S5 E6 - Tell Me Everything

and children.

“While the more graphic details will be left out, the specifics can be triggering.”

Please take care when listening.

I've been police raided five homes and took nine children into protective custody today after allegations surfaced that children were being abused. Then it's after law enforcement raided a number of Zion Society homes on the morning of August 2nd, 1991. The media descended on the Northwood subdivision.

Among them, KSL News reporter Larry Lewis. Neighbors describe the people on this street as a tight knit group, some called them polygamists and accusations they deny. We don't consider ourselves a cult of church of any kind. According to court records, someone within that very group came forward complaining that the

adults were showing children a pornographic videotape that tape was described as sexually explicit and used as an instructional tool for the children.

“This morning search focused on finding that tape and other evidence of child abuse.”

Police won't say much about the case and won't confirm if they found the alleged tape. Investigations still ongoing and it substantiates the allegations were made. The cops were tight-lipped. They were still in the process of gathering evidence from inside the homes. And with the case being so far cloaked in secrecy, law enforcement had to be extremely careful

about keeping information from getting out that might tip their hand. After all, the man they went into apprehend, the group's leader Arvan Shreeve, was nowhere to be found. Police have made no arrests. On the day of the raid, Detective Mike King had an arrest warrant for just one person, Arvan.

We wanted to focus on the head of the snake first and foremost, but we already had been

building cases against other members of the group. So far, there was evidence to support arresting several of the adults in the Zion Society, but in a sensitive case like this with so many layers and moving pieces and so much at stake, the ramifications of every decision had to be considered. You look at a patrol officer who sees a guy inside of a business burglarizing in a three

o'clock in the morning. It's pretty easy to put the handcuffs on him, take him to jail and charge him with burglary, but this case was not so cut and dry. For instance, we still questioned how much coercion was occurring in the adult women, even though they were involved in predatory behavior, how much of that was coercive and placed

on them because of Arvan. There were also prosecutorial strategies to think about. If they could take a negotiated plea and offer testimony against Arvan, it proved much more valuable than immediately going in and putting them in the adversarial role of being a defendant right from the start.

So the pursuit of the other adults would remain on the to-do list. Now in the immediate aftermath of the raid, Mike had two urgent tasks, one was unexpected. He had defined an apprehend the now vanished cult leader. The other was to talk with the children who had been removed that morning from their abusive environments and placed into protective custody.

As Mike headed off to where the children were being interviewed, the news media continued to arrive at the once quiet neighborhood of Northwood. One such reporter was Mike Watkes, a broadcast journalist and cult expert who grew up in northern Utah. He worked in local news early in his career, and in 1991 was living in New York City, producing

stories for the popular syndicated show "A Current Affair." Because of my link to Utah whenever one of these kind of stories would come up, that was my beat. I got out of plane and, you know, got back to Salt Lake and hooked up with a crew that I knew and we went up to that neighborhood as he entered the Northwood subdivision, even

knowing about some of the rotten things that happened inside of the cult's homes, Watkes said their outsides, those gardens were breathtaking. It really was mind blowing. You know, it was like the Wizard of Oz, you were in Kansas at one moment and you turned around a corner and suddenly you're in this coldest act and you realized, "I'm in the

Emerald City." I mean, it really was like from a black and white movie to, you know, full technicalor. But unlike Dorothy and her companions, Watkes and his crew weren't exactly welcomed in. As we get there, we're confronted by some way male follower.

“I think it was May have been Arvin's son.”

So, yeah, that was our greeting, Watkes was not intimidated.

This wasn't the first abusive cult he'd said his sights on and it most certainly wouldn't

I've been chasing, covering, tracking down, trying to find guys like Arvin's tree for

better part of 45 nearly 50 years.

“When I sat down to interview him, Watkes very quickly mentioned something I think is an”

important takeaway from this whole story, abusers, whether they're cult leaders or bad bosses or abusive boyfriends, they all use the same playbook. Arvin, he told me, was nothing special. I mean, it's strip of the way, it's a courage, it's Jim Jones, it's separating people from families, it's telling them I am your only way.

Everybody else is wrong and evil, you know, this is, every all of this is cult one-on-one. He said the embellishments will differ from cult leader to cult leader. Arvin had his sweet old man facade and carried out his perversion's right under his suburban neighbors' noses, others by bent leaves or orchestrate drug-fueled orgies or convince their followers to drink cyanide-laced flavorate.

