When Lindsay Tornambi was young, she lived in a remote community. It was far north in the woods of Minnesota, clusters of cabins and trailers, hidden among pine trees and lakes, with no real connection to the outside world. About one hundred and fifty people lived there together. They had all moved there for a very specific reason to follow. One Sunday morning, they were all getting ready for the day. Lindsay was twelve at the time, a girl with dark wavy hair, brown eyes like deep pools.
I think I was just at home in the trailer where we lived.
She lived with her family in a double wide trailer home, and that morning Lindsay did what she always did. She was eating breakfast, helping her sister pick out an outfit.
And all of a sudden, I remember like my mom yelling, the eagles are gathering. The eagles are going, And I.
Was like, what, the eagles are gathering.
There was this huge bell that you would ring that you could hear from different places. You started hearing people screaming, the eagles are gathering, the eagles are gathering. The bells started ringing, the phone started ringing. Everyone was just like went crazy.
Because the eagles are gathering was a code, and the code meant Jesus is here.
Jesus Christ was something back like this was it. He was coming. We were going to heaven.
You know.
It's so it was like euphoria.
Yeah, I remember my mom being like so excited, like, oh my gosh, we got to get to the Shepherd's Camp. We can't miss it. Get yourself in the van as fast as you can. Everyone literally dropped what they were doing. I mean everyone was just panicking. Like you could see all the cars just flying, the dust clouds, the dirt just like flying up.
They had a designated meeting spot, a central location where they all worshiped, a place called the Shepherd's Camp. Here they would greet Jesus and descend with him to Heaven.
People showed up to the Shepherd's Camp with shampoos still in their hair. Somebody said that they had left the iron on, somebody had left the oven on. People were half dressed, missing a shoe or something. People were just like piling in and everyone gathered in front of the dining hall, which we called taberna. It was the end times, This was it. Jesus Christ is coming back.
A man came out to meet them at the dining hall. He had brown hair and a short beard. He was thin but strong looking. Everyone watched him, waiting to hear what he would say. His name was Victor Bernard. Lindsay's family was part of a group called River Road Fellowship, a religious organization named for a road in Minnesota. A group founded and created by this man, Victor, who would change all of his followers' lives.
It's hard to describe Victor. I don't think I knew why I loved him. I just knew that everyone did. You saw all of this respect and honor and love for him, and I was like, Okay, this is who God had sent to us, and this is our chef and the one who takes care of us. Sometimes it still confuses me as to why one how quickly they just either were brainwashed or I don't even know how to explain why they did what they did or what they were thinking. It's a mixture of sadness, of anger,
of sometimes wishing it never happened. I mean, you can't go back and change anything.
Here in this community. Sometimes things that seem perfect are anything but air that smells like pine trees, that sway in the wind loons calling over the water, a lake so still it looks like glass. Everyone smiles. They plaster it on their faces until it feels natural. They express gratitude in every conversation. God loves us. Give thanks to God. We'll have our own paradises, our own planets, even better
than we could imagine here on earth. The community tries to hide from the dangers of the outside world, the temptations lurking beyond the walls of their utopia. But the smiling faces and the sparkling lake hide something dark and crushing.
For Cocoa Punch.
And iHeart podcasts, this is the Turning River Road I America Lance and I.
Meln Lance Lesser Part one they can.
If you've listened to The Turning you probably know that. My sister Alan and I make this show together. And a few years ago, Allen told me about a story I had never heard before, a story she couldn't stop talking about. Lindsay's story.
I couldn't stop talking about it because I was surprised it all happened so close to where we'd grown up. While we were growing up. We live in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Lindsay was in Pine County just two hours north of us. Our family had driven through the area many times, we didn't know that a man named Victor Bernard lived off a dirt road somewhere in Pine County, a man who called himself an apostle and convinced dozens of families
to join him. It felt strange that for years we'd been investigating groups with leaders who wielded absolute power, who could enlighten and inspire, but who could also admonish and harm, And here was an example in our own backyard. When I found out about Lindsay, I googled her. She's a woman in her thirties, now around my age. Her LinkedIn profile pictures showed her in a graduation cap and gown in front of Philadelphia City Hall. I did a double take.
I've taken pictures in that exact spot with friends. I've walked down that street countless times because I lived in Philadelphia in my twenties around the same time Lindsay took that picture. Lindsay's face was smiley and friendly, looking so unpretentious, just sweet, like someone i'd want to be friends with. I felt weirdly drawn to her, even though our lives from the outside looked like they moved in almost parallel lines. They were so different. So I wrote to Lindsay and we started talking.
