True Crime – Page 3 – If there is something

Did Arthur Barry commit the Cosden jewel theft?

In the days following the capture of Arthur Barry, investigators were eager to pin a long list of Long Island jewel thefts on the gentleman burglar and his partner in crime, Boston Billy Williams. One job authorities were especially eager to hang on the pair was the early morning robbery of the J. S. Cosden estate, where the Cosdens and Lord and Lady Mountbatten lost $125,000 in precious jewels to thieves during the Prince of Wales American visit of 1924.

As the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported on June 8, 1927, “Nassau County authorities investigating the $100,000 jewel robbery in the Kings Point home of Jesse L. Livermore ten days ago believed today that they had reached a solution of the sensational $250,000 jewel thefts from the Port Washington estate of Joshua E. Cosden three years ago…”

Although Barry cooperated extensively with investigators, confessing to the Livermore robbery and a number of other area thefts, he did not confess to the Cosden robbery, much less reveal his alleged friendship with His Royal Highness.

Reporting Nassau County District Attorney Elvin N. Edwards statements to the press following Barry’s arraignment, the Montreal Gazette wrote, “Mr. Edwards said that Barry had denied complicity in the robbery at the home of Joshua E. Cosden, near Port Washington, L.I.…Barry admitted other robberies so readily, Mr. Edwards said, that he did not see any reason to doubt his denials of these crimes.”

So, in late August 1927, when a burglar silently exited the Southhampton bedroom of Mrs. James Hastings Snowden with $100,000 of her finest jewelry as she soundly slept, the idea that other sneak thieves might be responsible for some of the high profile Long Island gem thefts became not just a real possibility, but a near absolute certainty. After all, Arthur Barry and William Monahan were by this time securely behind bars, yet the plundering continued.

Having previously debunked Arthur Barry’s jailhouse tale of sneaking into the “small but jolly” Cosden party and sneaking off with the Prince of Wales in the early morning of September 4, 1924, it is now time to consider the likelihood of whether Barry carried out the Cosden theft.

Everything that is known about Barry’s alleged involvement in the Cosden robbery appears to originate with Grace Robinson’s 1932 interview with the gentleman bandit. Dean Jobb’s A Gentleman And A Thief relies heavily on this account, as well as on Anna Blake’s telling and that of Barry’s biographer, who, of course, received the story from Arthur Barry.

Barry’s interview with Robinson comes a full eight years after the Cosden robbery, allowing for no small amount of revisionism to creep into the narrative of his career as a gentleman thief. In the November 3, 1932 edition of the New York Daily News, under the byline Arthur Barry as told to Grace Robinson, Barry first reveals his tale of how he became chums with the Prince of Wales. “If I were asked to name the very pinnacle of my success as a gentleman burglar, I would mention my friendship with the Prince of Wales. I met His Royal Highness in a New York night club when he made a sortie to Broadway during his famous Long Island holiday in 1924.”

This story of Barry’s first encounter with Wales is interesting because it contradicts what would become the accepted narrative that Barry first encountered Wales at the Cosden party.

Barry goes on to say about his alleged friendship with Wales, “I make the admission reluctantly – it sounds like bragging, but I tell it in no boastful spirit. It merely shows how far a gentleman burglar can get, if he brings look and manners to his profession of collecting jewels.”

Journalist Grace Robinson interrupts Barry’s narrative to provide some background information. “Note: Barry’s reluctance is not feigned. He repeatedly denied knowing the Prince, and it was not until I confronted him with statements from persons who remember the incident well, that he confessed to having Wales for a drinking buddy in two exclusive hot spots in the smart Broadway of 1924”

Arthur Barry then makes another reluctant admission, “In this connection I may as well admit that it was I who pulled off the Joshua S. Cosden robbery. That statement will interest the police. For it’s never been hung on me.”

So up until 1932, more than eight years after the Cosden robbery, Barry denied a role in the theft and avoided revealing any connection to his alleged drinking buddy, Wales. If not for Grace Robinson setting Barry straight on some of these details and coaxing the real story out of him, we may have never known about this historic encounter.

Barry avoids going into detail about the Cosden theft and returns instead to his first meeting with the Prince of Wales. “On a night which was shortly before or shortly after the Cosden robbery I was drinking champagne in the Deauville Club … .Suddenly without warning, the Prince walked in.” After Barry and Wales ordered more champagne and “everybody became chummy,” the two parties “pulled tables together, and I was introduced to His Royal Highness as ‘Dr. Gibson.’”

This admission is astonishing because in the very first paragraph of Dean Jobb’s book, A Gentleman And A Thief, we are told that Arthur Barry introduced himself as Dr. Gibson to Wales and company as they exchanged pleasantries around the Cosden punch bowl. How is it that Barry is claiming to have first met Wales at the Deauville Club?

Once again, Grace Robinson has to call a timeout and interrupt Barry’s account to provide some much needed clarification. “Note: At this point Barry, who was speaking in the presence of six policemen, refused to tell more. From friends out of Barry’s past, we have an amazing story which differs from his own account.”

Apparently someone forgot to tell Barry how he actually became pals with Wales, and now Grace Robinson sets the story straight. Robinson then delivers an account which, more or less, lines up with that of Jobb’s book, revealing, “The next night, Barry, now familiar with the ‘inside lay’ at the Cosden home, perpetrated his notorious job there. Two or three nights later occurred the meeting in the Club Deauville, which Barry has related above.”

Only it wasn’t the next night that the Cosden jewel theft went down, it was five nights later. The night before the Cosden break-in, the royal entourage attended a party at the home of F. Ambrose Clark. The night before that Wales attended a dinner of 48 guests at the Piping Rock Club, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, and “After the dinner the Prince embarked on the sort of little party that he likes best. He did not go to a New York dance, nor did he seek out a tremendous monied palace, but instead he went to the simple little farm retreat owned by Henry Alexander at Glen Cove….There were 25 couples of the young people and the Prince and the young men and girls danced and strolled about the comfortable little homey place under the light of a brilliant moon.”

The more Grace Robinson and Arthur Barry try to construct this tale of Barry crashing the Cosden party and befriending the Prince of Wales, the more the pieces bump up against stubborn reality. Any investigator hearing this account would have to conclude that Barry is lying, and Grace Robinson, in her zeal to land a great story, is leaning into credulity and trying to help Barry along. Additionally, anyone today, who claims to be interested in the truth and who uncritically accepts the Arthur-Barry-as-told-to-Grace-Robinson narrative, is committing the sin of not letting the truth get in the way of a good story.

However, just because Barry is fabricating events after the fact doesn’t mean there couldn’t be some truth to his tale. It is possible that he committed the Cosden robbery, but the real story is a bit more mundane. It is also possible that Barry encountered the Prince of Wales at the Deauville Club, and even chatted with him, but never became his friend and ‘drinking buddy.’ However, since Barry’s story contains so many falsehoods and contradictions, it becomes difficult to believe any of it. Instead, it makes more sense to default back to the position of investigators at the time of Barry’s arrest and believe his claim that he was not responsible for the Cosden break-in. Almost all the information that later emerges either turns out to be unverified or provably false. Add to that that there were high profile jewel thefts before Barry became active, and the thefts continued after he was locked up, and it’s clear that Barry’s operation was not the only game in town.