But those provocative details, the ones that often grab our attention, are really just empty calories.

“It's the interesting part, but it does such a great disservice.”

We tell the stories and I've done this, we tell the stories of Arvin's shrieve and orange. These louses are just nickel and dime con men, they just all got a shit going.

The stories that are to be told are always women who get out and start raising hell.

A few reporters have told their stories, a few cops have taken their stories seriously, but over the course of time not nearly enough has been done, but the real heroes in this. It ain't John Wayne riding in save in the day. That is a false misogynistic narrative of this story, imposing some, you know, great male figure saving it.

You know, there had been a few men who stepped up, Mike King, took it seriously, made a difference. The heroes have always been the brave women who get the hell out, and they say, "Hell no!" And they've changed history. Women like Erin Anderson, who first brought this case to light by walking into a police

station and at great risk to herself, exposed the horrors occurring inside the Zion Society. Erin's aunt Judy, who was relentless in supporting her niece and encouraged her to tell her story. Carl Nagel, the private investigators wife who went undercover into the belly of the beast to gather evidence that not only got Jeff Petersen's kids out of the cult, but helped

open the door for all the other children to be saved from their abusers. And there are more. Many you haven't been introduced to yet, because so far they've been locked away inside the cult's homes, but now they've been rescued from their captors and can speak to those of us in the outside world.

So as we move forward, you'll hear from more of the survivors of the Zion Society. Their stories in their words, as the quest for justice, and the absent Arman Tree, continues. I'm Erin Mason, and this is Gardens of Evil, inside the Zion Society cult, episode 6. Tell me everything. This message is sponsored by Jones Road Beauty.

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purchase when they use the code Nightmares, just head to JonesRoadBeauty.com and use code Nightmares to check out. After you purchase, they'll ask you where you heard about them, support our show, and tell them we sent you. The children were in protective custody for now.

Law enforcement only had a short amount of time together as much information as they could

and to keep the kids from going back to them.

“Remember, in nearly all of these cases, it was their own parents who either committed or facilitated”

the sexual abuse. But if the kids wouldn't talk, their abusers might escape retribution, perhaps entirely. Meet Vanessa, one of the Zion Society children. I haven't said anything, I'm not saying anything, and things are a lot worse than anybody knows.

We spoke in May of 2025, me and my office in Seattle and Vanessa, in her home that she shares with her family and a couple of great Danes. On the morning of the raid, Vanessa was 11 years old. One moment, she was asleep in her bed, and then in a flash, she was shepherded into her living room, then a child protective services van, then driven away to where she and the

rest of the children there that morning were to be interviewed. And I remember just saying where are my sisters, where are my sisters, you know, what

“are you doing with them, where are they, I need to know their safe, I need to know that”

everybody's okay. Vanessa was confused and disoriented. As a child of the Zion Society called, she had been warned something like this might happen. Babylon, the outside world, might try to interfere with their way of life. But in the moment, all she felt was her duty.

I didn't say anything, because I was supposed to protect people. Vanessa's mother and father joined the Zion Society when she was around five years old. She was quickly introduced to Arvan. He still tried to deal with you things to me, but I was too small at the time. I actually almost cried when it didn't work for me.

Separated from her parents and apparently of no use to Arvan, Vanessa was relocated. I was separated into a household that was outside of Arvan's group. She became one of the spiritual wives in the sister council of another family who lived across the street, Cadi Corner from her own parents and younger sisters. So I lived with them and the sexual and other abuse, most of what happened to me, was from

that family versus from Arvan. As 11-year-old Vanessa sat for questioning, she didn't offer up much information. She did, as she had been taught.

We were told that the outside world would never understand us, and that we had to keep

that all that stuff private and we had to protect our leaders, because again, we were being persecuted. It wasn't that anything wrong was going on. They were being persecuted and that we would wind up being saved in the end for being strong. Vanessa and the other children were scared.

They assumed correctly that they wouldn't be in protective custody forever. As child and family service workers were figuring out how to get them settled into foster care, their parents were actively trying to get them out. So if you're a kid being questioned, maybe you're thinking, what if I go back home in a day or two and didn't perform like I was told to?

That might mean some serious trouble. "Do you just have to keep your mouth shut, don't say anything."

It wasn't until a couple weeks later, after subsequent interviews that Vanessa finally discussed

some of the abuse she had experienced. But specifically, only the acts committed by Arvin Schrieve, which had begun to happen with more regularity as she aged into double digits. And the only reason I did that was because they had already told me that other people had already said stuff and, "Okay, then I might as well tell you what happened."

