfield was just attending his last appointment before they would have left for the Strip. He did leave, but he never came back.

LaRue called Schofield right at their meeting time six o'clock, saying he had a crisis. He asked if Schofield could come to his place for the meeting instead, the address seventeen Cassana. Schofield obliged and was surprised when he arrived in saw Marinda there. Good grief, you live here too, he said. They acted fast, holding him at gunpoint a thirty eight special this time until he handed over his bank card and pin into ordered Marcel and John Barnard to go to the ATM down the street and make

Anthony Schorefield was murdered. It was my first off day in months. So my contact, you know, she sends men Macy. She's like, listen here an elderly man murdered, found in his boot. You know you need to write the story.

Tired but committed to her work, Maritzka drove to the scene first.

Time, pissed off because it's my off days, but out of curiosity, I drove to the school where his body was found. Tried to see if I could find anything. You know, because when you write as a journalist, you know, you get familiar with your community, You get familiar with the crimes, You start understanding things.

Although Krueger's door had a lot of crime, this one felt bizarre.

So it immediately stood out to me because obviously I was writing crime a lot, so I knew which stop of crime happened in what area. And this was really a weird crime. You know, who does this? You know, kill someone, leaves them in their boot, leaves the keys in the car, and I mean this was introducedov North.

Over the next few days, the killers went back and withdrew the daily maximum allowance until the card was eventually canceled.

And then just around the corner is which Eddy after they killed him, they came here and they bought meat from this place to have a party.

LaRue used him share to pick something up from Marcel.

Luru bought some Houdis for im and his sister a disk shop. Yah, And that's all of Skullfield's money.

This was epd's biggest score, only providing them with about sixteen thousand, six hundred rand, still only about eight hundred and seventy five US dollars, all going directly to Cecilia. This would be their pattern moving forward. The ease and immediacy of it appealed to Cecilia. Two would hold the victim at gunpoint, while others would go to the ATM and drain their accounts. Then their victim would be killed, their body disappeared, human lives disposed of with barely his

McAlpine wasn't supposed to attend the appointment that first found another broker, but he's not working in that business anymore. But he has a friend that would appreciate their business, and he then, not knowing, is sending someone else to his death, passed the appointment on to Mac Alpine.

Unfortunately, he crossed paths with Queen Havoc's band of wayward huntsman.

When Kevin was murdered, that was the turning point, the first turning point.

Meritzka was called to the scene that night as well.

It's eleven o'clock at night. I'm sleeping. My phone rings. My contact says, hey, pop up, Stone up ons it alike, So that roughly translates to hey, girl, get up, we've got a body.

She makes her way there. A large crowd surrounds Kevin's open trunk.

So now I think to myself, oh fucking know. Now I'm gonna get you chased off the scene, because usually that's what happens, you know, the family they don't want the journalist day.

But then she's approached by someone.

So now this man comes. He isn't tears, and he says to me, Marisco, thank goodness you are here. Now I'm like, how does this man know my name? And he grabs me and he's crying, and he says, it's Kevin in the boots, even in the boot.

Confused but present, Maritska tries to make sense of this.

Okay, now I know the victim's name. But it still didn't add up. And then he said, what will you are Nates say about that? So you are Nita Skeavin's mother, I swear to you, know, like they say when it feels like a brick walls fall on you. It was that moment because then I realized that I knew that person in that boot, you know, like it was the most bizarre feeling in the world.

Maritzka is a well known journalist who, like Yanna and Ben, wrote a book on the Kruger Store of Killings. It's called Outcast. Over the course of her reporting, she became a close confidant to LaRue more on that soon. She's a warm presence. She has an infectious laugh and vibrant energy, and this spade of murders had become personal for her, too close for comfort.

You get so used to writing about people you don't know, writing nice stories, sad stories you know, but you don't often get to write about you old mother's base friends. Son.

Epd's next victim was discovered four days later, on May thirtieth, twenty sixteen, a woman, this time breaking epd'sm just slightly.

The next murder was Hanley Lauterogan.