Arthur Barry did not accompany Prince of Wales on ‘little lark’ to Manhattan

The morning of September 3, 1924, the Prince of Wales slept until past noon at the Long Island estate of James Burden, where Wales lodged during his royal visit to the United States. As was becoming a routine, Wales partied late the night before and didn’t return to his lodging until between five and six in the morning. Press reports reveal the prince had dined at the home of Henry R. Winthrop of Woodbury the previous evening and danced there until 2:00 a.m. Following the Winthrop affair, Wales and a small contingent of revelers led by Mrs. Vincent Astor motored to her estate on Hempstead Harbor to prolong the gayety.

So as morning broke on the third of September, Wales was in no condition to participate in any of his usual princely activities. As Frank Getty reported, “Wales was scheduled to follow the hounds in one of the fashionable Long Island hunts, but since he got in from a late party only after 5 a.m., he called off the hunt plan and slept instead.”

William Woodford wrote of the canceled hunt, “Wales did not stir, nor did the bugle sound the chase. Instead he was slumbering, as he still was well after noontime, heedless of hounds, horses or even of his favorite game of polo.”

However, Wales did heed the call of the polo grounds that afternoon, attending the British team practice at Meadow Brook field followed by the American workout at W.R. Grace field, Westbury.

That evening, September 3, 1924, Wales again enjoyed the camaraderie of the polo crowd, attending a stag dinner at the Piping Rock Club at Locust Valley. An orchestra provided music, many toasts were made and Will Rogers delivered a 20 minute monologue that “made a great hit.”

“Leaving the Piping Rock Country Club at about midnight, the royal visitor went with his cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten, and Lady Mountbatten, and Lord and Lady Milford Haven to the home of J. S. Cosden at Sands Point, where a jolly and small house party kept the fun going until the sun sent its first rays over Long Island. Then the prince went home,” The Buffalo News reported the following day, September 4.

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle provided a similar description of events following the Piping Rock Club dinner. “It was another dancing party which kept Wales out all night, this time at the home of Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Cosden at Sands Point. The party was a small but jolly one.”

Grace Robinson wrote on September 4, “After the stag, the prince went to the Cosdens where he danced until morning.”

Accounts of Wales’ whereabouts the evening of Wednesday, September 3 through the early morning hours of Thursday, September 4 all agree that Wales danced the night away at the Cosden estate and only left at daybreak to return to his Long Island lodging. None of the contemporary descriptions of the “small but jolly” Cosden shindig contain any mention of a secret royal excursion “to one of the white light jazz palaces of Broadway.”

While the Prince of Wales’ movements are unanimously agreed upon the night of the Piping Rock stag and the Cosden party, the following day’s itinerary is a little more shrouded in mystery.

Following his daybreak return from the Cosden festivities, Wales slept for about five hours at the Burden estate. Upon rising the morning of Thursday, September 4, Wales immediately headed for the polo field. As Grace Robinson reported, “The prince, having slept all of five hours, was at the private polo field of John S. Phipps promptly at noon….He seemed fresh and eager for the sport, while journalists were still nursing headaches following all night duty on the Piping Rock dinner and the Cosden dance.”

Later in the afternoon, after polo, Wales returned to the Cosden estate where other members of the royal entourage were staying during the visit. As John K. Winkler reported, “Late this afternoon he motored to the Cosdens after his polo game with Rogers and members of two scratch teams and had a try at golf.”

The Cosden’s gardener appeared to verify this account, telling reporters that Wales “had shot a few holes of golf” on the Cosden’s private links.

While differing on a few details, Grace Robinson’s reporting on Wales’ late afternoon activities lines up with other accounts. “He inspected the oil man’s nine hole golf course, but did not play. He sauntered through the beautiful shaded walks…enjoying the wild scenery. Finally he walked down to the private dock, where the Cosden yacht, the Crimper, was lying at anchor. H.R.H. stepped aboard a speed boat and was soon speeding across Long Island sound toward Greenwich, Ct.”

The speedboat getaway from the Cosden estate during the late afternoon or early evening of Thursday, September 4 caused the press to lose track of Wales until the following morning. Whether he ended up bar hopping in Manhattan that night or simply returned to the Burden estate was the cause of a great deal of frenzied speculation in the papers the following day.

One thing we can know for certain is that Arthur Barry did not befriend Wales at the Cosden party and lure him away to the white light of Broadway, as Arthur Barry bragged and Dean Jobb would have us believe in his new book, A Gentleman And A Thief. Barry was indeed a thief and a con man, and his latest con is to convince a modern day audience that he was once the Prince of Wales’ wingman.

A small but jolly gathering

In September of 1924, Edward, the Prince of Wales, made a much publicized visit to the United States. To call it “much publicized,” however, fails to adequately describe the media frenzy that accompanied his visit. The press hounded Wales mercilessly, reporting on his every movement: where he dined, where he danced, where he played, how long he slept, when he rose. The press of the day literally tried to account for every moment of his time on American soil.

While in the states, Wales spent almost the entirety of his visit among the American aristocracy of Long Island, New York. Most nights, Wales and his entourage, which included the Lord and Lady Mountbatten and Mrs. Richard Norton, were entertained at some lavish Long Island affair where they danced and partied until the wee hours of the morning.

One of these luxurious all-nighters took place at the estate of Joshua S. Cosden, a prosperous oil man who rose from very humble beginnings to become one of the richest men in America. It is this party that plays a prominent role in the forthcoming Dean Jobb true crime book, A Gentleman And A Thief. The book tracks the life and criminal endeavors of jazz age gentleman jewel thief Arthur Barry, who Jobb credits as the chief culprit behind the Cosden jewel robbery, which occurred during the royal visit of 1924.

In addition to being a critically acclaimed true crime author, Jobb is a professor emeritus at the University of King’s College where he specializes in creative nonfiction. Indeed, Jobb describes his true crime books as works of creative nonfiction, meaning he’s sticking to the facts, but utilizing a creative narrative-driven presentation.

Although Gentleman And A Thief doesn’t officially release until next month, the prologue of the book is available for sampling on Amazon’s website. The narrative dives straight into the Cosden party and Arthur Barry’s alleged presence there. According to Jobb, “It was there, in the midst of what one press report termed a ‘small but jolly’ gathering, that Gibson (Arthur Barry) met the prince.” Jobb’s prologue also describes in some detail Wales’ alleged surreptitious late night journey to a couple of notable Manhattan speakeasies. Whether or not these events actually took place at all, and that point is definitely up for debate, one thing for certain is the events could not have taken place as Jobb describes them.