When it came to the family that she lived with, the ones responsible for the majority of abuses committed against her, Vanessa insisted on protecting them. "I totally wish, so I would have said something at the time.

“That is the only thing that kind of eats at me because I don't know where they went.”

I don't know if they hurt anyone else." Vanessa and the other children were taken to a child advocacy center, or as it's called in Utah, a Children's Justice Center. A CJC is a building set aside for doing interviews with kids who are victims of or witnesses to crimes, and it was a brand new concept back in 1991.

Here's County Attorney at the time, Reed Richards.

That was maybe one of the first cases we had in the Children's Justice Center in Utah, and

it was set up to be able to allow us to interview the kids in a place that they'd be comfortable, somewhat. Even till that point, the legal system was anything but child-friendly. In order to see their abusers pay for what they'd done, Children were put through a process

These children were having multiple interviews over and over in different locations, the

prosecutor's office, the doctor's office. That is the voice of Joan Helstrom. They sometimes had to go to very scary environments, the police station. People were coming in being arrested. Joan Helstrom was our main advocate for Children at that time, and she took charge of making

“sure that the kids felt comfortable and taking care of any, I think she even made cookies”

for her. It was kind of supposed to be like a grandma's house, originally, finds an old hole or something that could be remodeled, so we move forward, got it decorated, great. The interview rooms were age appropriate for the children. I mean, it was just a safe, private, wonderful place, and in 1991, it was a grand opening.

The Children's Justice Center was still in its nascent days, and the Zion Society kids were, for lack of a better term, the guinea pigs. Joan and her team would sit with the children and try to be a comfort to them while all of the necessary legal wheels turned, interviewers, medical examiners, attorneys, and legal advisors could all come to them.

It was just incredible how we could take some of these, I don't want to comment victims,

that these children have them tell their stories, and the one thing that always say was,

they could come in to this Children's Justice Center, be interviewed, and be believed.

“But it was an intense and often difficult opening run with the Zion Society children.”

You might expect them to be relieved and grateful to be saved from such unconscionable and unrelenting abuse, but they weren't. Like Andrea said in the last episode, it didn't feel like a rescue. It felt like the bad guys had gotten us, had found us out. Many of the children, especially the teenagers, outright refused to cooperate, not only had

they been brainwashed into believing that anyone outside of their group was evil, but they had actually been coached on what to say, if ever questioned by law enforcement. This is Carrie. She was 15 on the day of the raid. We had these interrogations sessions where they would at, pretend like they were in the

interrogator, and they'd be like, "Well, has anybody ever touched you?" And I'd be like, "What do you mean? I get hugs all the time." Of course, people touched me. You would act like you didn't know what they were talking about when they were asking

the question. And we were also told the tactics that they would use in the questions that they would ask. And they were right on. Like they knew.

And when Mike shows up, in my mind, he was bad, and he wanted to hurt us. Mike's strategy was to be invisible. He'd stay back and let the case workers create the emotional attachments with the children and start to build trust with them. Rather than trying to get a child to trust the police officer in uniform that just ripped

them from the arms of their parents. I was a very stubborn child. Carrie is today, as she was then, very intelligent and fiercely determined.

“I think they could have kept me in that center for days without food and without sleep, and”

I wouldn't have broke. And strength of will has served Carrie well in her time since the Zion Society. She decided at 17 that she was tired of making up stories about her past whenever people at school wanted to know where the new girl was from. So from that point on, if anyone asked her any question, no matter what it was, she would

tell them the truth. And if people asked it made them uncomfortable, that's on them. She said it was hard at first, but it was important to Carrie that she didn't keep her trauma in the dark. I think that when something is hidden, it gives it power.

And I think that what happened is it took away the power that it had over me by talking about it.

But child abuse always leaves scars.

I've had nightmares ever since I left there. I still have them. They're usually involving Arvin. So don't see's chasing me. But I've developed this like need to feel and look powerful.

We'll learn later what life has been like over the last 35 years for many of the Zion Society survivors. But I want you to hear Carrie's response to her trauma now because it's visible the moment

Looking strong, made me feel safe in the world and looking intimidating, especially

“to men, made me feel safe in the world in a way that I never had.”

