Chapter 21 – Tragedy of the Chosen One
Sensitivity Warning: this article contains graphic discussions of child abuse, murder and suicide.
Music featured in this chapter:
21st Century Breakdown – Green Day
I’m Gonna Get Me a Gun – Cat Stevens
Janie’s Got a Gun – Aerosmith
In this chapter of my memoir the first half describes in detail my psychological breakdown after I began investigating my cult past, my search for mental health help, and the psychiatric assessment and treatment I received. In the midst of that assessment, I heard horrific news that Ricky Rodriguez, the son of Children of God/The Family cult leader, Karen Zerby, had murdered her assistant who had been one of his childhood abusers, in a failed plan to kill his mother. He then killed himself. The second half of this chapter tells Ricky’s story.
Thirteen years after leaving the Family in 1991, I finally began to dig up my buried past and examine the skeleton in my closet. Discovering the whole awful truth behind the lie I had lived so many years was self-shattering. Unlike losing my religion, which relieved me of dogma induced existential anxiety and set my mind free, this examination left me feeling shackled with shame as I read shocking, heart-breaking accounts of child abuse on three survivor websites.i ii iii
Those personal testimonies from around the world confirmed the abuses I had seen, and revealed many others I was unaware of or blind to while I was in the Family. I also learned about new policies and doctrines developed by Karen Zerby and Steven Kelly after Berg’s deaththat continued to subject children and teens to various forms of abuse.
Having discarded my religious blinders, it disturbed me to now see things from the perspective of people raised in the group. Re-evaluating Family life from a child’s point of viewiv made me realize that what they had experienced was not a righteous life, but was in fact systemic, institutionalized child abuse. Most children in the Family suffered more than one of the following forms of abuse:
* religious indoctrination that denied them freedom of thought and freedom of religion, which includes the right to be free from religion;
* isolation from society;
* separation from parents, siblings and other relatives;
* educational neglect and intellectual abuse;
* medical neglect;
* child labour and financial exploitation;
* sexual coercion, exploitation, assault and rape;
* cruel corporal punishment and extreme physical abuse;
* emotional and psychological abuse, and
* spiritual abuse and threats.
In some cases the abuse was tantamount to torture.
...
As I awakened to the fact that the Family had harmed a generation of children, and continued to do so, I was determined to understand how I ended up in a harmful cult led by a narcissistic, alcoholic,v racist,vi anti-semitic,vii abusive, incestuous pedophile.viii Why did it take me so long to recognize the abuse I saw and experienced? Why was it so difficult to leave? What specific effects did that life have on me? I had many more questions, so started reading academic books and articles on the subject. The first, Cults In Our Midst,ix a comprehensive study of a variety of harmful high demand groups, provided many helpful insights.
Although that book has only two brief references to the Children of God, I recognized elements of my own story on almost every page. After comparing my personal experiences in the Family to the various characteristics associated with joining, living in, and leaving cults, I could see very clearly exactly how I was indoctrinated, manipulated and exploited. I was beginning to understand some of the psychological processes that kept me ignorant and blind to much of the abuse, and why I didn’t recognize it for what it was until I saw in person Merry’s torture, which shocked me out of my stupor and prompted me to leave the Family.
The final chapter in that book, “Recovery: Coming Out of the Pseudopersonality”, was especially helpful for understanding the difficulties I had recovering from my life in the Family. My thoughts, behaviours and experiences after I left finally began to make sense to me.
...
In November [2004, after being diagnosed with PTSD], while waiting for my turn in the group therapy program, which had a long waiting list, I started weekly one-hour sessions with a psychiatrist in VGH’s psychiatric outpatient clinic. It took two months to tell her my entire story, which I had never fully told anyone before. She took copious notes in each session, barely keeping up as the words poured out of me. Occasionally, she would stop my free-flowing, detailed narrative to clarify some point, but otherwise allowed me to talk uninterrupted.
During those two months, I was continuing to learn shocking things about the Family. I was particularly distressed hearing about numerous suicides of people I had lived with, or knew of through Family publications. Sadly, similar tragedies were still occurring. In one of my sessions with the psychiatrist in December, I told her about another suicide of a young man that happened just a few days earlier.
I knew Abex as a child. I lived briefly with his mother when I was in Japan in 1974. Like me, she had joined as a young teen and was among the first Japanese members. When I returned to Japan in the 1980s, she had three children and they were all living at the Heavenly City School during one of my stints there. Abe had been out of the cult four years when he ended his life.
Just a few weeks later, in January 2005, a murder-suicide made headlines around the world. The horrific tragedy made a mockery of the Family’s claims that they had the ideal environment for raising children. Karen Zerby’s son, Ricky, knifed to death her assistant, his former nanny, then shot himself in the head. The shocking news had a similar emotional effect on me as the homicide-suicide involving my two uncles thirty-nine years earlier. Fortunately, I was still seeing the psychiatrist so had someone to talk to about it.