The Cosden party Jobb describes took place during the late night hours of Wednesday, September 3, 1924 into the early morning hours of September 4. The Thursday, September 4 edition of the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reports, “Last night the Prince shared honors with polo players of both the British and American international teams at a stag dinner given for them at the Piping Rock Club at Locust Valley.” Will Rogers entertained the group with a 20 minute monologue, and according to the Daily Eagle account, “After the dinner the Prince left for a dance.” Earlier in the article it read, “It was another dancing party which kept Wales out all night, this time at the home of Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Cosden at Sands Point. The party was a small but jolly one. Other guests included Lord and Lady Mountbatten, Lord and Lady Milhaven and the Hon. Mrs. Richard Norton.”

This “small but jolly” account of the Cosden party got picked up by the Associated Press and appeared in newspapers across the country. The problem with Dean Jobb’s depiction of that night is that not only did Wales not leave the party with Arthur Barry, but Wales’ alleged secret excursion into Manhattan nightlife took place the following evening.

Popular journalist of the day Grace Robinson wrote on September 4: “Before inspecting his third Long Island sunrise from the Cosden Manor, the prince had been with the Piping Rock Club at a gay stag….After the stag, the prince went to the Cosdens where he danced until morning. And along went Lord and Lady Mountbatten, Lord and Lady Milford Haven and the rest of the who’s who.” This account is interesting because years later it will be Grace Robinson pushing the Arthur Barry story that he left the Cosden party with the prince.

So contemporary accounts of the “small but jolly” Cosden party make no mention of the Prince slipping away. That’s because Wales’ alleged foray into Manhattan occurred the following evening. On Friday, September 5, 1924, the newspapers were buzzing with speculation over the whereabouts of Wales between 2:00 to 5:00 Thursday afternoon September 4 and the early morning hours of Friday, September 5. Rumors start flying about Wales’ possible attendance at the El Fey Club 107 West 45th street, Manhattan, because a car bearing a license plate traced back to the Burden estate, where Wales was lodged, was seen near the club in the early morning hours of Friday, September 5. Despite denials by the club owner and the prince’s spokesperson that his grace had not graced the club’s premises, rumors persisted.

Jobb quotes a newspaper account which read, “he went in disguise to one of the white light jazz palaces on Broadway.” This account appears in Friday, September 5 newspaper editions, speculating as to the Prince’s whereabouts the previous evening into early morning. It concerns a time period a full 24 hours after the Cosden party where Arthur Barry, alias Dr. Gibson, allegedly lured Wales away to the “White Light Belt.”

Whether or not Wales pulled a Manhattan Holiday and stealthily eluded the press and his handlers to bask in the white light of Broadway was unclear at the time and remains unclear today. However, what is clear is that the account depicted in Jobb’s book could not have happened the way he described it. Maybe there was some other Cosden party that Arthur Barry lured His Royal Highness away from, but it wasn’t the “small but jolly” one.

If it can be shown that I’m confusing my dates, I’ll be happy to admit my error. However, it seems pretty clear that the specific events Jobb references did not take place on the same night. At any rate, I’m looking forward to reading the rest of Jobb’s book. The Cosden case and other area gem thefts have been of great interest to me for quite some time, and I’m anxious to learn what else Jobb has uncovered.

Another lost guru Part 5

Origins

As evasive as George Peters tended to be about his life prior to becoming a guru, much of what he did reveal to journalists, prospective biographer Lionel Rolfe and Church of Naturalism collaborator Susan Shore turns out to be verifiable. Census records confirm George Peters’ real name was George P. Fitzpatrick and that he was the son of Cyril G. and Ada Florence (Farwell) Fitzpatrick. He was born in 1938 or 1939 and spent the first decade plus of his life being raised in New York. Corroborating information revealed to Lionel Rolfe, newspaper reports indicate his father was a New York City detective, but Cyril’s alleged wartime stints in Army Intelligence and White House Secret Service could not be confirmed. In fact, the exploits of Cyril G. Fitzpatrick, New York City robbery detective, appear in newspaper accounts both before and after World War 2, making it clear that whatever intelligence work he may or may not have been involved with during the war ceased when he returned to his robbery division gig after the war ended. Following Cyril’s death in 1953, Peters’ mother married Ward McCarron in 1954, and the couple along with George resided in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

As Peters revealed to Rolfe, it was around this time, when Peters was 16, that “he married a young woman who claimed to be French.” Indeed, newspaper reports from October 1955, describe an episode where George Fitzpatrick, son of Mr. and Mrs. Ward McCarron, eloped with Jo Ann LaNette, 15, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jacques LaNette, Fort Lauderdale. The pair had planned to go to New York, but only had enough money to buy bus tickets to Baltimore. Eventually, the teenage couple returned home to Fort Lauderdale, and in 1956 George P. Fitzpatrick joined the Navy. An announcement in the Fort Lauderdale News dated March 18, 1956 confirms he graduated from the Great Lakes Naval Training Center north of Chicago. While not an official Navy confirmation of service, it seems unlikely Peters and his parents would falsely fabricate such an announcement, and it backs up Peters’ account and other previously unverified newspaper reports.

With much of Peters’ origin story seeming to conform to reality, the questions become even more relevant: did the Navy and/or CIA perform mind control LSD experiments on the future cult guru George Peters? Could the American military or intelligence community bear some responsibility for creating the LSD promotor and new age occultist?

Whether or not George Peters was one of its subjects, it is absolutely the case that the Navy performed LSD experiments on human subjects. A Department of Defense memo dated September 20, 1977 revealed that the Navy participated in five programs where drugs were administered to human subjects for the purpose of mind control or behavior modification. The programs ran from 1947 to 1973, and probably the most well known was called Project Chatter. Led by Navy Lieutenant Charles W. Savage, Project Chatter research was conducted at the Naval Medical Research Institute, Bethesda, Maryland and ran from 1947 to 1953. Peters claimed his experience occurred in 1957, placing it outside the timeframe of Dr. Savage’s involvement. However, it’s possible the program continued under someone else’s direction, or Peters could have participated in a myriad of other LSD programs underway at the time.

It is widely reported that at one time the CIA purchased a significant portion of the world’s LSD supply and seemingly made it available to just about any researcher or institution willing to study its effects on humans. Famously, author Ken Kesey participated in LSD experiments at the Menlo Park VA hospital around the time he began One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in 1960. Also, in the 1950s, LSD pioneer Dr. Sydney Cohen conducted experiments at Wadsworth VA Hospital in Los Angeles, California. Where George Peters was introduced to LSD cannot currently be determined, but California would be as likely a place as any.

By 1960, it appears Peters had abandoned his family, which included a wife and three children. In a newspaper feature from the 1980s, the then remarried but former Mrs. George Fitzpatrick describes being broke in San Diego in 1960 with a five-month-old baby she could no longer care for. So she put the child up for adoption, as she would do with Peters’ two other children. As a member of the U.S. Navy, it seems probable that he and his family spent some time living in San Diego. While in California, did he become a subject of the LSD experimentation going on at the time, and did that experience cause him to become disillusioned and wander from his family? Whatever life-altering, consciousness scrambling experience befell him, the trip was only going to get much longer and much stranger.