Lindsay said, while Allen and I were attending middle school, she'd been selected to join an inner sanctum of her community, an elite group inside River Road Fellowship that required her to give even more of herself away. How did this attempt at utopia turn into something twisted? How was it that even the people who saw what happened would deny
what was in front of their eyes? And though Lindsay was small, one of the youngest of the group, she would be the one to reveal the secret that was hidden inside.
Before she was in River Road, before Minnesota, Lindsay lived in Pennsylvania with her parents and three siblings, growing up in the nineties. She was a product of the time. She loved her beanie babies, the Backstreet boys, and musicals.
Like Annie, I loved to entertain people and saying and do all the voices.
Her dad had a soft pretzel business, and her mom stayed at home.
She was a talker. My mom loved to talk, could talk to anyone with her hair and so animated.
She wore hot pink lipstick and went through what Lindsay calls her mom's sequin phase. Lindsay was really into gymnastics.
I loved the power of it. Was almost like daring.
Her dad made a homemade balance beam so she could practice, and her parents took her to see the US women's gymnastics team on tour after they won gold at the nineteen ninety six Olympics. Lindsay could picture herself on those mats and beams, like a fantasy future playing out in front of her, so distant but suddenly so close. But she'd never get to pursue this dream because this was the year nineteen ninety six. When her parents opened their door to a stranger. In November of that year, Lindsay
was nine years old. Her parents said they were having some dinner guests, some friends of a friend. The guests had traveled all the way from Minnesota to Pennsylvania to meet Lindsay's family for the first time. One of these guests was Victor Bernard.
That's the first time that they met him.
And what did he look like at that time?
Dark hair, some sort of facial hair, more on the like fit side.
Victor was there with a woman we'll call her jan though that's not her real name. Jan worked with him kind of like a second in command. Lindsay said she had a hard looking face with long pin straight brown hair and bangs.
They smoked. I remember that they smoked cigarettes, And I remember Victor being like, you know, when you're little and you can just tell an adult who carries like a lot of authority, and you kind of just you could tell that from him.
What about him do you think indicated to you at the time that he was someone of authority.
I think his intensity. He was very intense, and I think just the way he carried himself almost with purpose, like a confidence. Yeah. He just didn't seem like a warm, fun kind of guy. Just very intense. Yeah, I think that's the word.
Victor was there to talk to Lindsay's parents about a group he had started. He said he and his wife and children and a bunch of other families all lived together on a plot of land in Minnesota. They farmed and worshiped God, and Victor wanted Lindsay's family to try it out too.
I was kind of really indifferent at that time, had no clue what was going on, so oblivious to any like adult conversations that were happening. But me and my sisters we love to dance, so I remember we put on like a show for them. I don't know if you guys did that.
Oh yeah, we did that all the time.
Yeah, so we made up this huge dance. The house we were living at the time had a huge family room. I remember like running from one end to the other and lifting up one of my siblings in the air and we'd do our jumps in our leaps and pretty sure they clapped.
Jan seemed nice. She told Lindsay about the place they lived. They took care of all kinds of animals.
She was telling us about all the kids who lived there, and she said they had a pond and a lake that they could go swimming in in the summer. I was like, oh, that sounds fun.
Big decisions about Lindsay's future were being made that night. Unbeknownst to her, Lindsay's mom pulled her aside. Afterward, Victor had some thoughts on Lindsay's life.
Somehow he convinced my mother to take me out of gymnastics. I remember my mom sat down with me like shortly after they left and said, when Jesus Christ comes back, he's not gonna say, oh, Lindsay, I'm so proud of you, because she got so many gold medals and gymnastics. She just talked about, you know what Jesus Christ would care about when we get to heaven, and it definitely wouldn't be getting gold medal at the Olympics. He's gonna judge us by our character here on earth and what we
did for him. And I remember crying and being so upset and like telling her that, but my dream was to become an Olympian. And I don't remember it being like a super long conversation. She probably didn't really think about how it would affect me. I guess there was really no arguing, So yeah, they pulled me out of gymnastics.
For as long as Lindsay can remember, it seemed her parents were always searching.
They always were the type of people who needed to follow someone.