21st Century Breakdown – Green Day
21st century breakdown
I once was lost, but never was found
I think I'm losin' what's left of my mind
To the 20th century deadline
I swallowed my pride and I choked on my faith
I've given my heart and my soul
I've broken my fingers and lied through my teeth
The pillar of damage control
I've been to the edge and I've thrown the bouquet (Hey)
Of flowers left over the grave
I sat in the waiting room wasting my time
And waiting for Judgment Day
Ricky Rodriguez,xi known in the Family as Davidito, was Karen Zerby’s son. His father was a hotel employee in Tenerife who wasn’t in the Family. Ricky was the first Jesus Baby,xii a child born of the sexual proselytizing practice, Flirty Fishing. He was chosen and groomed by Berg to be the princely heir to his spiritual kingdom who would lead the Family with his mother during the final years before Jesus returned. Just as [David] Berg claimed to be the fulfillment of biblical prophecies that refer to a prophet David in the endtime, he claimed that Zerby and Ricky were the two witnesses described in Revelation chapter 11, prophets with supernatural powers who would fight the Antichrist in the last days.xiii
Zerby and her childcare assistant, Sara,xiv documented every aspect of Ricky’s childhood, along with his half sister, Techi,xv and Sara’s daughter, Davida,xvi who he regarded as his sister. Explicit descriptions of their indoctrinated, highly controlled, sexualized lives in Berg’s securely secluded household were published as “The Story of Davidito”,xvii which became the authoritative child training manual for Family parents.
As a teenager, Ricky had a normal reaction to his abnormal childhood in the Family. He rebelled. He grew increasingly resentful of how he and his sisters were raised: not allowed to be children; isolated from other children; unable to plan their own free futures; subjected to spiritual threats and cruel corporal punishment; and encouraged or coerced to engage in sexual activity.
Ricky came to understand how abusive that upbringing was, and hated how his mother and Berg had used him as the poster child for practices presented as childhood sex education, but which led to widespread sexual child abuse. As a young adult he conflicted with his mother when she implemented other sexually abusive policies and practices after Berg’s death.
In January 2001, in his mid-20s, Ricky formally left the Family, rejecting both Berg’s teachings and Christianity. Like most of his peers who left the cult without a proper education and worldly experiences, he struggled at first to adjust to society. He eventually learned to adapt and live his own life, but found it difficult to put his past behind him. The abuse he suffered and witnessed, coupled with his mother’s continual refusal to acknowledge and accept responsibility for systemic abuses of children and teens, weighed heavily on him.
In 2002, Ricky was intent on exposing the truth about Berg and his mother, hoping that would help bring an end to the Family, so he wrote an articlexviii for Moving On, the website for second-generation survivors of the Family. He described in detail what life was like growing up in Berg and Zerby’s abusive household, including the horrific sexual, physical and psychological abuse Merry Berg suffered there, confirming her testimony in the British custody case.
...
In August 2004, Ricky posted his last article on Moving On. Titled “Still Around”, he explained his two year absence from the survivor community and updated his situation. He had tried to start a new life, but struggled to move on, writing: “I know now that will never happen. I can’t run away from my past, and no matter how much longer I live, the first 25 years of my life will always haunt me.”xix
In that article he included a desperate final plea for help to find justice by bringing an end to the Family. His message was short on detail, but implied he wanted to take some sort of vigilante action.
Something has to be done to stop these child molesters, and it would be nice to find some people who think the same way. Every day these people are alive and free is a slap in the face to the thousands of us who have been methodically molested, tortured, raped, and the many who they have as good as murdered by driving them to suicide. It would probably involve a great deal of sacrifice, and would best be accomplished, I think, by people who have nothing to lose, such as myself. ... I think someone needs to put an end to it because only then can we feel some semblance of justice, and maybe be able to start putting it behind us. I think there are others who feel this way, and I would really like to get in touch with them and exchange ideas.
I’m Gonna Get Me a Gun – Cat Stevens
I've been demoralized too many times
But now I realize, ah ah, no more
I'm gonna get me a gun
I'm gonna get me a gun
And all those people who put me down
You better get ready to run
'Cause I'm gonna get me a gun
I know my destiny is like the sun
You see the best of me when I have got my gun
So you think you can push me around
And make me run, well, I'm gonna tell you now
I'm gonna get me a gun
I'm gonna get me a gun
And all those people who put me down
You better get ready to run
'Cause I'm gonna get me a gun
... Five months later, on January 8, 2005, Ricky went through with his plan alone, viciously murdering Angela Smith.xx She was Berg’s long-time lover, and Zerby’s secretary, one of the first three Flirty Fishers in Tenerife with Zerby and Sara. She was a familiar part of Berg’s household, and occasionally one of Ricky’s childhood minders, so he knew her well.