And I'm tall as well. So having muscles, having tattoos, and so in my dreams sometimes Arvin is trying to do something to me that I don't want him to, and I'm afraid. And I stand up to him and I have a jacket on. I take up, and this is so sound so ridiculous, but I take my jacket off so he could see

my tattoos. Like you can see that I take my power. I have power and I have my own strength, and I'm not going to take it. I'm not going to let him abuse me. And yeah, I still have nightmares, but I've had the my whole life, you know.

But in my later, you know, in life, like recently I'm taking the power back. Back at the Children's Justice Center, everything they asked Carrie about, she denied. Sexual abuse, sexual activity of any kind, the sister councils, she even disavowed the existence of the group itself. According to interview reports, Carrie's sister said Carrie often got phone calls from their

“mother during this time, reminding her not to talk about the thing she did, and those calls”

concluded with a promise to her daughter that, quote, "We will be together soon." It was a promise that meant a lot to Carrie. Her mother took her and two of her siblings to live in the cult when she was seven. She had to use her words a severe overattachment to her mom that began when they moved to Northwood and her entire family was taken away from her overnight.

That meant her father and three siblings who were fused to join the cult and her two brothers who came along, but she hardly ever saw because they lived in different houses. Everyone had disappeared. Everyone except her mother. And I got super attached to her to the point where I would freak out whenever I couldn't

be with her.

I had to be with her every second, and I would call her mommy.

So I would be like, "Mom, if I was going to leave her presence." I'd be like, "Mom, I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you.

I was so afraid that I wasn't going to see her again." And so it was like this super bad anxiety every time I wasn't with her. One day, after about three years in the group, when Kerry was 10, her mom took her to the house across the street from Arvin's where a bunch of his wives lived. My mom took me there and dropped me off, and she's like, "You're going to live here,

no?" And they had to physically restrain me. She knew what this meant. Kerry began screaming and kicking, lashing out any way her little body could to try and stop the one thing she feared more than any other from coming to pass.

And then I never lived with her again, while I was there.

And they wouldn't let me see her again and tell I could show no emotion. And I couldn't call her mommy anymore, I had to call her Laura, and I couldn't cry. So I don't know how long it was.

“I think it was months before I could even see her.”

We were always occupying her time, sewing, cooking, cleaning, gardening. And so if I passed her on the street, she was just not in smile and say, "Hi to me," like I was in acquaintance. Kerry remembers exactly how she felt during that time. "F**k."

"Panick." She said, "Panick. I was destroyed." Emotionally. Like I was completely abandoned, I had no body, and the way that they treated me was super

emotionally abusive.

And you had, if you didn't do what they wanted, you basically got ignored and not paid attention

to. And so it was just a lot of not having people who really seemed like they liked me. Or they didn't say any of that to the people asking questions at the CJC. She dug her heels in and there her heels were going to stay. But not everyone was defensive or combative, and Mike and his partner Dave Lucas began

to see a pattern among some who did talk. Here's Detective Lucas. "A lot of them would tell us things, and the way they sat at did make us sound like, "Oh, these kids have been coached on what to tell us, because they were all saying basically the same thing."

Not just similar answers, but in some cases, exactly the same wording. But there were literally thousands of instances of child sexual abuse believed to have taken place in the cult, and with so many occurrences.

you tell the difference between saying the same thing and experiencing the same thing?

Things were getting intense, and emotions were running high. And the one man, Mike King, had the legal authority to apprehend, had vanished. Mike thought if he could just find Arvin, then maybe, design society, as cults like it often do, would crumble without their profit. Perhaps with Arvin locked away, his consequences would no longer be a threat, and members,

and ex-members, would begin to open up about what went on under his leadership without fear of retribution. But the man could be anywhere.

“And then, three days after the raid, while Mike was watching an interview from a secret”

room behind a one-way mirror, he got an emergency alert on his pager. He was saying to call the county attorney's office, he did, and you're not going to believe what they told him. For nearly 35 years, Arvin's whereabouts on the day of the raid have been unknown. There were theories, maybe he was hiding in one of the homes that didn't have a search

warrant. Maybe he was holed up in this huge reinforced bunker, they had one of the backyards. But no one knew for sure, not Mike King, not Reed Richards, not any former cop or cult member, no one. So imagine my surprise, when during my interview with Carrie, she told me this, "Yeah,

I was with him."

Basically, I don't know who did it, but someone had leaked to Carla, that there was going

to be a raid. It could have been days, it could have been weeks, she can't recall. But at some point before the raid, a teenage Carrie got into a car with her mom, Arvin, Arvin's lieutenant Carla, and a woman will just call Jane, and the four of them drove two hours south to Mount Pleasant, Utah, to a mobile home owned by Jane's parents.