Long before they joined River Road Fellowship, their social circle was defined by a different group of families who had all met through a kind of church. They were part of a Christian organization called The Way International or The Way. The Way was founded by an evangelical pastor who started preaching his less orthodox ideas about the Bible on radio programs In the nineteen forties, he recruited members around the world and introduced new followers to his belief system through
a course called Power for Abundant Living. The vibe I get is self improvement mixed with religion, but The Way was all also known for its cult like tendencies. Some former members used words like love bombing and brainwashing to describe it. They tell stories of constant supervision and sleep deprivation, of being singled out or embarrassed into submission if they tried to resist the leader's directions, or even shut out completely so no one was allowed to talk or interact
with them. Some said they got firearm training and were warned they might need to use it. Victor Bernard was a member of the Way too, but Lindsay's parents didn't know him yet. In the meantime, they hosted fellowships for the Way in their home. These informal religious services slash prayer groups. They would talk about their unusual interpretations of the Bible, and sometimes they spoke in tongues. It was all interwoven until Lindsay's childhood.
And I remember my mom telling me stories that I was speaking in tongues almost before I could talk, which I don't. I mean, you'd think that that would just be babbel.
Then yeah, you're like, is that just baby babel?
Yeah? Yeah, And she would say we'd go to the park all the time and she'd push me on the swings and I'd be playing and we'd be like singing, you know, this little light of mine, like all those songs and speaking in tongues and yeah, So I had grown up with this.
When she got a little older, Lindsey was expected to participate in fellowships, which made her nervous. Speaking in tongues scared her the most. She'd have to speak in tongues and then provide a translation for the group.
I mean, I can remember from the time I was probably ten years old, pre planning what I would say.
Did you think that other people did that?
Or did you just think that everyone else seemed to actually be channeling God?
Oh?
I thought everyone else was channeling the Lord. I was like, what is wrongs me? You know, like it just it seemed so hard. I mean maybe maybe in the back my mind, I thought, you know, maybe some of the other kids had trouble, but for some people it seemed to come so naturally, you know, and they were just
so especially some of the adults. It was so beautiful what they were saying and the words they would be so encouraging and uplifting, and I was like, this can't be made up, you know, like they have to know what they're doing. But little on me here is stuck with this tongue and having to write the words ahead of time. Yeah, it does unstressful. Yeah, it was like my hands are starting to sweat just remembering it.
After the founder of the Way died in the mid eighties, a lot of people started leaving the group. The collapse left her parents searching once again, which led them to Amway, the infamous multi level marketing company that sells health and beauty products, among other things. It felt an awful lot like a pyramid scheme, and they were like.
Super gung ho about that, and like almost making vision boards of the house we wanted in the cars that we wanted, and they had all these different levels like ruby, diamond, emerald, and like my mom would write like go diamond with her colored eyeliner on her mirror in the bathroom. Maybe they just never would have been those parents that would have protected their children as much or something, you know, like they just they almost needed somebody to look up to.
Emily didn't last, though, and a few months after their dinner with a Victor, Lindsay's family decided to visit River Road Fellowship for the first time. The first trip to Minnesota was just for a visit. The drive was long, especially for a ten year old like Lindsay. She watched out the window the landscape changed from nondescript highway to lush, green pines. Lindsay imagines Laura Ingles Wilder from her beloved
Little House on the Prairie books. Traveling through this exact landscape and a covered wagon in the eighteen hundreds, it felt like an adventure. It took them twenty hours to reach the town of Finlanson, Minnesota.
Have y'all ever been to Finlisten? Okay? So it's a town I think of three hundred and fifteen people. It is very tiny. We drove through like the town like downtown, and my dad was like you could blink and you'd be through it. There was a pea trees, gas station and bait tackle shop joined together, and then a post office and that was pretty much it I remember us joking that you could see, you know, in movie you
see the tumble weeds blowing through the streets. I swore I saw one, but I probably just made it up in my head because it was like nothing I'd ever seen before. We drove through. There was a egg ranch and it smelled terrible, like huge buildings filled with chickens and the smell. I was like, what is this? That just smelled like crap, really really bad. And we just keep driving.
The longer they drove, the more excited Lindsay got. She was building up this utopia in her head. Finally they turned off the main road.
It's this bump and then it's the gravel. There's the dust everywhere, and you hear all the rocks flying and hitting the car. And at that point we knew that we were close because they told us like, when she hit the gravel road, you're close. So I remember like sitting up and looking out and it's just trees everyone, and you know, like old fences.
