S3:EP 4 - Predator and Prey

It's the truth way, Jesus Crassy Holy Way.

Life in River Road Fellowship was full of music, and that's part of what Lindsay loved about.

It, that it loved long a.

That's Gary news.

Now. They didn't have radios, and after the bonfire where they burned their belongings, there weren't any records or CDs or cassettes from life before. So they made their own recordings, wrote their own songs, and listened to their own music.

It always seemed like the musicians were kind of put on a pedestal too, you know, like it was just something they worked closely with. They got to sing in front of the church and help out a different functions with the music. A lot of times he said it was a battlefield and playing music for God is a battle against spirits.

Victor saw it as an actual war against evil and that they had to do everything they could to stop that evil. Their souls and the fate of the world were at stake. But over the coming years, for Lindsay, music wasn't just a battle against spirits, but a battle within herself. Music was the realm where she worked out the competing forces insider the voices that screamed at her to get out or to stay, and Victor's voice was always in her head.

Victor said that, you know, Lindsay is the old flesh and you need to become a new man in Christ. Lindsay has to die.

From Rocco, Punch and die Heart podcasts. This is the Turning River Road, I America Lance and I'm Alan Lance Lesser Part four, Predator and Pray on the Outside. Music was part of Lindsay's role as a maiden. Victor dubbed the Maidens the main music makers of River Road Fellowship, replacing the adults who led it before, and Lindsay and her friend Jess, the two youngest maidens, became the guitar players of the group.

She and I were bonded from the beginning.

Brought them even closer. Their favorite thing to do was to put fresh strings on their guitars together.

Oh, the new guitar sound, like the new strings sound. We both loved it so much.

They go to a secluded spot the deck that jutted off the chapel. Giant trees grew up through holes cut in the middle of the deck.

So that wind would be blowing the trees would be swaying, and you could almost feel the leaves moving. We wouldn't pick a song. We would just start playing chords and it was like we were so in sync with one another. Maybe we would start humming, making up a melody. I'd like try to pick apart different notes while she would strum, and it felt like the rest of the camp wasn't there. The worries and the fear. It kind of just melted away.

Actual love.

Felt like we were the only two people in the world in that moment.

Sometimes having another maiden nearby, especially Jess, was the thing that brought Lindsay the most happiness and comfort, but there was also a layer of regimented control and how she interacts with the other maidens. Lindsay could never be alone. They weren't allowed to be alone. The rule was that anywhere the Maidens went, they went in two's.

Two people were always assigned to Victor.

Victor lived in what they called the Lodge, a big log building at the center of the camp. He often met with his followers there.

Too, and working for Victor was considered a privilege, like, oh wow, you get to work at the lodge. And what that meant was you would clean the lodge. He smoked all the time cigarettes, So run the air purifire and clean up the ash trays and make the coffee. Get the shower ready for him, turn it on so it's nice and warm. Maybe hand him his towel while the other one was making breakfast, lay out his clothes. Remember having to put lotion on his legs after he'd

Like.

There was one part of this job she dreaded the most.

You'd go wake him up in the morning, you'd physically wake him up in the morning. And one thing about Victor was he was a hard sleeper, I mean so difficult to wake up. And it scared me because if you kept letting him sleep, you know, you'd go in there. You pict her like it's time to wake up, good morning. He wouldn't wake up. You'd go back in. There were so many times where I couldn't get him to wake up.

Even though Christa Leser Pitch, the girl whose books were burned to please Victor, was around the same age as Lindsay, she wasn't chosen to be a maiden. She was on the outside looking in.

After they were moved to the Shepherd's camp into that four plex and given the title of the Maidens and started serving Victor, they started to over time kind of become the gold standard of how a young lady should behave and act and what she should aspire too.

These young girls were a tool. They often had an effect on how expectations were rolled out.

There were a lot of rules.

Women were required to wear their hair back and ponytails or buns or something. And eventually we also weren't allowed to have bangs because bangs Victor believed came from Egypt, and Egypt was evil and Cleopatra and you know, they're all whores and this and that, so long hair. And then it was shortly after that, you know, the maidens had all moved to the camp. The women weren't allowed to wear jeans anymore. We had to start making our own clothes, dresses, very much prairie like dresses.

So what I'm picturing is kind of like little house on the prairie FLDS type garb.