And we stayed in that mobile home, that's where we were living. I had a cat, Dutchess, her name, a white cat, we had to put this cat in the car, and just on his drive down, and we stayed there until the raid happened.

“But we were told about it, we saw it on the news, we were also, I think, people in the”

grip had called it, I told this as well, that had happened, and then we knew that there was a warrant out for Arvin's arrest. And so he left, I don't know why he did after that. Now who in the cult was where gets very complicated in the days surrounding the raid, especially the kids, because many were shipped off to a number of different places in a handful of

states all around the country, to stay with friends, relatives, what have you?

Carrie actually wasn't among the first vanful of Zion society children.

She was interviewed, but it was several days after everything went down because she was with Arvin on that actual day. So how did they know the raid was coming? Because most cops didn't even know it was happening until that morning. They saw me on the news.

That is Cheryl Nagel.

“Cheryl, you'll remember, was the private investigators' wife who went undercover as lingerie”

buyer, Suzanne Barronz. Not long before the raid, the Nagel's PI business was featured in a story on the local news, and someone in the Zion society was watching. And I guess one of them ran in to Arvin and said, Suzanne Barronz isn't who she says she is.

She's a private investigator. So I guess they started burning, shredding, getting rid of as fast as they could before they were able to get in. Wow. Wow.

I didn't know that. Yeah. I didn't know that either. Back to our main timeline of events, it had been three days since the raid. Arvin's whereabouts unknown, and Mike King couldn't exactly start a man hunt in the midst

of trying to manage all of these interviews at the CJC.

he was one of the only investigators who knew what information they even needed from the

kids, who they could only keep in protective custody for a limited amount of time. But then he got that notification from the Weber County Attorney's Office to call them immediately. It was urgent, so he did. And the receptionist who answered told him that the man he was looking for had just turned

himself in. And I remember holding the phone away for a moment and looking at Lucas and saying, "We got him." Arvin turned himself in and was being held at a police station in a town called Cedar City. And that was a very exciting moment.

“But at the same time, you have to think about this fact that as an investigator, it was”

now, what are we going to do with him? Make explain the situation to his partner, Dave Lucas. I just recall we got in Mike's car as fast as we could, told everybody what we were doing, said we're going to go down to Cedar City and pick him up. Cedar City is about 290 miles from Ogden, since Southwest Utah, not too far from Zion National

Park. The trip from Ogden to Cedar City usually takes four hours. Mike had a little bit of a heavy foot, but Mike was determined to do it in less than that. He happened to have a yellow Camaro with T-Tops from his cartel-busting undercover task force days.

I didn't even think to ask Lucas if he wanted to drive one of the busted down city cars to go and get Arvin, which would have been a much better idea given the fact there's actually room in the back seat, but I just said, because of the haste to the moment, grab your gear because we're on the road, he's probably going close to 100, but he was going pretty fast because we wanted to get down there as fast as we could.

Soon enough, the two detectives found themselves on the other side of the flashing lights. At one point, as we were into rural Utah, we passed a trooper heading the other way, and we saw his lights flip on, and the dust coming up as he was trying to get turned around and getting behind us.

“Dave said something to the effect of, "Hey buddy, I think we got a little problem."”

So they radioed the statewide dispatcher to let them know who they were, what they were doing and that unless there was a particular reason to, they weren't going to be pulling over. Then we slowed down just enough that the highway patrolma couple alongside us, just long enough for Dave and me to flash our badges, and to see him kind of give us that look of, "Oh,

you've wasted my morning," we continued on, and he became smaller and smaller in our rear view mirror as we raced our way toward Cedar City to pick up Arvan, probably only take us three hours rather than forwarding it down there. In that truncated time, the two men came up with a game plan.

The first thing to do was cover the basics.

Make sure Arvan knew he was under arrest, advise him of his rights, and make sure he understood what those rights were. Then the real detective work would begin. Their goal was to get Arvan to confess.

“It was crucial that every eye was dotted and every T crossed, because of Arvan talked,”

but then later claimed he didn't know his rights, anything he said could be thrown out of court. But we didn't want a questioning there at the jail. I'd say, "Let's don't question him there. Let's just get him and go."

I asked Lucas why.

