West Wing Cocaine Cubby longtime gathering spot for DC power brokers

Facts continue to emerge regarding the discovery of cocaine in the West Wing of the White House.  Investigators are now saying that their investigation, which they initially thought would take two weeks, should be wrapped up by Monday, and it is unlikely a culprit will be found.  That’s good news for the American public who were hoping this incident could be quickly put to bed without a satisfactory resolution.

Additionally, former White House and executive branch staffers have come forward to provide some background on the location where the cocaine was discovered.  Historically, the West Wing entrance area between the foyer and the lower-level lobby has been referred to by those in-the-know as the West Wing Cocaine Cubby.  It’s a place where high-powered executive branch staffers gather to blow off a little steam.

Established during the Nixon administration, the Cocaine Cubby became a popular refuge for White House staffers at times of national crisis and during high-stakes negotiations.  It was temporarily discontinued when President Carter learned of its existence, but reopened under Reagan when the administration was rolling in blow and using the drug as currency to negotiate illicit arms deals.  

It is said that, back in the 70’s, Henry Kissinger brokered a number of international agreements out of the Cocaine Cubby.  The disco atmosphere, mixed drinks and hedonistic pleasures offered by the Cubby frequently caused the most stubborn diplomats to soften their hardline positions. 

Now that the Cocaine Cubby’s existence has been revealed to the wider public, West Wing watchers say its future is uncertain.  “This could be curtains for the Cocaine Cubby,” said one White House insider.

Retired 70’s cop brought in to “fingertip” identify White House cocaine

New information is emerging regarding the cocaine discovered in a White House storage closet Sunday.  Sources close to the situation are reporting that the Secret Service called in a retired 1970’s detective to perform a fingertip taste analysis on a “suspicious substance.”  

After licking his pinky, dipping it into the mysterious white powder and touching it to his tongue, the detective was instantly able to identify the substance as cocaine.

“Yeah, that’s booger sugar,” the detective told a perplexed group of Secret Service agents.  “Blow.  Cocaine.  That’s the good shit too.  Medical grade.  That ain’t no street coke.”  

According to officials, further analysis confirmed the substance to be cocaine hydrochloride, which is commonly used as a local anesthetic.

Discovery of the substance prompted officials to immediately evacuate the White House.  However, once the cocaine was determined to be of the “non-hazardous” variety, White House employees were allowed to resume their usual activities.

Investigators initially speculated that a White House tour group may have been responsible for bringing the substance into the building.  The 70’s detective immediately poured cold water on that theory.

“Oh sure, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson from Dayton, Ohio just decided to duck into a storage closet for a quick bump in the middle of their White House tour.  How the hell would they know about a secret room to pack their nose?” the detective barked at investigators.  “This involves somebody who works or lives here.  Check everybody who’s had access to the building for the last 72 hours.  That coke didn’t taste too fresh.  It could’ve been there for days.”  

The 70’s detective is part of a new program to repurpose retired narcotics investigators who are able to provide faster, more accurate and complete in-the-field information than drug sniffing dogs and expensive chemical tests.  This detective’s handling team refers to him as the Bad Lieutenant.  

“We’re looking for someone with an intimate knowledge of every nook and cranny of the White House.  Not to mention someone brazen enough to ride the old white train in the most heavily secured building in the country.  Now ask yourself, who would have the clangers to do something like that?  Hell, they were probably having sex in there, humping like a couple of jackrabbits,” the 70’s detective speculated.

Fauci Hears A Hu

Despite recent revelations identifying three scientists at the Wuhan Lab as the first suspected cases of Covid-19, Dr. Anthony Fauci is standing by his public assertions that U.S. funded gain of function research was not performed at the Wuhan Lab and that the Covid-19 virus was the result of zoonotic spillover.

“Information provided by U.S. intelligence reports indicates that the coronavirus outbreak was indeed zoonotic in origin and that the culprit was a wild Hu.  I believe officials are now saying that the wild Hu became loose inside the Wuhan Lab and that it infected other scientists, which eventually led to the massive outbreak infecting billions across the globe,” Fauci said in a statement.     

In the past Fauci and other public health officials have pointed to pangolins and racoon dogs as possible sources of the coronavirus outbreak.  The recent information identifying Wuhan scientist Ben Hu as patient zero has Fauci feeling vindicated.