Yeah, and the dresses or the making of clothes. A big part of it was Victor wanted himself and he wanted the maidens to wear homemade clothes, specifically because a lot of clothes are made by you know, children in sweatshops and other countries, and they might have devil spirits attached to them. That was another big thing, devil spirits, evil spirits. And then the rest of the churches kind of followed. It's like, you don't want to be the

Those became kind.

Of like the basis of fashion. Essentially, you see one of the maidens wearing something and being like, oh, I want that pattern. I wanted to wear that dress, and so you'd go and you'd check out the pattern because we had like a whole pattern library, and we would go and get fabric from this fabric room and you'd make it to fit you.

Yeah, the maidens often felt distant, untouchable, but then there were times leadership would bring the maidens front and center.

One of them came to our house and basically told me that this particular maiden was moving in with us. They probably asked, but it was never really a question. It was always like a question with the expectation that you were going to agree.

So a maiden showed up at Christa's door.

None of the maidens had very much stuff, so it was, you know, just a few boxes of personal belongings, clothes, toiletries, you know, a few personal sentimental items, and she moved. In the way that the church worked, they got people unpacked very quickly. Everybody came over and just would unpack a person or a family. Within a day, our house would be set up, decorated, and ready to go. I remember leaving to go somewhere for a little bit, but it was about six hours. Came back and they were

Jess, the youngest maiden with red hair, would later write in her diary that she moved twenty two times in River Road. This kind of thing was normal, and not just for the maidens. It happened to Christa and her family too.

Victor would come to our house and be like, you're moving to this location, regardless of whether or not we own the house, and we would be packed and moved within twenty four hours, and life would up route and change. It was very disruptive there were families who moved regularly, like once every couple of months. Especially leadership. Leadership would

Christa had a keen sense of who leadership valued, and she could tell she wasn't in that group. It's not that she wanted to be a maiden, but she noticed she was never picked to work with them, something that was considered an honor.

One time, my sister got to go help the maidens with something, and I remember sitting my sister down and being like, don't do anything that's going to cause them to like not want you to come back, because I was like, I don't know what I did, but I did something and they don't want me there.

Christa really felt like an outsider. When her family was moved yet another River Road property, it would be the worst year of her life. This new location was overseen by Jan and her husband. Neither of them responded to her requests for comment, even though she'd known the couple her whole life. Christa found the husband intimidating. He was quiet and tall and let Jane take the reins.

She was a very strong willed woman. She was very much a leader. She was Victor's right hand. She was whispering in his ear. She was counseling him. She was the person that he bounced things off of. She was an extension of Victor. What she said was as good as if it came from the mouth of Victor.

Christis ays Jan and her husband were almost militaristic in how they ran the satellite property. When Christa's family was moved there, her dad got a lot of assignments at River Roads butcher's shop and cabinet shop, so he was almost never home. Victor told Chris's mom that she should do whatever Jan told her to do, and one thing Jan decided was that Christa could be better. Christa started having date lee room checks to make sure she was organized.

I was never like a super skinny fit girl like everybody else in my age group. I was a little heavier than the other girls, maybe ten fifteen pounds, and so I was heavily bullied, not by other kids, but by adults about my weight. I was put on extremely restrictive diets as early as the age of eleven years old. Victor detested overweight women. He thought they were disgusting, and that was one of the reasons that such an emphasis

Krista was homeschold with a group of kids by a mom a couple of houses down, and Jan made a rule that she couldn't eat while she was there, even when the other girls did.

I was put on a diet that was known as the rotation diet, which is a calorie deficit program. I was twelve years old and I was being fed as little as six hundred calories a day. I was hungry. I started to think it was normal to go to bed hungry. This is what it should feel like when you go to bed.

How'd you feel about her at the time when you were being put on those extreme diets.

That is a really good question, because there is the way I actually felt, and there was the way I was supposed to feel and tricked myself into believing I felt. How I actually felt was abused. I felt it was wrong. I felt that she had set the standard so high that I was set up for failure, and I was terrified. I was so scared of her and of the people who reported to her, because I was constantly doing something wrong.

That must have been so hard to feel constantly sort of left out of the loop or rejected, and you don't know quite why. It sounds to me like.

By categorizing people, raising certain people up to a higher position, or creating a hierarchy, it both makes people feel special or makes people feel rejected, and then both types of those reactions could pull people in further, because it's like, if you feel accepted, you feel great about it, and if you feel rejected, then you feel like, oh, I need to prove myself.