Sources:

The Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Herald Examiner

The San Francisco Examiner

The Chicago Tribune

The Fort Lauderdale News

The Commercial Appeal (Memphis, TN)

Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground by Lionel Rolfe

Mind Styles, Life Styles by Nathaniel Lande

General Counsel of the Department of Defense memo, September 20, 1977

More Snapchat predators arrested

Last July, Kegan Kline of Peru, Indiana was sentenced to 40 years in prison on 25 counts ranging from child exploitation and possession of child pornography to obstruction of justice. During the Kline investigation, it was revealed that he had communicated through social media with 14-year-old Liberty German of Delphi, Indiana in the days leading up to the murders of Liberty and her 13-year-old friend Abigail Williams in February of 2017. According to 13WTHR, “Court documents show Kline saying he would talk to girls, even if they were under the age of 16, and that he found them on Instagram and then told them to message him on Snapchat. Kline allegedly claimed to have received pictures from all of the girls he chatted with and had saved them.” The investigation revealed Snapchat was Kegan Kline’s preferred platform for soliciting sexual abuse material from underage girls.

As this blog has previously pointed out, Snapchat comes up time and again as the platform of choice among Indiana predators apprehended by state and federal law enforcement. Undoubtedly, a little research would likely reveal that the Snapchat platform is quite popular among child predators outside the Hoosier state as well. With that in mind, a reasonable person might assume that if a company’s product is routinely utilized for victimizing children, and if that company’s name keeps appearing in news item after news item as the go to platform for perverted criminal low-lifes, then that company might seek to eliminate the problem, if for no other reason than to quash the endless stream of bad publicity. However, it’s hard to see where Snapchat is doing anything of the sort.

On November 11, Westfield, Indiana police arrested 20-year-old Benjamin Owen Rollo of Westfield and charged him with seven felony counts, including child molestation, sexual misconduct with a minor and possession of child pornography. According to 13WTHR, Rollo “is accused of using a Snapchat account to pressure young girls into meeting up with him, or into sending explicit photos.”

If you thought Snapchat alerted authorities to Rollo’s predatory behavior on its platform, you would be wrong. The mother of a 12-year-old victim discovered the messages on her daughter’s phone and contacted Westfield police.

As 13WTHR reports, “The victim’s mother learned of the attack by confiscating her daughter’s cellphone, where she found messages between her daughter and friends about the attack. The victim told friends she snuck out with a friend to meet Rollo on July 22, 2022. Rollo allegedly drove to the friend’s home, then drove the victim and the friend to Grand Park.

“When the victim asked where they were going, Rollo would not say.

“Rollo allegedly forced the 12-year-old in the back of a car during the attack. The victim deleted Rollo’s contact from her Snapchat in the hours after.

“Through her Snapchat account, investigators found Rollo had dozens more victims throughout the area, and that he used his Snapchat account, ‘johnny.backer,’ to target young girls.

“Police served a search warrant to his home in West Lafayette on Nov. 11, and he consented to a police interview.

“When asked about photos and images sent and received, specifically on Snapchat, Rollo advised he has asked young girls and teens for explicit images and has sent his own images, ‘15-20 times.’ Rollo also confirmed to police 12- and 13-year-old females are who he is attracted to. When asked further, he advised that he did not know, it is just ‘what he’s into.’

“His Snapchat account also revealed he raped a 14-year-old girl who he picked up in Carmel in December 2022. Multiple messages reportedly showed Rollo telling the girl what happened was not rape, and to please delete their interactions.

“Rollo confirmed the “johnny.backer” account was his secondary account, because he was not comfortable using his real name. While en route to the Hamilton County Jail, detectives asked Rollo how many images were on his phone of younger girls — he said well over 1,000 images.”

While it may be the case that Snapchat has no way of identifying the individual behind an anonymous account, and maybe they’re unable to determine in what area of the country the messages originate, surely the content of these messages should be cause for alarm and referral to federal authorities. It seems likely that some of the victims probably used their real names and locations, would it not be possible for Snapchat to notify local police that there is a predator in their midst? Rollo was able to determine that the girls he was messaging were local. Why can’t Snapchat identify potentially criminal and predatory behavior and notify the appropriate law enforcement agencies?

It would be nice if Rollo was the only serial Snapchat predator terrorizing tweens and teens in the Hoosier state. Then everyone could breathe a sigh of relief that finally the Snapchat rapist was behind bars and everyone could feel safe again.

For immediate release, November 14, 2023, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Indiana:

“Jacob Glenn, 26, of Cicero, Indiana, has been sentenced to 30 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to sexual exploitation and sex trafficking of a child.

“According to court documents, Jacob Glenn used Snapchat to communicate with girls between 13- and 15-years-old, falsely claiming to be a teen boy and offering to purchase nicotine or vape pens in exchange for sex. Glenn’s Snapchat username, ‘theplugfogshyde’ was intended to indicate that he could obtain vape pens for others he met online.

“On two occasions in 2021, Glenn coerced and enticed a girl between 12- and 15-years-old, to sneak out of her home after midnight to get vapes from him, including on Christmas Eve. Glenn picked the child up and drove her to a nearby truck stop where he told her that he would not accept cash for the vapes. Instead, Glenn stated that they could work out a “deal” where she could pay him with sex. Glenn picked up the same child again on January 17, 2022, and coerced and enticed her to engage in sex acts in exchange for vape pens. He used his phone to record the sexual conduct he engaged in with the child and instructed her to not tell anyone about his abuse. Glenn later used Snapchat to send a copy of the child sexual abuse video to two other minor girls.

“Glenn engaged in a similar course of criminal conduct with another minor girl he met on Snapchat between December 2021 and January 2022. The second victim was less than 14-years-old. On January 9, 2022, after a conversation via Snapchat, Glenn picked the second victim up near her home, drove her to a nearby truck stop, and engaged in sexual conduct in exchange for vape pens. Glenn also attempted to convince a child who was a friend of the second victim to engage in sex in exchange for vapes, but they did not meet in person.

“A law enforcement review of Glenn’s Snapchat account found conversations between Glenn and multiple other girls between thirteen and fifteen years old. In some of these conversations, Glenn offered nicotine or alcohol in exchange for sex or nude images.”

Two serial Snapchat predators, who were practically neighbors, locked up within days of one another. Surely now the children of Hamilton and Marion counties in Indiana can use Snapchat without being solicited for sex.

For immediate release, October 19, 2023, U.S. Attorney’s Office, Southern District of Indiana:

“Isaiah Austin, 21, of Indianapolis, Indiana, was sentenced to 25 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to coercion and enticement of two minors while required to register as a sex offender, and illegally possessing a firearm.