Because the environment, even if you've never been in one, you can imagine police stations

and jails are terrible places to hang out and chat. Bearwalls may be a table and a couple of uncomfortable chairs, not very conducive to conversation, and they needed Arvan to talk. We knew that we was going to have Arvan in a car for four hours. We can look out the windows, you can see it's more of a relaxed environment.

We went to that jail and tried to interview in there, the odds are he's going to clam up. Why take that chance? Four hours is a long time, and he's going to want to talk and he doesn't want to sit there and be quiet the whole time. Mike and Lucas entered the Cedar City Police station where the chief was waiting for him.

He quickly ushered them back into one of the holding cells. There, sitting in a chair, was Arvan's leave.

If you saw him out on the street, you just think he was somebody's grandpa.

“When it comes to interview tactics, Dave Lucas firmly believes that you catch more flies”

with honey than with vinegar. If you treat a person nice, nine times out of ten, they'll treat you back the same way. And so that's how I approached Arvan. This is my King, I'm David Lucas, we're in the law enforcement backup in Oregon City. Not yelling at him.

There were three options for what could happen next. One is that Arvan would choose to speak to us, which would be preferred, and that he would give a confession and we would be able to move on and solve this case more quickly. Number two is that he might start talking, but then realize that he's getting on incredibly

thin ice and say, hands off, I don't want to go any further, or third, that he flat out

says, I want to know what you're and I don't want to talk to you guys. We told him, now Arvan, you're under arrest, so you've probably seen this on TV, they'll say you are under arrest, and then they give them their Miranda rights.

“So we gave him his rights, and immediately said that he had obtained a lawyer.”

Arvan then invoked his right to an attorney, which means the detectives could no longer ask questions or discuss the case against him in any way whatsoever. Then we said, okay, I did not know a problem. So let's go ahead and get you in the car and take you back up dogden. It would be extremely uncomfortable and might even cause a 61-year-old man like Arvan some

injury to ride for four hours in the rear seat of a Camaro with his arms handcuffed behind his back.

So to accommodate him, they put a special belt around Arvan's waist that handcuffs can

be attached to, so he can be cuffed with his hands in front of him, but still not move his arms around. So with his restraints in place, Mike and Lucas led Arvan to the door. As we walked out of the jail, we were immediately confronted by a host of photographers, somehow they had figured out, and I don't know to this day how they figured out that Arvan

was detained in the jail there. Shreve walked into the police station and told officers, he was a wanted man. I wanted to find a quick way back to Ogden, and of course we've been in contact with the Ogden police department. They're happy to provide him with that transportation.

And we realized at that point how big this thing was becoming, because you know when you're in the middle of a case like this, you're not watching the news, you don't care what's going on on TV because you're just trying to interview children and get evidence in place and everything else. They dodged the Photogs, got Arvan in the car, and headed back out on the highway for the

long drive back to Ogden. We knew he could ask him any questions. So therefore, we didn't. What you can do though is listen, and if they provided missions or utterances that are unsolicited, you can use that and say, I didn't ask you anything but he said this or that.

So you're still able to have conversation. We kind of talk to him in a way that you would talk as well. He'd say, yeah, I like to do landscape eating and that was his thing, and we're just rich at him. Mike wrote in his book to see that Arvan was a bit hurt in his conversational contributions.

He would occasionally chime in, but it was polite, small talk energy. The detectives talked about their families. They talked about religion. Lucas told Arvan, it seemed like he had a strong belief in God and Arvan responded that he did.

Both Mike and I said, yeah, we do too. Both men were members of the LDS church, and that's the same religion that Arvan grew up in and from which he was excommunicated. They knew he considered himself an authority on scripture and church matters and probably wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut if he overheard the two of them waxing philosophical.

Mike asked, Dave, how do you deal with people in your congregation who stop coming to church? That clearly hit an earth, because Arvan blurted out with great gusto, you keep trying

“and hoping he said, you need to understand where they are.”

It's like those of us who live by each other in Ogden, where friends and neighbors who help each other, nothing more. We can't talk to you about this, Mike reminded him, you asked for an attorney. This is a gospel discussion. It doesn't have anything to do with what you charged me with.

He argued, as he leaned back in his seat, deflated. Detective Lucas decided it was time to change the mood and began to tell Arvan the story

"And I just laughed, I said, yeah, Arvan you should have seen it, you know, he's finding

down the old interstate and the police officer pulls up and he's really got him a good one here. Mike shows him the badge and he goes, oh, I told Arvan, you can't believe it. You even please make mistakes, you know, everybody makes mistakes. Arvan laughed at the story, yeah, we all make mistakes.