Ricky’s original plan was to murder his mother and her co-leader Steven Kelly, hoping he could kill the snake by chopping off its head. ...
...
Ricky recorded a disturbing, hour-long videoxxi on January 7, 2005, the night before the murder. He referred to Angela, without naming her, as his “source” for information about his mother, and explained what he was about to do, and why. He had arranged to meet her for dinner the next night, before she returned to California. He intended to torture her to get information on his mother’s location.
The video shows Ricky in his apartment, the scene of the crime, describing the collection of weapons and tools covering the kitchen table. They included a Glock 23 pistol with several bullet magazines, a stun-gun, soldering iron, electric drill, duct tape, several small knives, and a Ka-Bar combat knife with a seven inch blade. He explained why that was his weapon of choice for “taking out the scum, taking out the f****n’ trash”.
Throughout the video Ricky calmly loads bullets into the magazines as he talks about how the child abuse he and his sisters experienced and witnessed affected his mental state. Describing the physical beatings Merry Berg suffered during her numerous exorcisms, he says: “Nobody, nobody deserved that. Especially not a kid that age. So I watched every day new bruises on her, big f****n’ fat f****n’ bruises on her.”
Ricky also discusses suicidal thoughts he had in his teen years, his ongoing mental health struggles since leaving the Family, and how he had many times considered just disappearing and quietly ending his life. ...
...
Ricky laments that he tried to move on, create a new life and forget the old one, but, “I got stuck because there’s this need that I have, this need. It’s not a want, it’s a f*****g need. And I wish it wasn’t, but it is. It’s a need for revenge. It’s a need for justice, because I can’t go on like this.” At the end of the video he states, “...they sure fucked with our brains … used us as slaves … just there for those sick f****r’s pleasure. That’s the way it was at Grandfather’s and Mamma’s house.”
The next evening, Ricky lured Angela to his apartment where he attacked her with the combat knife, stabbing her five times before cutting her throat. Crime scene investigators said she had been stabbed in her breast and stomach, and had defensive wounds in both arms, but they found no evidence Ricky had tortured her. After the murder he drove several hours to California, found a deserted parking lot outside of Blythe, and shot himself in the head.xxii
Janie’s Got a Gun – Aerosmith
Janie got a gun
Janie got a gun
Whole world's come undone
From lookin' straight at the sun
What did her daddy do?
What did he put you through?
They said when Janie was arrested
They found him underneath a train
But, man, he had it comin'
Now that Janie's got a gun
She ain't never gonna be the same
Janie got a gun
Janie got a gun
Her dog day's just begun
Now everybody is on the run
Tell me now it's untrue
What did her daddy do?
He jacked a little bitty baby
The man has got to be insane
They say the spell that he was under
The lightning and the thunder
Knew that someone had to stop the rain
Run away, run away from the pain, yeah, yeah yeah yeah
Run away, run away from the pain, yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Run away, run away, run, run away
What did her daddy do?
It's Janie's last I.O.U
She had to take him down easy and put a bullet in his brain
She said, "'Cause nobody believes me. The man was such a sleeze
He ain't never gonna be the same"
Run away, run away from the pain, yeah, yeah
Yeah yeah yeah
Run away, run away from the pain, yeah yeah
Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah
Run away, run away, run, run away
i exFamily: a source of truthful information about The Family International/Children of God cult
ii xfamily: a collaboratively edited encyclopedia about The Family International/Children of God cult
iii MovingOn: the website for second-generation survivors no longer exists but some of it is archived at
iv Perry Bulwer, “Respecting A Child’s Point Of View”, December 14, 2011
v Ed Priebe, “The Alcoholic Prophet”,
vi Perry Bulwer, “What do Pat Robertson and The Family International cult have in common?”
vii Berg and Anti-Semitism. “Yes, I’m an anti-Semite, because God is! Yes, I’m a racist, because God is!”
viii “At least seven women, including both his daughters, his daughter-in-law and two of his granddaughters, have publicly alleged that Berg sexually abused them when they were children.”
ix Margaret Thaler Singer and Janja Lalich, Cults in Our Midst (1995; revised and updated 2003) San Francisco, Calif.: Jossey-Bass
x Abe Braaten
xi Ricky Rodriguez
xii Jesus Baby
xiii David Berg, “The End-Time Witnesses”, May 1978, pars.15,16
xiv Sara Kelley
xv Christina Teresa Zerby, aka Techi
xvi Davida Kelley
xvii “The Story of Davidito”
xviii Ricky Rodriguez, “Life with Grandpa—the Mene Story”, June 04, 2002
xix Ricky Rodriguez, “Still Around”, August 14, 2004
xx Angela Smith
xxi Ricky Rodriguez Video Transcript
xxii Those details are described in the book about Ricky’s life by religion journalist Don Lattin, Jesus Freaks: A True Story of Murder and Madness on the Evangelical Edge, San Francisco: HarperOne, 2007