Mirinda had made an appointment with Hanley Lattigan for three PM, claiming she was looking to purchase a new home and she had one favor to ask, though Mirinda said her car was in the shop and asked Hanley if she could swing by and pick her up on the way to the house. The morning of May thirty first, twenty sixteen, was the last time Hanley's husband saw her alive. She was fifty two years old. Ritzka didn't know Honley personally, but Kevin McAlpine's sister did.

I remember the night when she went missing. Kavin's sister actually sent me a message on ficebook saying, Marisco, look what's going on on? You must help them. It's busy happening again.

While Mirinda held Honley lot again at gunpoint, Honley had cleverly managed to transfer the large sum to her husband, knowing this would trigger an alert on his phone, which it did. Soon after, the husband also received a phone call from Honley's colleague wondering why she hadn't shown up at the house she was supposed to be showing to Mirinda. Her husband made a frantic call to authorities, and a search party began. Tragically, it was too late for Honley.

School to them. That was on the way to school founded the next morning next to the right.

I must admit it's a bit nauseating to tick through these murders so quickly. The weight of these tragic events is not lost on us. Our aim here is to avoid walking you through too much more brutality and refocus our lens on the light at the end of the tunnel.

This is not Kruguzdop police area. This is the Antantine policing area. So they will open the kaise yeah, and the cases will not be linked to Kruguzdolt.

Hanley's body was found dumped in Randfontein. That's another interesting break in epd's pattern. Randfontaine is the next town over from Krugersdorp, but technically falls in another district covered by another police force. Sicili and Morinda were now fully relying on sloppy police work and their inside connections to get away with literal murder. But the day after Hanley's murder June one, twenty sixteen, Brigadier Many Victor walked into the

There was a huge outcry in the Kyugozstal community, people thinking this a serial murderer on the loose. People were marching to the police station and they were demanding actions and so forth. So the day after the third murder, which was Hardy lot I, walked into the Kyugozstal police station.

Brigadier Victor immediately began assembling a task team of highly skilled investigators to help crack this high priority case. The members of this task force referred to their operation as the war room. This term implied to the public that they were taking the situation seriously, treating the investigation with the urgency and the severity it deserved.

When Moni came on board at that point, he was the head of our crime intelligence and I mean they were slacking and he had to war room. We all different disciplines within the police came together and that's where it actually realized, Okay, you know what, you have something, I have something. I think to some things all connected in some way.

Besides the obvious proximity of the murders and the signature methods of kill and disposal, the Brigadier immediately noticed a common trait among the latest victims of the kruger Storp serial killings.

All of them were financial bocus. So the three murders were linked in the Saints so that the target was people that I used to working after. I was meeting people and strange places, taking them to have discussions or to cl so, whatever the case may be.

This made them perfect marks for EPD, just like you were me. They were simply earning their scratch, making a living, not knowing that they were scheduling appointments for their own demise. The day Hanley went missing, her husband had alerted more than just the police, He had the full support of the local community. Here is Detective Vinen Vinter, who worked within the Ranfontein district.

The night Honorly disappeared, I got a phone call from a missing persons organization by the name of Pink Ladies. We then liaised with Brigadier Mooni and the following morning we got a message that a body was found in the Renfuntin area.

Detective Vinter's commander at the time was Lieutenant Colonel Eric Krueger.

My station was then Rene Fontaine as a group commander.

Detective Krueger's expertise is in tracing suspects, so when he noticed that other bodies had been found not so far away, he contacted Brigadier Manny Victor, who then tapped the two of them to become part of his war room effort. There were new cops, now trustworthy ones, and they were communicating, finally beginning to connect the dots.

The Brigadier then decided it would be best to get a toss team up and running, since these guys is on are being committed in a regular time frame.

While the two starting officers began digging for evidence, Brigadier Victor continued to build his task team. He called the most dogged cop that he knew.