“From the start we have maintained that no gain of function research was performed at the Wuhan Lab and that the virus was not man made.  Now that we know that this strange, exotic Hu creature was the cause of the pandemic, and that myself and my colleague, Dr. Francis Collins, were in no way responsible for a coverup relating to the origins of Covid-19, I think a huge apology is in order by Senator Rand Paul and others who have questioned our credibility and our reputations as scientists,” Fauci said.

Fauci further indicated that he is not done investigating Covid’s origins, and that he owes it to The Science to get to the bottom of this outbreak.    

“How this Hu creature came to be infected is anybody’s guess.  I’ve consulted with my colleague, Dr. Seuss, who has written a very good paper on this subject, but it is yet unclear what might have infected the Hu.  Perhaps a Sour Kangaroo or some other such exotic beast,” Fauci said.

Man still haunted by “unholy burrito”

A local man continues his recovery today after a frightening encounter Tuesday night with what he describes as an “unholy burrito.”  Still visibly shaken, the man recalled the incident for reporters.

“I’d just finished a workout.  I thought a carne asada burrito sounded good.  They asked me if I wanted red salsa.  I should have said no.  I should have turned and gotten the hell out of there!”

But he didn’t.  Instead, what followed was a night of merciless torment.  

“Like a fiend from hell, that burrito pursued me through the night.  It stalked me in my sleep and haunted my dreams.  Every time I began to doze off, that monstrous burrito would appear to mock and scorn me.  Sleep became an impossibility.”

After multiple visitations that frequently caused him to seek refuge in the lavatory, the man plucked up the courage to face down the unholy burrito.       

“Foul beast, I said, be gone!  I cast you back into the pit of hell from whence you came!  Back you go into the fire that cannot be quenched!”

Presently, calm returned to the man’s life.  Famished from the night’s adventure, he next set about securing a delicious plate of huevos rancheros.  

What rough beast, its hour come round at last, slouches towards the tortilla to be born?

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

When your brain has taken too many wrong turns: pride and prejudice edition

Unless you just arrived by starship from the other side of the galaxy, then you undoubtedly know it’s pride month.  With all that’s taken place over the past few months, it’s hard to wrap one’s mind around what could shape up to be an exponential increase in pride and pride related activities.  It feels like the pride dial is already cranked up to eleven, but it’s surely about to go even higher.

What should be a surprise to no one is that some people are beginning to experience some pride fatigue and are even pushing back a little.  By pushing back, they’re mostly just refusing to participate while a few are also voicing their opposition.  This insufficient embrace of pre-pride pride has resulted in more than a few pairs of rainbow underpants working themselves into a tightly knotted bunch.  The following excerpt appears in USA Today under the headline “The right-wing is waging war on all things Pride. We can’t let them win.”

“In the past, the right often ignored Pride Month, and Pride events. Or just mocked them. That’s no longer the case. Now, we’re seeing a war on all things Pride. That word, war, is not used lightly. It’s accurate.

“It’s a war they’re playing for keeps. They like the viciousness of it. The idea of it. The power of it. The pain it causes. They like that it terrifies companies and people alike. There is no goal other than to bash the LGBTQ community and force companies to capitulate. If you don’t believe me, just look around.

“First, it was Bud Light after transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney promoted a March Madness contest. Then it was Target that, well, I’m still not exactly sure what Target did other than sell some rainbow-themed merch.

“Now, it’s Chick-fil-A. And, again, I’m not sure exactly why the right is targeting them. It has something to do with the hiring of a DEI officer. One that got the job…in 2021. Not to mention the company is one of the most culturally right-wing in the nation.

“Then of course there was the attack on the Dodgers for inviting (then disinviting and subsequently re-inviting) the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a civil rights group. The right has spent months going after drag queens and are attempting to ban trans athletes.”  

What all these examples have in common is that consumers simply refused to buy what these companies were selling, which is a bunch of values with a product attached to it.  If you’re a Bud Light drinker, you couldn’t just buy a can of beer.  You had to also promote the likeness of a ridiculous, cartoonish social media clown with your purchase.  Target has been selling rainbow-themed merch forever.  This year they decided to set up a pride shrine and then were shocked when families turned down the opportunity to adorn themselves in coordinated pride wear.  Nobody’s boycotting Chick-fil-A.  Along with gold, Chick-fil-A is what you find in the pot at the end of the rainbow.  To Mike Freeman, the author of the USA Today piece, what is the appropriate amount of pride expenditures families should engage in before they are no longer guilty of bigotry?