He said through a smile. Lucas turned around to look at him, I don't care who you are, he said, nobody's perfect." "Well, Arvan then started opening up to us and he started to tell us some things.

“And I distinctly remember, Mike going, Arvan, you asked for a lawyer, we can't talk to you."”

And Arvan says, "Well, I really want to tell you. I'll pick it up and I said, oh, man, be careful, why you say this next part, Mike, and

Mike goes, well, we want to like to have you tell us too.

Maybe we ought to call them, lawyer, and see what he says, see if he'll let you talk to us." And Arvan says, "Yeah, let's do that." A task that proved to be much more difficult than either of them expected. "We tried to call this attorney, and we couldn't get him, I mean, this guy is ready to talk.

I mean, he's ready to bust a bubble, let's add it, have it, we got to find this lawyer." It turned out that finding Arvan ended up being easier than finding Arvan's lawyer. While they kept trying to get him on the phone, dispatch sent cops to the lawyer's office to see if he was in. We even had a police officer go over to the lawyer's house and try to get him, but he just

was not home.

“So Mike made a call to Weber County Attorney Reed Richards.”

And Reed asked Mike, so what if he'd done, and Mike told him what we tried to do, and Reed

says, "You know what, if he wants to wave the attorney, he'd have exhausted everything going into it." Arvan Shreeve was ready to confess. As they neared Ogden, Detective Lucas notified the dispatcher that they would be arriving shortly, and asked that a room in the jail be prepared.

The dispatcher told them there was a huge gathering of press outside the building waiting for his arrival. They quickly decided they didn't want to risk escorting Arvan through a phalanx of flashbulbs and shouting reporters, so they called an audible, and pulled into the parking lot of the Utah Highway Patrol in South Ogden, several miles short of the media frenzy.

They had taken a mobile phone with them, relatively uncommon item in 1991, which Lucas used to call dispatch, so their new location wouldn't be broadcast over frequencies that could be monitored by journalists or inquisitive citizens. Mike then checked in with Arvan, and reminded him of the charges he was facing. Are you sure you want to do this?

He asked. He said, "Yeah, I want to tell you." They had gotten Arvan to let down his guard. We said, "Okay, what do you want to tell us?" And so he just opened up.

As they sat in the parking lot, waiting for a highway patrol sergeant to arrive. The bright orange sun reflected off the great salt lake to the west, as it slowly drifted across the cloudless summer sky down to meet the horizon. The two men mostly just listened, as Arvan began to break down the broad strokes of life among his neighborhood group, taking mental notes, every now and then asking for clarification

about who in his story was who. Then Lucas proposed an idea. You know, Arvan, this is really good what you're telling us. He says, "Yeah, I says, but the judge doesn't want to hear it from Mike or me. He'd rather hear it right from you."

He says, "Yeah, I said, we ought to get a tape recorder. And tape record your voice. That way the judge gets to hear it." He says, "What do you mean?" He says, "Well, normally we go back.

We type everything down. You read it. You sign it."

“But I says, "Can you imagine having the tape recording of everything you did?”

The judge is going to hear that. Do you want to go? Man, this guy is really that bad of a guy." And he said, "Okay, this was a play to Arvan's ego. And offering, I'll be at a hollow one, to use the full force of his silver tongue to convince

people to see things his way. He gets to control the narrative. But truthfully, it was better for the prosecution."

If a jury could listen to him saying, "I do not want an attorney.

I want to tell you guys what happened.

“I think you'll understand," versus me just saying in a report, "Yeah, he waived his right.”

I think it's just so much more compelling for a jury to hear him in his own voice with us in the background saying, "Are you sure you want to do this? For that jury to hear him trying to justify why it was all right and that these little children were promiscuous and really kind of pushing him into having these sexual encounters. All of that is incredibly compelling for a jury."

I really wish I could play that audio for you, but unfortunately, it's standard practice for that kind of evidence to be destroyed so many years after an investigation ends.

Anyway, after a few minutes, the sergeant they were waiting for arrived.

He walked everyone into a room in the highway patrol office, where they got a tape recorder set up and asked the sergeant to stay with them for a minute so he could be an independent witness to Arvin waving his right to counsel. "We turned on the tape recorder.

“No, he said, "Okay, Arvin, go ahead and tell us what you want to explain to the court."”