You can't become a policeman for money because there is no money in the police to look into victims' family's eyes when as in the criminal degild tears coming out of their eyes and hugging me and thanked me for assisting to get justice. It's much higher than he is. Slary that any person can can pay you. That's why I became a cop.

The task team became a pack of bloodhounds, and Ben Boysen was the top dog, leading their charge, closing in on the devil's trail. Detective Ben Boysen spent most of his adult life in Kruger's Tour. He was a member of a special unit called the Hawks for many years. It targets corruption and organized crime. Before he received the call from Manny Victor, he already knew about the nameless fear that stalked his town, and he watched his Facebook became the new town square.

When the three appointments dealings happened in Kruguzdor, the people went on Facebook and they say, yeh, this need to stop now because all the people feared to get out of the houses at night and stuff like that. And somebody said on Facebook they wish they they can get a good cope now to investigate this.

Despite Ben's calling to serve and protect, he still knew what he would be up against should he get involved.

I wish I can do it, but sometimes you need to watch what you wish for because it can come true.

On June sixth, Ben agreed to lead the sprawling Murder investigation under one condition.

So I said, I will take over the investigation, but I'll do it on my own.

Ben was under no illusions about what to expect from local cops. He echoed a sentiment that we in the US are unfortunately all too familiar with many overworked, underpaid, and undertrained cops are punching the clock in a broken system.

Saving six seven cops out to seven or eight different people to take statements and stuff. Some way, somebody is going to do not mention stuff in a statement, and you're going to lose your golden threat in the investigation.

I love that image. A golden thread, a through line, a theme, a pattern, an m o Here's detective violent Winter.

We realized that certain other murders that was committed prior at the same murders of Barandi, where people will will be called for an appointment, and after the appointment I disappeared.

Thankfully, Ben had Manny's rock solid team of road tested investigators helping him dig for evidence. Maybe in this case they were the exception. But in order to keep hold of that golden thread of his detective poison, did accept the full weight of responsibility on this investigation, and he knew he could rely on himself to see it through or die trying. Meanwhile, laying low at Cassana Flats, Secilia and Mirinda, with the help of John Barnard, planned their

Normally, when money east withdrawn from ATM over a certain amount, the ATM will actually capture a photograph of you.

After trying angulating some cell phone data, the task team had narrowed their search to focus on West Kruger's store. They retrieved the CCTV footage from the ATMs that corresponded with the three victims withdrawals around the time of their deaths. The images were blurry, but the police could tell that

We then did a social media profiling on them. We were actually went in and had a look at the relevant social media the facebooks with the other counts. Add to actually obtaining all the photographs that can be used for comparison purposes.

With not much more than blurry footage and a potential social media photo comparison, detective Krueger took a field trip.

I just was curious to see what the two children look like. You know, are they the same that I've got on my video footage.

When he knocked on the door, burn the answered. Surprisingly, she didn't seem alarmed or even averse to talking to him.

I didn't went to the flat that morning whom Miranda was staying, and I interviewed, asked her about the children and said, we're doing investigation. Did they mind to come to the police station for photos. I was taking a big chance because I know actually reason't for them to come in.

He was stunned when his gambit actually paid off.

She found me about two o'clock that afternoon and sit waiting for us at the police station. I couldn't believe it.

Marinda assumed the cops would never put together a legitimate case against her or her children, or Cecilia or any of the others. For years, local police failed to do exactly that. Why would it be any different this time?

So they came in. Now what we called is a controlled photo and an uncontrolled photo. The uncontrolled photo will be the photo from the ATM, and the control one will be when you asked him to stand in a similar way that the photo on the video foot Teacher look luck and they were very cooperative. I couldn't believe myself it's actually happening.

The golden thread was starting to shine through the bramble. On the day Hanley was murdered, Marcel received an acceptance letter to medical school. Here's Detective Susette recalling the harsh reality that Marcel was facing. She took out her frustrations in her diary.

She was actually a very, very cleave a girl with distinctions in all her subjects. And at the back of this diary she wrote, in big letters, I don't know why my mother is doing this to me.