Yeah, exactly, I need to do better I need to try harder. I need to strengthen my walk with God. I need to study the Bible more. I need to be more active in fellowships. I need to You know, all of these things go through your head and then you do them and nothing changes.

My whole being.

Felt like there was something about me that just wasn't good enough, because that literally was how I was treated. The mental gymnastics that I went through trying to figure out why they didn't like me, especially when it was people that I looked up to. It was something that became a part of me, is believing there was just something wrong with me and that I was not likable or lovable by the people who mattered. That feeling of inferiority, I don't think it will ever completely go away.

While Christa struggled as a kid looking up the social ladder of River Road, on a different property at the camp, Lindsay faced the pressures of being a maiden. Like Christa, she got criticized about her body, in this case directly from Victor.

He thought I was getting too overweight. I think as I was developing into a young lady, I was getting more curves and just naturally how my body is, but he said that I was gaining too much weight and he wouldn't have sex with me at all until I lost the weight, which to an outsider you might think, oh my gosh, you should have been so happy, But for me, it felt like I was so ugly and being so rejected. He had told me, you know, all those times, that him having sex with me was God's love for me.

Lindsay's body was controlled in many ways, like around that time when she was fifteen, she also started having some health problems, really bad headaches and trouble going to the bathroom.

Then they started having me do something called the colon cleans.

And their colon cleans, Lindsay couldn't eat regular food for seven days, only certain fluids in a combination of pills.

I was so hungry and so weak because we still had to keep our schedules, We had to be up, we had to be working. I think I did the cleanse like a total of maybe fourteen times. And when I think back on even like the physical aspect of what they had us due to our bodies, it's crazy. Victor had me try smoking at one point cigarettes to try to help me go to the bathroom. They one time chopped up garlic and put it on my stomach with saran wrap, and then put a heating pad on top,

Lindsay was always under Victor's microscope. One time, she and Jess were set to play at a church service for all one hundred and fifty members of River Road. So the night before, Lindsay and Jess got together to do their favorite thing, change their guitar strings. Victor was not happy about this.

Victor told us that we did it to seek attention.

Because it was like in a public setting or something.

Because we wanted everyone to hear that we had new strings on our guitars, and we should have waited, and we did it because we wanted to draw attention to ourselves.

So you got in trouble for that.

Yeah, it's like crazy going back through even all these little things that happened telling it now, like it's so what one two sentence story, but just how much damage even that can do.

It's like, it's not just that he was chastising you for a mistake, it's that he was saying, this mistake shows that you have bad character and you're not a good believer, and there's something fundamentally wrong with you.

Yeah. It made me I feel like question everything then, and made you so scared to do anything.

Whenever she could, Lindsay disappeared to a quiet spot with her guitar. She tried to remember the songs she loved from her past for before any of this, like in The Little Mermaid when Ariel sings part of Your World.

One of my favorite movies from growing up was The Worst of Oz and me and my pop would sing over the Rainbow, and I think a lot of those songs helped me through that time because I was feeling so alone. And it sounds maybe so silly to draw on Disney movies, you know, but all these people, all these girls you saw, were trapped and they had these

And get out of there.

Yeah, I just I was dreaming that maybe one day it would happen. Some of those songs helped me stay strong and get through some of those times. If happy little bluebirds fly over the rainbow, why why can't I?

There was one person Lindsay could be honest with, who she could tell all her daydreams of leaving Jess.

I would say she was my best friend. And I mean we fought just probably like sisters do, but overall we were just thick as thieves and had talked about trying to run away together.

Music was Jess and Lindsay's escape. But when Jess was thirteen and Lindsay was fourteen. They thought about escaping for real, getting out. They thought maybe they could commandeer the camp van.

We talked about trying to drive it to Petrie's baiton tackle shop, the gas station in Finnliss. Then I remember us talking about even running through the woods at one point and just keep going. And for some reason, our destination was always Pea Trees.

Their secret conversations gave shape to their wildest dreams. They talked it out, how would they get to pea Trees, when would they go? Once they got there, what would they do? Would they try to call someone? Would they ask for help? They considered all the potential pitfalls of their plan. They considered it in a real way, thinking out how they could navigate the logistics of being two kids running away from this isolated compound. But they always

And then who would believe us? You know, who would we even call? We didn't have any phone numbers of anyone. Jess brought up on time O, we don't even have any identification on us, And I remember saying, yeah, they'll probably just end up calling her parents, and we'd kind of just look at each other and shrug our shoulders and be like, Okay, well, I guess this is it for now. Kind of felt like you were stuck with no other options.