Then in the distance among the trees, between two big wooden pillars, they saw the sign the Shepherd's Camp.
And we turn in. It was beautiful, I mean, the camp was gorgeous. It was tall trees everywhere in green grass and a pond that led out into a lake, and it just smelled like pine trees. I don't think I'd ever smelled so much pine in my life, like very crisp and clean. We could see the dining hall and like people started pouring out. All these kids were running out of the dining hall, and I just remember being really excited. I don't think I was shy to
meet the kids at all. I was like, I've heard so much about you, and the kids were so n wanted to like hang out and show us around and play and wanted to know all about our lives. They lived very different than us, so many people on one property, you know. I was like it just it seemed fun, though, Like if you had all these kids to play with every single day, I mean, you have never ending play dates.
It's the dream.
Yeah. Yeah. I remember doing like cartwheels and back handsprings for them, and they thought that was so cool that I could do that stuff.
Lindsay's family stayed for a week. Lindsay had never spent so much time outside.
I remember getting like very sappy, and my hands had never had like tree sap on them. Before you know. I remember there were fields where the grass was so high and you would go on your hands and knees to make tunnels through the grass. You couldn't see the tunnels if you were standing outside, but if you found the entrance, the grass would be flattened where you made your little tunnel. So yeah, we played like all through
the woods made forts. The further you went down the road, like deeper into the camp, the more woods there were.
When they weren't playing in the woods, the kids helped take care of the farm animals. In this utopia, everyone had a role in their survival, working the land and raising their own livestock. Let them be mostly self sufficient. They let them stay close to their profit, away from the world.
They had sheep and cows and pigs and rabbits chickens. But it was all fun like I just joined in like I had known them my entire life.
At meal time Victor took the stage, he told them Christ will return. Lindsay took her cues from the adults in the room. When he spoke, everyone listened.
So I remember meals being so long, hours long at times, and we'd have to sit there, and I remember my mom was like infatuated with Victor and loved everything about the camp and furiously taking notes. Anytime he spoke, he could be like so charismatic and just suck you in, like the way he moved his words his voice, and then the urgency too. I mean, every time he preached it was always you know, the Lord is coming back, The Lord is coming back.
Lindsay's mom believed Victor when he said Jesus was going to return, and when Jesus returned, he would find them there in Minnesota at the Shepherd's Camp. Lindsay had an image in her head of all of Victor's followers being sucked into the sky.
Like the rapture kind of And that's how I always envisioned it is, okay, we're all here, and then whoop everyone up in the air.
Even when he wasn't preaching everyone and wanted to be around Victor, he might look you in the eye and compliment you in a way that made you feel amazing.
It was almost like if your favorite singer or actor, if they acknowledged you paid you a compliment. I mean, you would be on like a high. I know mine would be Kevin Gossner, But I think because he had been portrayed as this man of God and so important and put up on that pedestal. If he spoke to me,
it was like a really big deal. There was that feeling of you know when you hold your breath and you have butterflies and you know something exciting is going to happen, and you kind of feel light on your feet. That's how you would feel. Sometimes. There were also times and I would get so shy around him. There were times where he could be so charming and he would make you feel like the most important person in the
entire world. And there were other times where he was so scary and demanding, and then if somebody maybe challenged him or went against him, there was a lot of public humiliation and you were so afraid of him. There were times when Victor would get so mad at somebody in the church and like he'd throw a chair. I remember him spitting in people's faces, getting mad at kids for not listening. I remember thinking, oh, my gosh, like
he is. It made you never want to do anything to make him upset, like you'd just be on your best best behavior.
After the week was over, Lindsay's family drove home to Pennsylvania, but Victor was still in there lives. They read his books, he gave them advice, and they drove out to Minnesota for more visits to the camp. It was during one of those visits in nineteen ninety eight, that Victor made a big announcement and an evening meeting that only the adults attended. On this special night, Victor took off his wedding ring in front of everyone. He told the congregation
he was forsaking his earthly wife. He would move out of the house where his wife and their four sons lived. From now on, he would be married to the church.
I remember my mom told me either that night or the next day. She was so excited like fill me in on what had happened at the meeting.
Around this time, Victor met with Lindsay's parents and gave them an ultimatum.
You're either moving to Minnesota and you're joining our church, or you have to cut ties. By the end of that meeting, my parents had decided to join Victor and make the move.
Lindsay's mom was excited to make the change. She wanted to be near Victor.