“In February 2021, Marion County probation officers conducted a compliance visit on Austin at his home. During their search, officers located a cell phone which contained multiple images and videos of child sexual abuse, as well as images of Austin holding firearms. Officers also uncovered text and Snapchat messages between Austin and a 14-year-old girl, beginning in early January 2021, less than a month after he was released from custody. In these text and Snapchat messages, Austin detailed sexual acts he wanted to engage in with the child and instructed her to send him sexually explicit images of herself.”

So in one small geographic area of central Indiana, during a time span of just a few weeks in the fall of 2023, three men were either arrested or convicted of child sexual abuse and/or child exploitation, and they all utilized the social media platform Snapchat as a tool to facilitate their depraved, criminal deeds. That’s without even mentioning another Westfield man who got 38 years for similar offenses made possible by the social media platform Kik. Maybe central Indiana is just a hotbed of child predators, but it’s probably more likely that this is happening in hundreds, if not thousands, of communities around the country. Setting aside the disturbing question of how there can be so many sexual deviants preying on American children, why is eliminating this threat not priority number one with Snapchat and other social media companies?

In testimony Tuesday before a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on social media and the teen mental health crisis, Arturo Bejar, formerly of Facebook and Instagram testified that a survey of 13-15-year-olds on Instagram revealed that 13% of respondents had received unwanted sexual advances in the last seven days. The number is astounding. In any seven day period, a teenager has about a one in eight chance of being approached by a predator on Instagram. Given enough seven day cycles, it is a near certainty that a young person will receive unwanted sexual advances about every two months or so. It should be clear to anyone that social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Kik are cesspools of child exploitation and predatory grooming. Making these platforms safer for young people should be the top goal of executives at these companies above all other considerations. If a skate park or an arcade or a coffee bar existed where every week kids had a one in eight chance of receiving unwanted sexual advances, that place would be shut down. Social media companies should face the same threat.

The Vanishing Collectors

On Tuesday, October 9,1990, a meeting of the city council of Sedona, Arizona convened at 7:00 p.m. After the meeting was called to order and the Pledge of Allegiance recited, a brief moment of silence was observed. Next the roll was taken and the floor opened for public comment. Second to approach the microphone was a clean-cut young gentleman who introduced himself as Ben Porterfield and informed the gathering that he had submitted an application for the position of City Magistrate. According to the minutes of the meeting, Porterfield “advised he wanted to give the Council an opportunity to match a face with a resume and that he would be available after the meeting for questions.”

As Ben Porterfield took his seat for the duration of the meeting, it is not known if he questioned the decision to use an alias on his application. Perhaps a man who aspires to administer the law for a municipality ought to do so under his real name. This might hurt his chances of getting the job, he possibly thought, especially if they do a background check which was certain to be the case. Also, he may have wondered if managing a trailer park counted as relevant experience for issuing warrants and reviewing matters of law. No matter, Ben Porterfield, or whatever the young man’s name was, had a number of ongoing projects in various stages of development. Whether or not he got the City Magistrate position was of little consequence.

Unsurprisingly, Ben Porterfield was passed over for the position of City Magistrate of Sedona, Arizona. Months later, however, some who attended the city council meeting that night may have wished they’d taken a greater interest in the man at the microphone with the face and the resume. Because Ben Porterfield was eventually going to become the subject of an arrest warrant, possibly issued by the newly appointed Sedona City Magistrate, and the target of a manhunt for absconding with an indeterminate quantity of Sedona residents’ precious bodily fluids.

Just a few months after the meeting, as the year drew to a close, concerned parents began presenting their teenage offspring at local medical clinics for examinations. At the same time, the Sedona Police Department started receiving reports of a mysterious couple who were offering area teenagers ten dollars to draw a vial of their blood. It took authorities a few weeks, but eventually they were able to zero in on a mobile home at the Windsong Trailer Park, located along U.S. 89A in west Sedona. The trailer belonged to Benjamin and Sarah Porterfield, managers of the park.

Sedona Police Chief Bob Irish was at a loss to explain why these two individuals were collecting the blood samples. “The possibilities of it are only limited by your imagination. At this point, it is one of the most bizarre situations I have ever seen.” At the time, it was thought that at least a dozen teens had allowed some of their blood to be extracted for money. According to accounts, the teens were taken into a bathroom where a syringe was used to extract a sample of their blood. “It looked okay to me,” said a 15-year-old who lived next door to the couple. “They would unwrap each needle and put a brace on your arm and have you fill out a questionnaire. You had to be 14 or over, and you could only give three times. But the questions were really weird, like, ‘Did you use Clearasil…Are you on drugs or alcohol?’” The young woman went on to reveal that her boyfriend and his friends had sold their blood numerous times to the couple and that the pair had taken more than 100 samples from at least 30 teen-agers. Interviews with additional teens revealed the couple posed as representatives of the government and that the blood was needed for the testing of lasers.

Blood wasn’t the only thing the strange couple was collecting. According to authorities, the pair had been collecting rent checks from Windsong residents and depositing them into their personal account. This led to an arrest warrant being issued for a Benjamin and Sarah Birdsong on charges of child abuse, embezzlement, impersonating medical personnel, aggravated assault and operating a clinical laboratory without a license. Apparently the age requirement and the questionnaire subjects were asked to fill out were insufficient to secure licensing for the couple’s blood drawing enterprise. Investigators were also not entirely clear regarding the true identity of the individuals. Chief Irish thought the couple’s names were possibly aliases and that they were known to have used the names Millett and Stewart when they lived in the Phoenix area.

On Monday, January 7, 1991, Sedona Police and an official from the Arizona Department of Health Services served a search warrant at the Camp Verde home of Benjamin and Sarah Porterfield. The couple were not present at the time of the raid and had been last seen at the residence the previous Friday. Items taken from the home by police included two handguns, two shotguns, a Mac-10 submachine gun with silencer, an IBM computer, a printer and computer storage disks – the standard items necessary to get a teen blood-buying business up and running. Also taken in the raid were a book of satanic rituals, the Satanic Bible by Anton Lavey, photocopies, posters and banners containing occult logos and satanic imagery. Satanism quickly moved to the top of the list of possible motives for the strange couple’s blood-buying activities. “It seems to be the forerunner as far as theories,” said Chief Irish. The chief further speculated the blood might be used as part of an “occult-type” ceremony, admitting that, “The worst-case scenario would be drinking it (the blood).”

Meanwhile the search for the pair continued in earnest. The couple owned two vehicles, a 1968 Ford pickup and a 1974 Volvo station wagon, that were now missing from the couple’s Camp Verde home. Acting on a tip, authorities closed in on a motel in Mesa, Arizona, but missed capturing the pair by two hours. Later, authorities admitted they could not confirm that the motel occupants were the fugitive couple. Investigators now believed the actual identity of the pair to be Charles E. Stewart, 32, and Sharon M. Smythe, 23, who went by the aliases Benjamin and Sarah Porterfield while living in Sedona. A number of town residents had encountered the couple, describing them as friendly but very private. None interviewed were able to provide any worthwhile leads. An 11-year-old neighbor of the Porterfield’s described how he was well treated by the couple who would buy parts for his bicycle and take him on camping trips. He did admit, however, that they had some strange habits. “I never saw any of that devil stuff. But there was always weird, loud music in the middle of the night. All the time, they would go camping in Boynton Canyon and then we would hear about animals that were sacrificed up there.”