So she kept to her regular life. She went to their fellowships, listened to teachings from Victor, and then sometimes she'd spend time alone with Victor at night, and that gave Lindsay an idea. Maybe their sneak out could be more subtle. She knew that Victor had the Maidens use a type of birth control, a spermicide, when they were with him, so one night she thought, what if I use it wrong? If all went to plan, she could

Victor wanted to know everything about the Maidens, all of their sins, even from years ago. He was constantly wanting them to confess things, especially when he got angry. One day, Victor ordered the maidens to stay in Alamoth together and confess. They couldn't leave. Victor wasn't even there, but they did as they were told. For three days, the maidens sat alone, confessing to each other.

Unlitially. That's all we did. We would eat and then all ten of us would go around the room confessing prior sins. I felt like I had almost nothing to share. I did not know what big sin I had in my life that was so big that we had to stay in Alamov for three days. And so I had this necklace, this gold necklace that i'd I think since I was a child, and I think a family member

So Lindsay told the other maidens that she went to a carnival with a friend, she had her fortune read and got a necklace, and she never got rid of it.

She told them, I didn't realize the effect it had on me because of the spirits that the necklace carried. That was the big sin that I made up and confessed just to say something, because I literally had no idea what to say. Here, I am lying, which is a sin, sinning confessing sin that wasn't really a sin.

Another time, Victor accused Lindsay of not quote claiming God's promises. Victor often used obscure phrasing from the Bible, the exact meaning unclear. Sometimes he gave her tasks in symbolic language that felt impossible to obey, like he was messing with her mind. Maybe A good example is a story that started one day when Victor was upset with her and another maiden named Lisa. He sent the two of them

I remember him getting so angry, so angry that we had come with muffins, and I remember him saying stuff like can't you see him eating breakfast? Like why would I need these muffins?

They hadn't found the White Stone and the Bright Morning Star. Victor sent them back out to keep looking, this time with a deadline. They must meet him back at the lodge by noon. What would happen if they arrived empty handed? What would happen if they didn't show up at all? After a long discussion about what to do, they arrived late, which made Victor even angrier. He told them he'd been sitting under the apple trees with two empty chairs for them.

Immediately, she felt scared and sad at the same time. She had daydreamed escape plans, but at this point these people were her home and she was being cast out. Lindsay saw her future melt in front of her. They loaded her stuff into a truck. As one of the elders of the church started driving out of the camp onto the dirt road, Lindsay saw Victor. She told the driver to stop and jumped out of the car. Her body trembled, her heart began to beat faster. She started to confess, I.

Don't even know what words were coming out of my mouth at the time. Most of my reproof over the years had to do with me pleasing people and having to get out of that mindset, and so I'm sure there was something in there of me talking about how my eyes had been maybe on some of the other young men, or I had been thinking about maybe wanting to get married someday, which aren't bad to be thinking about.

But Lindsay was learning to think and behave in a different way.

There was nothing left of myself to me. It was just this empty, shallow of this empty person in there walking around being filled with what Victor wanted me to think, not any of my own thoughts or things that I had passions about.

Lindsay can't remember the words she used to confess, but something about them clicked for Victor. He'd later tell her that was the moment she'd found the white stone. She could keep living at the camp, at least for now, but within a couple months Victor was unhappy again. She wasn't clear why.

Victor said, I wasn't doing well spiritually.

So Victor sent her home to her parents. She wouldn't have the honor of living with the Maidens. Lindsay hadn't lived at home in almost two years, but being there wasn't a relief. Home didn't feel like it used to. It felt awkward and weird. When she got home. Her mom cried. It was considered a disgrace to have her daughter tossed out of the maidens, and Lindsay missed them. They had started to feel like home. Then, late one summer night, Lindsay lay asleep in her bed when she

The song they were singing was based on an old hymn text written in the eighteen hundreds. It was the poem that had been read right before the maiden ceremony when they all made a vow to Victor. I found a friend, Oh, such a friend. He loved me ere I knew him. He drew me with the chords of love, and thus he bound me to him.

I found afraid, such afraid.

He loved.

The chords of love, and thus he bound me too.

This is a recording of River Road members singing it. Lindsay had set the poem to music herself. Now Victor and a maiden sang it for her as a reminder.

Which cannot be said.