When Marinda heard that Marcel got into school, she flew into her rage. Marcell pleaded with her mother, but Marinda would hear nothing of it. When Marcel wouldn't let it go, her mother threatened to get rid of her, just as they had gotten rid of Mikayla. Here's Maritzka again.

And Laru told me straight up that Mikhayla's murder was always the example. You know, I like to say that the same can happen to you.

Marenda threatened LaRue as well when he resisted killing Hamley. There was a lot of back and forth between Marinda and Harmley while they negotiated money.

Out of her.

When it came time to end her life, LaRue begged his mother not to make him do it.

He called Hanley a tenny, so that's like an auntie and an elderly woman in Afrikaans, and he couldn't get it off of his heart to kill at Tenny. And then his mom actually turned the gun on him and says, listen, if you're not going to kill her, I'm going to kill you, and I'm going to kill her anyway.

LaRue later told Maritzka that Cecilia grew increasingly ruthless leading up to the final appointment murder. By that point, EPD had a kill list, which included LaRue's father. LaRue had recently started to rebuild this relationship.

He was trying to convince his father he wants to be part of his life again.

How did Cecilia respond. She told LaRue to take out a life insurance policy, two in fact, one for his father and one for himself. LaRue was now on high alert, but he continued to follow orders and scheduled a fishing trip with his estrange father. It happened to fall on the day after Marinda brought her children in to be photographed by the cops that morning. Placing worms on a hook, Laru floated the life insurance policy idea to his father, but this conversation would be interrupted.

That's why he was they when he was arrested, because he was trying to convince his father that he can take a policy out on his father's life.

On July twenty third, twenty sixteen, LaRue Stein was arrested. He was sitting by a damn fishing with his father when the police descended. LaRue was apprehended just outside a krueger stor and handed over to Manny Victor's task team. The prosecutor then charged the twenty year old with kidnapping, robbery, and three counts of murder. Later that same day, police busted down Merinda's door at Cassano Flats to arrest Marcel.

The geis is that the police have against them is only they wind and throw the money of the deceased and Marcelle's explanation day off was that Brady got it from the Nigerians and the Nigerians gave him the Panamas and they will only was supposed to go and throw the money for the Nigerians.

In South Africa, Nigerians is most often and unfortunate post apart hide shorthand for drug dealers. In just three weeks time, Manny Victor's War Room put Marinda, Marcel and LaRue all behind bars, just in time to save the life of a local doctor who is the next scheduled victim from their ever growing kill list. This investigation might seem slow given the CCTV footage, but this pace was impressive when compared to the way cases were typically managed in American movies.

That they might you know, there's a murder and there's a lot of cops investigating it and within African two or three weeks, everybody's rated. And in South Africa doesn't work like that. If you get a kiss, you investigated, nobody else assisted you investigated.

Detective Ben Boysen is an old school type, a man of service and honor. He's a cop because he had a calling, and he's also the author of On the Devil's Trail, How I hunted down the Kruger Store of Killers.

The biggest problem that most of the policemen do and they investigate the crime where Sism is involved, and I want to investigates.

Is not the crime.

It's a religion, so it's not against the Luan. So you still need to focus on on the murder.

Unlike prior special investigators, Detective Ben Boysen wasn't the least bit captivated by the sealacious. He had no time for the supernatural. He came to solve crimes, not to speculate about witches and blood drinkers. Ben Boisen was a dogged cop. His heart was in it, fully committed to bringing justice to the wronged and peace to the grieving. However, this

That is the school way Maranda used to teach. When did she stop teaching when I arrested her.

On the next episode of Queen Havoc.

Le Rustaine made a confession.

They managed to id him as Zach Valentine.

For a young boy like that picking up a date person and allowed him into a vehicle. It's totally not possible.

She wasn't involved in any actual killing.

She used the people to do it for her while I was speaking to him in prison. I've got the scenes that is predicting the people around him.

Queen Havoc and 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 Takeiny, Julia Chriscau, and Kurt Kupachick. Lead producer is Julia Chriska. 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, Additional editing by