Investigators continued to pore through materials seized from the couple’s home. A computer specialist was called in to examine the contents of the Porterfield’s home computer. At one point, the expert thought the couple may have booby-trapped the device to erase its contents if tampered with. Eventually, however, the computer revealed little useful information about the Porterfield’s or their secret government research into blood lasers. Occult experts brought in to examine the satanic materials concluded they showed nothing to indicate active occult involvement. The elusive couple, who seemed to become more mysterious with every bit of information discovered about them, had seemingly vanished with potentially over a hundred vials of blood extracted from the town’s teen-age population, all while abandoning a cache of weapons and a computer. Perhaps Chief Irish was wishing he’d introduced himself to Ben Porterfield when he had a chance. “I remember at a City Council meeting, he went up to the microphone and said, ‘I’m Benjamin Porterfield, and I’m available to meet with you.’ He looked like a clean-cut, all-American kid,” Irish recounted.

It should be noted that many residents and visitors to Sedona claim the city rests on a large energy vortex composed of a number of smaller vortices, the most significant of which is the Boynton Canyon vortex. These swirling concentrations of energy are linked with any number of strange phenomena. Perhaps a mystery couple collecting blood samples from local teens is a fairly mundane occurrence in an area where unexplained healing powers, strange spirits, ghostly hauntings, UFO activity, and Interdimensional Portals are part and parcel of the landscape. And if two mysterious travelers conducting highly sensitive scientific research should suddenly be called to deliver their collection of samples back to their obscure corner of space and time, and if the pair of strangers should suddenly vanish through the interdimensional doorway from which they possibly emerged, perhaps it should come as no great surprise.

Another lost guru Part 4

MK-Ultra

Adding to the barrage of allegations of drug use and drug trafficking coming from multiple sources aimed at the Church of Naturalism, the Los Angeles Herald Examiner reported the California State Franchise Tax Board was in the midst of a year-long investigation of the church at the time of the slayings. The probe investigated allegations asserting drug customers wrote off their cocaine buys from the church as “donations” and subsequently claimed the transactions as tax deductions. Anonymous sources alleged the cocaine buyers were able to purchase the drugs by check or credit card. Reportedly, the church took both BankAmericard and Visa. “They had one of those stamp-type machines like you see in a service station. And they had all kinds of vouchers,” a source told the Herald Examiner. Church secretary, Susan Shore, who claimed to be the sole surviving member of the Church of Naturalism, denied the allegations, claiming she had no knowledge of the tax board investigation.

People with stories to tell about the Church of Naturalism’s involvement in drug trafficking were seemingly coming out of the woodwork. Missing from the narrative, however, were all the individuals they supposedly counseled, helped kick drug habits and trained for gainful employment. Where were the recovering rock musicians, movie stars and sports celebrities with tales of how George Peters rescued them from the throes of drug addiction? According to the Herald Examiner, their tax deductible donations, made in exchange for private “treatment,” involved “instruction in the use rather than abuse” of various drugs. Indeed, one attendee at Church of Naturalism revelries told the Herald Examiner, “People spilled more coke on their shoes at one of George’s parties than they put up their noses anywhere else.”

While surviving member Susan Shore attempted to put to rest rumors of drug use and narcotics trafficking, she dropped a bombshell of her own in the November 14, 1982 edition of the Herald Examiner. In the article, Shore revealed that at the time of George Peters’ death the two had been working on a film about his involvement in the secret CIA program MK-Ultra. “I was writing the story of his life prior to the founding of the church, when he was supposedly one of the people with whom the CIA was doing a lot of experimentation with drugs….The story involves espionage and experimentation with drugs to see how far you could make something go,” Shore told the Herald Examiner. “We were going to make a film that was going to expose what the government was doing back in the early 1960s.”

According to the Herald Examiner, Peters claimed he was a subject of LSD experiments while a member of the Navy in 1957. He volunteered for these experiments and participated in two additional ones after he was discharged. However, the newspaper conceded it could not verify if he ever served in the Navy.

At least one of the experiments Peters described to his friends involved a program to abduct transients, drug them unconscious and deposit them at a new location. The subject was then reprogrammed by Peters or another operative and given a new identity and life history, the Herald Examiner said.

The Herald Examiner also reported that Peters had spoken of his connection to the MK-Ultra program during a July 1981 symposium at the University of California Santa Cruz where he delivered a talk titled The Social and Cultural Implications of Consciousness Research.

As insane as the Herald Examiner’s account of Peters’ alleged involvement in secret experiments sounds, it pretty closely tracks with an experience he relates to his one-time ghostwriter, Lionel Rolfe, and also resembles the approach he would come to adopt as an LSD guru. In Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground, Rolfe mentions that Peters had “an ‘enlightenment experience’ at the hands of the CIA” prior to reinventing himself as a guru. Rolfe recounts a bizarre story Peters told him of an encounter with a mysterious man named David, who claimed to be an alien, but actually worked for the CIA. David intended to use Peters as a subject in the CIA’s MK-Ultra program. After drugging Peters, David relentlessly stalks him, trying to get Peters to give up the most intimate and closely held secrets of his life. During these games of ‘Truth or Consequences,’ “Peters had to tell his life story over and over again, and if things didn’t mesh in a psychological profile, David would hassle him until he got what he wanted.” Eventually, Peters confesses to David about a homosexual experience he had in high school. The admission brought him great peace and caused him to have “a classic enlightenment experience.”

According to Peters’ former wife, Katherine Peters, it was this experience that led him to form the Church of Naturalism. “‘George was so lonely and insecure when I met him that he felt he could only keep people around by buying their friendship,’” Katherine Peters told the Herald Examiner. “All that changed, she said, when he recounted a homosexual affair at the age of 13 during a bizarre game of Truth or Consequences.”

After the admission, Peters was transformed. “I thought I could take over the world,” Peters wrote following the Truth or Consequences game. “I thought I had the power and I knew what was right. Then I thought of Hitler and remembered he thought he was right too…. So I thought of the sentence: ‘I will help anyone at anytime as long as it hurts no other.’ By this method, I could leave the world a better place than I had found it.” This became the gospel of the Church of Naturalism.