River They spoke a few words with Lindsay, and then they left. Lindsay had not been invited back. Her head swirled. It all felt so complicated, like music, Her own music was now a weapon, being wheelded against her.

I can still remember watching them drive down the road. I remember in that moment, feeling so alone, so helpless, so unworthy, almost so dirty, like I didn't like I was being rejected, almost like wanting to die, like so worthless. It was almost like there was nowhere to go. I had no one that wanted me.

That same night, Victor came back, the same kind of whiplash Lindsay faced all the time, hot and cold, showing up, going away, then showing up again. He picked her up, took her to the lodge, yelled at her all night until she confessed something again. When the sun came up, he finally accepted Lindsay back into his good graces. Then Victor said she had a choice. He offered her two paths. She could recommit to being a maiden, or she could leave the maidens and eventually marry another man.

Which honestly is crazy, Like you're asking a fifteen year old to make these kind of commitments. You know. I mean, I look back now, and it's just crazy when I think about this stuff, like these major life decisions that he was having me figure out and decide.

Lindsay had just been through so many iterations of Victor's anger, been rejected so many times, so many of those times she starved for his attention to be in his favor, in God's favor. Still, after all this manipulation, Lindsay knew what she really wanted. She wanted to leave, and this was the first time she would have the guts to say it, not just to anyone, to their leader and profit.

I told them that because of all the trouble I had caused in the maidens and tears that they had on my behalf, I wanted to not be a maiden any longer and to get married someday. Thinking back, I honestly don't know how I got the guts to say what I did, because I was so scared to go against anything that he was saying. And he was really quiet and eventually said okay, and I remember feeling really

Victor told Lindsay to hand in everything she'd been given while she was a maiden.

Which was very hard. I don't think I expected that. Had me hand everything in, I didn't get to say goodbye to the maidens at all.

After that, when she was around the maidens, they didn't talk to her or even look at her, almost like someone told them not to. But she didn't care. She was ready for this change. No more constant scrutiny, no more living at the Shepherd's Camp.

None of it had to do with the maidens anymore. It didn't have to do with Victor. It didn't have to do with remaining unmarried or even getting married. I wasn't thinking it all about marriage. It was all like me on my own journey now with God. And I think I was just feeling so free.

She felt like she could connect with God on her own terms now. And then three days later there was the phone call.

Somebody got a call from the Shepherd's camp staff inviting just the leadership to come to a campfire at the camp and to bring me along.

Lindsay arrived back at the Shepherd's Camp and joined the group around the fire pit on chairs and blankets. The fire was in the middle of the camp by the pond, not far from Victor's lodge. Many of the camp elders and the maidens were there. It was on a warm summer night, and Lindsay could see the water stars glistened off the pond.

Victor did a teaching lord what would you have me to do?

His point was they should submit themselves to God's will. They shouldn't focus on their wishes or desires, but.

God's ultimately, if we really look at it, it was a Victor, what would you have me to do?

Then Victor turned to the maidens and asked each of them to recommit. The maidens were clustered together on a hillside. He went one by one, and one by one they recommitted.

And I remember feeling in that moment like I have nowhere to go, Like I basically am being trapped again into being a maiden. Like what am I going to say? Nobody's supporting me, nobody's helping me. I was literally so happy for the last few days, so free, so light, and here I am with all the leadership, with Victor, with my parents, with the maidens, And so I said yes.

Lindsay had returned, she would become a maiden again, and Victor would honor her for it.

Victor said that God had told him to give me a new name. He said that the name was going to be Lia, which Lira is a constellation in the heavens, which is an eagle with a harp.

He told her, no matter what time of year it is, when you look up, Lira will always be overhead in the sky. In giving her this new name, Victor was not only labeling Lindsay a musician, but a leader among the musicians, a place of high honor, even among the maidens. It held responsibility and power.

He talked about how in war the musicians were always the one who went first in battle, and in our spiritual warfare, it's always the musicians who like go first and sound the battle cry, and he said that that's what Lera is about. He basically said that I was going to be this the forefront of the maidens and making sure no evil was around, casting down strongholds. I think about that night, I remember in that moment feeling really special, but also when I think of it now,

The Tuning is a production of Rococoa 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 Piatti and Jessica Alpert at Rococo Punch, and Katrina Norvell and Nikki e Tour at iHeart Podcasts. You can follow us on Instagram at Rococo Punch, and you can reach out