I honestly think if my mom wasn't in the picture, my dad wouldn't have gone.
And her parents worried if they weren't in Minnesota, Jesus might not be able to find them when he returned.
I think it happened pretty quickly that they sold the house. We packed up our belongings, and we made the drive out there to the Shepherd's Camp. I thought it would be just like how it was when we visited, getting to do animal care, playing soccer, ice skating in the winter, snowmobiling. I never thought it would develop into what it was.
Right before we arrived in Minnesota, on our way to move there, my mom was joking, maybe kind of being serious, but that she should put on her wedding dress so that she would be in her wedding dress when we arrived at the camp, basically saying she was giving her life, you know, which if you think of it as so sick, like my dad was right, you know, like I just I don't understand what was going with their heads, and I don't know that I'll ever be able to understand what they were thinking.
Do you think it was almost like she felt as though she was marrying the camp, the community, almost kind of victor. Yeah, I think so, Lindsay's mom was ready to give up everything, and that's what Victor wanted. Does anything stand out to you as your first big memory from early on when you first started living there.
I do remember one time my sister got in a lot of trouble. She's the youngest girl, she would have been five. I don't even know what she did, but somebody like picked her up and shook her so hard that she peed herself. And I'm feeling so sad and upset for her. I don't even think I knew what to do. Our parents had punished us a lot growing up, but nothing to that extent to where you would pee yourself.
And what was the adult attitude towards it. Did anyone seem surprised that that harsh of a punishment, No was happening.
No, nobody seemed surprised at all.
What was strange in the outside world was normal here, and Linda would have to get used to this new life, this world with its own rules. Victor said. The members of River Road had to leave behind their earthly things, anything that would pull them away from Jesus. So one day, the families gathered in the middle of a gated field near one of the barns. They lit a massive bonfire that took up a large part of the yard. People started to their belongings to the field. One by one,
they threw them onto the fire. The physical reminders of their past began to burn.
I do remember that feeling like what like there were couches in there, somebody drove their motorcycle. They got rid of it. Jewelry, pictures, videos, clothes. I remember we had these like Christian like kids songs on tape, and we got rid of those. I didn't really understand it. I was like, why do we have to get rid of all this stuff? It was piled high at that point, I mean, being twelve and tiny, I thought it looked as big as a house. It was hot, so hot.
Lindsay didn't own much back then, but she knew she was expected to sacrifice something. She went and got the teddy bear she'd had since before she could remember.
I think he's the only thing that reminds me of my earthly life, so I'll throw him in there.
She tossed her bear on the fire and watched it burn. She felt a deep sadness inside her, but also guilt and the sense that that sadness was a bad influence, that she should stop that feeling because that sadness might hold her back from living for Jesus' return. It was one of the first times she would learn to question her emotions, one of the first times she would have to give something up for the religious group her parents
had decided to join. The fire grew bigger. She felt the heat on her face.
Sparks coming out of it. It was wild, It really was. I've never seen anything like that in my life. The flames just dancing. It felt like they were reaching to the sky. It lasted for three days. The fire continually burned.
Coming up this season on.
The Turning this especially Agent Jackie Doer the FBI Baltimore Division. It is ten oh four am on Wednesday, March twenty seven, twenty thirteen. How did your parents get into what's refer to as a cult?
I remember feeling like I couldn't say no. I didn't even know if my parents would want me back because they gave me to him. I just remember feeling almost like I had no other options, that the only thing to say was yes. That I would say, and all ten of us said yes.
How can one person control so many people and change their will.
I don't care what happens when Jesus Christ comes back. Whatever happens to me, it cannot possibly be worse than this. That thought scared me. My heart was beating out of my chest. I felt like I could hear it. He was talking about how much God loved me, and how special I was, and how God had chosen me. We had these oil lanterns on the walls, and we were all just standing in a line. When we're chosen, we had decided to give our lives. This is almost like the ultimate sacrifice.
The Turning is a production of Rococo Punch and iHeart Podcasts. It's written and produced by Erica Lance and Me. Our story editor is Emily Foreman. Mixing and sound designed by James Trout. Grace Doe is our production assistant. Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Cruzado. Our executive producers are John Parratti and Jessica Alpert at Rococo Punch, and Katrina Norvell and Nikki Etur at iHeart Podcasts. You can follow us on Instagram at Rococo Punch, and you can reach out via
email The Turning at Rococo Punch dot com. I'm Alan Lance Lesser, Thanks for listening,