Whether or not there was any truth to Peters’ account of being pursued by the shadowy David and forced to endure the Truth or Consequences game as a form of mind control programming, the story resembles in many respects the approach he would come to use in his life as a guru. Additionally, whether or not he plucked transients off the streets at the direction of the CIA and gave them a new identity and purpose, it could be argued that as a guru this is more or less what he did. The newspaper accounts at the time of his death could not confirm whether he had made any of his CIA claims prior to the MK-Ultra revelations in 1977, nor could they confirm whether he served in the Navy as he claimed. However, a closer examination of the transformation of George Fitzpatrick to George Peters reveals that he almost certainly served in the Navy, and that the Navy did indeed conduct drug experiments. Moreover, George Peters’ claims of being the subject of these experiments predates the MK-Ultra revelations by more than a decade.

Sources:

The Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Herald Examiner

The San Francisco Examiner

The Chicago Tribune

Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground by Lionel Rolfe

Mind Styles, Life Styles by Nathaniel Lande

Another lost guru Part 3

Supernaturalism

Within days, neighbors’ insistence that the Church of Naturalism was involved with drugs was validated by the revelation that four of its members were arrested on narcotics charges in June of 1981. An L.A. County Sheriff’s raid of the church compound yielded two ounces of cocaine, 350 Quaaludes, 66.5 grams of maijuana, nearly a gram of hashish and $3200 in cash. As the Los Angeles Times reported, despite the large quantity of drugs confiscated, “all charges were subsequently dropped because the district attorney’s office said the investigators did not find the drugs on the individuals.”

I’m no narcotics investigator, but this seems like a rather odd reason for not pursuing charges. At the time of the raid, sheriff’s detectives must have held some suspicions regarding the occupants of that location, and surely would have acquired some evidence or information that led to the raid in the first place. The presence of large quantities of drugs discovered at the location would surely have confirmed these suspicions. It seems strange then that no one was subsequently charged. How common is it that, after conducting a drug raid and finding the illicit contraband, no one is charged because the possessors of that contraband didn’t have it directly on their person? This seems highly unusual. However, as we will come to find out, this was a pattern for George Peters and the Church of Naturalism, as he was arrested for drugs and subsequently freed without charges on a number of occasions.

At this point, investigators still maintained that robbery remained the motive for the murders, while conceding that drugs may have been a factor. “It appears to us the primary motive was robbery. But, remember, a person can rob for drugs too,” Hollywood Division homicide Detective Richard Kuster told reporters. “It’s obvious they were involved in drug traffic in one form or the other.”

Strange that a group that billed itself as offering drug counseling services, indeed that was purported to have counseled addicted rock musicians, also may have been involved in drug trafficking. One ex-employee of the church told the Los Angeles Times that he had purchased marijuana from the group and later warned an employment agency not to place applicants with the church. The owner of the agency confirmed the man’s account. “At one point we heard something about that place we didn’t like and canceled the job orders,” the owner said. One of the church’s subsidiaries, Mentor Media, subsequently tried to recruit through the agency but was also denied.

Additional odd facts about the group began to emerge. According to the Los Angeles Times, author Nathaniel Lande wrote in a 1976 book, Mind Styles, Life Styles that the Church of Naturalism offered a three stage divinity training. The first stage, called “group grope,” involved groups of 5-10 members living together, working and contributing 80% of their income to the church for “samaritan services.” The second stage, labeled “rural setting,” required members to remove from society and spend an hour each day in hot tubs receiving massages. According to the book, this stage causes members to “develop deep, honest personal relationships.” The final stage is called the “Death Judgment Experience.” Here the church member isolates in a black box for 40 days. “During the experience, the person loses his self-concept and relives the events of his life,” Landes says. The purpose “is that if you can gain sufficient strength and stamina to be yourself by isolating yourself totally, you can operate in society much more effectively.”

In 1998, Lionel Rolfe wrote extensively about his time working as George Peters’ ghostwriter in the memoir, Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground. In the book, Rolfe describes a much stranger and darker version of George Peters and the Church of Naturalism than members and acquaintances revealed at the time of Peters’ death. “Into his and his church’s philosophy, Peters had put a lot of thought – some genuinely humanistic, it seemed to me. But he also had potentially evil ideas. I believe he considered himself an enlightened human being who wanted to help others. The trouble, the evil, the weirdness entered his philosophy with his belief that he had supernatural powers … . George claimed he could glow in the dark. He didn’t do it for me, but he did tell me the story of how Mr. X once walked into the room where he was meditating, and Peters was ‘glowing.’ Later I learned that Peters’ witness, Mr. X, would not directly contradict the story…. About this time I started getting concerned about being Peters’ ghostwriter. The more I became familiar with his thinking, the more I found the notion of being his ghost ill-advised, if not plain dangerous. Peters wanted me to undergo one of his sensory deprivation experiences so I would have greater knowledge of what I was writing about. I declined the opportunity.” Smart move.

At the time of Peter’s death, the Los Angeles Times reported on a Church of Naturalism document that alluded to Peters’ alleged supernatural powers. According to the document, “Peters claimed he could read others’ thoughts and move objects through mind control,” the Times reported. The newspaper made no mention of the guru’s ability to glow in the dark.

Despite George Peters’ apparent abilities to transcend the physical constraints of this world, he was also a man who enjoyed the finest comforts and pleasures the material world could offer. Shocking to no one, the man who considered himself a messiah had expensive tastes and eschewed monogamy. “To watch him sitting on the sectional bed-sofa that filled half of his large bedroom as he viewed the wall-size television set was to see how much he loved his toys, and his comforts. It was a grand bed, one that could accommodate a dozen people at a time, and probably had,” Rolfe wrote.

“George was a hedonist. He liked sex…. At the time of our acquaintance, Peters didn’t appear to be heavily into drugs himself, although he certainly liked to smoke good dope. What he really liked, and was obsessed by, were the good things in life.”

That a self-styled messianic guru surrounded himself with life’s finer material possessions, that he partook of mind-altering substances, that he enjoyed frequent sex and the occasional orgy, that he claimed magical powers and exerted a level of mind control over his followers was not shocking for 1982 and mostly lifted straight out of the How To Be A Successful Guru handbook. (Note: George Peters literally taught a guru class. More on that later.) But George Peters’ fascination with drugs stretched back at least as far as the mid-sixties and possibly earlier. Because while George Peters was seemingly pushing forms of mind control on his followers, a week after his death, one of his followers, Susan Shore, revealed to the Los Angeles Herald Examiner that Peters himself had been the subject of CIA drug experiments dating back to the 1950’s.

Sources:

The Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Herald Examiner

The San Francisco Examiner

The Chicago Tribune

Fat Man on the Left: Four Decades in the Underground by Lionel Rolfe

Mind Styles, Life Styles by Nathaniel Lande

Another lost guru Part 2

Interviews

As morning broke on Saturday, November 6, 1982, residents of Woodstock Road, Los Angeles, California emerged from their homes eager to provide details regarding the mysterious group that occupied the fortress-like compound in their midst. Despite denials from investigators, an almost unanimous assertion among neighbors of the Church of Naturalism Inc. was that the group was involved with drugs. “We thought it was a drug factory,” said a 26-year-old neighbor named Kerry. “It was too secretive to be a normal house. We thought they were doing angel dust up there.”