As for the Unwavering Adherents of Unceasing Narcissism, if you want to honor a group of satanic clowns with their own night at the old ball park, go right ahead.  But are you really shocked when a large segment of the public takes offense and declines to support or participate in its mockery of Catholics and the Christian faith?  Is that what pride month is all about?

Agony of victory

Whenever I do something really stupid and foolhardy, I can take comfort in knowing I come by the impulse honestly.  I descend from a long line of proud men whose pride has sometimes led them to undertake imprudent and reckless challenges.  The line between glory and sheer stupidity can be difficult to discern.  Unfortunately for myself and some of my forefathers, striving for greatness sometimes has the opposite result, often depositing one on the manure heap of ignominy.  

Once I read a newspaper account of my Uncle Gus, who many generations ago was a baker in Los Angeles, California.  It was 1908 and the city was still young and construction was booming.  Everywhere, utility poles were erected and daring men, working high above the city, strung electric lines and telephone cables.  

On the ground, residents watched the men work and marveled at their bravery.  Everyone, except for my Uncle Gus, of course.  He was not the least bit impressed.  Spitting a large glob of tobacco juice onto the dusty ground, he told the assembled crowd, “They ain’t so special.  I can climb a telephone pole as good as any lineman.”

The crowd jeered and mocked the 37-year-old baker, who was caked in flour and still wearing his apron.

Fixing his gaze on a tall, sturdy, steel pole at the corner of Amelia and Turner streets, Uncle Gus threw off his apron, grasped the pole and began his ascent.  As promised, Gus scurried up the pole with twice the speed and skill of a lineman.  Down below, friends and onlookers marveled at his nerve.  As he neared the top of the pole, the crowd’s cheers ringing in his ears,  Gus made plans to sit atop the pole and bask in his well-deserved glory.  

Unaware that the lines the pole supported carried 1200 volts of electricity, “Gus threw one leg over one of the wires,” the newspaper reported.  “In an instant blue flames shot out from his head, arms and legs and he fell from his lofty perch.  He landed on a network of telephone wires and from them bounded to the pavement, thirty feet below.  He lay as if dead and his friends notified the police station.”

Gus survived the daring stunt, suffering a compound fracture to his right leg and severe burns to his feet and hands.  The glory that was nearly his evaporated in a brilliant burst of blue flames.  Undoubtedly, this result caused Gus a great deal of consternation.  However, Gus took comfort and was humbled by the reality that some benevolent hand reached out and broke his fall.  Bounding off those telephone wires surely saved his life.  Perhaps next time I’ll stick the landing, he thought, and all the glory and honor will be mine.

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

Ice Cream Joe to pull chocolate milk from schools

According to The Wall Street Journal, the U.S. Department of Agriculture is considering a ban on chocolate milk for elementary and middle school students.  The USDA claims the added sugar content of flavored milk is too high and can be as much as soda.

Asked to comment on the proposed ban, President Joe Biden deftly sidestepped the issue. 

“My name is Joe Biden. I’m Dr. Jill Biden’s husband and I eat Jeni’s ice cream — chocolate chip,” Biden said between licks on a freshly scooped cone.  “I came down because I heard there was chocolate chip ice cream.  By the way, I have a whole refrigerator full upstairs.  You think I’m kidding? I’m not.”

The move to ban chocolate milk comes as federal regulators continue their quest to make school lunches as bland and devoid of nutrition as humanly possible.

However, dairy advocates say flavored milk provides vital calcium, potassium and vitamin D lacking in most kids’ diets.

“As I’ve told my distinguished friend from Massachusetts – a good friend, Senator Markey – it’s really very, very dull when after all these years in public life, you’re known for two things: Ray-Ban sunglasses and chocolate chip ice cream. Very dull president,” Biden said, continuing to dance around the issue.

In addition to America’s children, the administration seeks to steer President Biden himself toward a more healthy diet that includes more fish and veggies.  As Axios recently reported, “Some Biden aides have long noted that he eats ‘like a child,’ with a food palette that skews beige.”

Clearly, the bright individuals in charge at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue believe our nation’s president and our nation’s youth need to stop skewing brown or beige and develop a more mature food palette. 

Whatever the administration and the USDA decide, the big guy pledged his support by issuing another ice cream metaphor, “Let’s go.  Let’s go lick the world.  Let’s get it done.”

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