Another neighbor named Robin, who worked as a secretary for a television producer, also suspected the group was involved with drug trafficking. “There was constant traffic at all hours, early morning and late at night, and they’d only stay a little while. The strange thing was the flow of old beat up cars driven mainly by black men. I always knew something weird was going on.” Robin also revealed that she’d attended a costume party at one of the homes on the compound and had been introduced to the host who claimed to work in the mental health field.

Despite the claims of neighbors, investigators continued to assert that no evidence pointed to a narcotics motive. “We don’t have anything to show it’s drug related,” Detective Hank Petroski told reporters. “We looked and found no drugs or drug paraphernalia.” At least partially undercutting Petroski’s statement was a large sign that read “DRUGS” in mirrored letters visible inside the garage.

A nearby resident named Scott, who worked as a film editor, also spoke of frequent visitors to the property and the paranoid security personnel who guarded the compound. He told reporters, whenever someone got too close to the front gate, security guards “popped out of the bushes” demanding, “What do you want?…They had a real defensive attitude.” Neighbors reported they often heard gunshots on the property, which they assumed was target practice, and that muscular men could be seen lifting barbells. “Everyone’s suspicious when there are locked gates and real defensive guards,” Scott added. According to Scott, one of the estate’s servants revealed to him that the group “wanted to make a movie about cocaine.” Indeed, the San Francisco Examiner reported that police sources claimed George Peters “was producing a film about cocaine at the time of his death,” and that Peters “was seen over the summer interviewing and filming participants of a Santa Monica conference on ‘Cocaine Today’….”

As the weekend progressed, a dozen or so current and former members of the Church of Naturalism and employees started showing up at the group’s estate. Most were reluctant to talk, but a few spoke fondly of their former friend, George Peters. “George Peters had the gift of gab coupled with independence of thinking,” said Jay Friedheim, one of the church’s organizers from its early days. “George always tried to take care of people on the fringe of society….We thought we were going to change the world.” Peters former common law wife, Katherine Peters, who started the church with George after she met him in Chicago in the early sixties, said, “He was a father in a way.” A woman named Susan Shore, who shared the rear house with Peters, revealed the church made income from a relationship counseling service called Loveline, a documentary film company called Mentor Media, computer programming and auto repair. Friedheim indicated the compound’s heavy security was necessary because of the group’s work counseling drug addicts. As one former church employee said, “They felt safe up here, away from the beaten path.”

However, it would take less than 24 hours for the idealism to fade and for serious questions to arise about the happy band of altruists who just wanted to change the world from the fortified confines of their $5600 per month Laurel Canyon hideaway. Despite detectives’ insistence to the contrary, Woodstock Road residents’ conviction that something fishy was going on at the Church of Naturalism’s secretive compound would prove accurate as revelations of previous drug arrests, allegations of strange beliefs and unorthodox practices and even charges of mind control began to spill out into the public.

Sources:

The Los Angeles Times

The San Francisco Examiner

The Chicago Tribune

Another lost guru Part 1

Crime Scene

As detectives made their way up the narrow winding lane, an abandoned Cadillac limousine was the first indication that something had gone terribly wrong in this Laurel Canyon neighborhood. Hemmed in by thick brush on either side of the lane, the wrecked vehicle that now confronted them took up the better part of tiny Woodstock Road. However, the vehicle’s damaged front end and shattered windshield didn’t appear related to the present location and position in which the vehicle came to rest. The large caliber handgun that lay in pieces on the road next to the Cadillac also indicated that there was likely more to be discovered in this Mount Olympus neighborhood. Strange scenes were nothing new to the detectives called to investigate crimes inside Laurel Canyon, an area of Los Angeles which had a peculiar knack for giving up its dead in a most bizarre and cruel fashion. Only a year earlier, four people had been bludgeoned to death less than a mile away at the home of porn star John Holmes. In 1969, the Tate murders occurred four miles away, with the slain bodies of other young women turning up along Mulholland Drive at around the same time. With that in mind, investigators continued their ascent up Woodstock Road, stalked by a spirit of dread.

About 1000 feet further on, detectives turned into a drive that led into a six acre private estate. Across the drive lay a large wrought-iron gate, some 80 feet from where it had been ripped from its hinges, presumably by the damaged Cadillac they’d previously encountered. The gate had once been attached to a six-foot fence that enclosed the property. Topped with coiled razor wire, the security fence and spotlights gave the property the appearance of a heavily fortified compound, rather than an elegant residential estate. Video cameras monitored the front gate and visitors had to press a buzzer to be admitted to the property. There were two ranch-style homes, each with its own swimming pool, and a large statue of Buddha on the property. Around 2:30 that morning, November 6, 1982, a security guard for the estate was alerted to a commotion, which hastened him to investigate. After phoning the rear dwelling and receiving no answer, he ran to the home where he discovered a man lying dead in the living room, prompting him to immediately phone authorities.

Inside the rear home, police discovered two badly beaten men dead from apparent gunshot wounds. The second body was discovered in the bedroom. Both were fully clothed and there appeared to have been a struggle. Investigators were able to identify the victims as George Peters, 43, and James Henneberry, 31. Investigator’s immediate assessment was that the two men were murdered during the course of a robbery, speculating that intruders accessed the property through an unlocked back gate. Detectives learned the Cadillac was registered to the Church of Naturalism Inc., and that Peters served as chairman of the board and Henneberry the church treasurer.

According to interviews with the security guard and a woman who shared the front house with Henneberry, Henneberry played pool until 2 a.m. when he walked over to the rear home where Peters resided to grab a cup of tea. There Henneberry, presumably, interrupted a robbery in progress, struggled with intruders and was slain along with Peters. The assailant or assailants then fled the scene by crashing the church’s limousine through the iron gate, abandoning the vehicle further down the road and possibly fleeing on foot.

While the crime itself and the motive seemed fairly straight forward, the victims, the group they led and the location they occupied were shrouded in mystery. And as interviews with neighbors and church members unfolded and facts emerged, the truth about the enigmatic George Peters and the Church of Naturalism he founded remained elusive. Because, apart from the many things that remained unclear about George Peters, one thing that was clear was that his name was not George Peters. He became George Peters when he left his old life behind and embarked on the life of a professional guru. As gurus go, Peters had at one time shown some promise, attracting a fair amount of publicity and a modest following. But unlike other more notable gurus whose ambitions led them to California, Peters’ project never really achieved full flourishing, and the circumstances of his death would call all of Peters’ ideals and ambitions into question.

As George Peters lay there dead in his fortified, heavily guarded compound, the victim of a robbery gone horribly wrong, one could be forgiven for wondering whether the self-help guru occupation was genuine, or simply a persona he had constructed for himself to conceal other ambitions. Indeed, to hear George Peters and his cohorts tell it, it is even possible the former LSD guru and Church of Naturalism founder could have been the invention of someone or something else altogether.

Sources:

The Los Angeles Times

The San Francisco Examiner

The Chicago Tribune