And then we just let him talk and of course we ask questions and he gave a full confession. As Arvin spoke, Mike King and Dave Lucas, who were both highly experienced interrogators, utilized every tool in their tool belt against the cult leader. Mike began by constructing a sort of mental lie detector in his head by asking questions he already knew the answers to and then observing Arvin's non-verbal responses, changes

in facial expressions and body language. When he was being dishonest, Mike noticed a twitching in Arvin's neck and a subtle shifting of the eyes, revealed his discomfort as he answered.

And in Arvin's case, after going through all of this of having him talk about his first

kiss and how it felt to fall in love and what his children were like and all these beautiful flower and puppy dog moments, I then said, "Have you ever had experiences with sex workers?" And his response was immediately "Well, absolutely not." But Mike knew something about Arvin that Arvin didn't know he knew.

Mike had checked his background and knew about his arrest for an encounter with a sex worker years earlier. And I said, "I know you're lying about that because I have that arrest record in my hands." And at that point I leaned back and I said, "The choice is yours because frankly Arvin, I don't care if you die in prison or if I'm able to go to the judge and say you really

were repentant and trying to tell the truth, it's up to you." Both detectives took turns asking Arvin about his beliefs and his community. And Arvin responded with different degrees of deception. They weren't a church, he wasn't a prophet, he even claimed he didn't know his neighbors all that well and pretended to struggle with names.

While Mike would express a little bit of saltiness at Arvin's lies, Lucas doubled down on the suite. He reiterated that what they wanted to do here was give him a chance to explain himself and show the judge who he really was by taking responsibility for his actions. I had told him, I said, "You know, remember, since some of those things that you did,

“he isn't really conducive to being the proper in order for it to get a warrant, you must”

have done something that was not right." He didn't use strong wording, like illegal and against the law, opting instead for softer phrases, like improper and not right. You got to watch the wording as you're talking to people, because if you say the wrong word, "Boodle, they can clam up so fast," then they dropped the bomb. For this next bit, I'm going to read directly from Mike King's book "Deceived," an investigative

memoir of the Zion Society cult. It was time to begin interrogating Arvin on the charges of child sexual abuse. I reached into my briefcase, pulled out a stack of file folders, and placed them on the table. Arvin, we have been very busy over the last few days interviewing the children from your neighborhood, and I want you to know that we have overwhelming evidence against you, enough

to put you in prison for the rest of your life. I paused and watched him closely. Lucas said, "What we're trying to do here, Arvin, is give you a chance to show the judge who you really are, now is the time to tell the truth."

Then it happened.

“In his whole year, then thou demeanor, Arvin began.”

My understanding of the offense you are charging me with is that of a legal, sexual conduct with children.

May I emphasize from the beginning that there was never any element of force, coercion or persuasion.

All contact was initiated by the children in a very natural and casual manner. The purpose of such contact was not lust or sexual gratification, but bonding in the building of a closeness within what was perceived as an eternal family unit. I realize that such is outside the norm of society's accepted standards. I realize also that due to the tendency that some in society have to abuse children,

or use them for personal gratification, that laws must be formed to protect children from such behavior.

However, my actions are perceived.

“I recognize that I am subject to such laws.”

I help you understand that you can't break the laws of the land and not have to pay a penalty. You can't have understood that, "Yeah, you're probably right, I shouldn't have done it." Part of me hoped that he might drop his head in shame and say, "I'm sorry, I did this." But the person that I had studied for a month now at this time, I did not expect him to do anything different than he did.

During his entire interrogation, at no point, did Arvan take any responsibility for his actions, or admit that he was doing anything wrong. Mike and Lucas went through every accusation from each child, one by one. After hearing each name and the details of their assaults, Arvan blamed the child. Every single time.

According to Mike's book, Arvan said one child, in particular, acted "risky" and after detailing his assault on the girl, claimed that it was only bonding. And said she, quote, "seem to encourage the contact." He built this entire religion to satisfy his pedophilia. And then convinced others of it to fuel his fantasies and his desires.

And to me, it was a perfect way to end the interview by realizing that the spots on this leopard are not changing. Disgusted and exhausted, the detectives wrapped up the interrogation.

Although Arvan would never admit to any assaults on boys, and there were several on young boys.

After more than three hours, he confessed to 30 felony sex abuse charges. It was midnight when they left the highway patrol office and drove the last few miles of the day's journey to Ogden. Even at that late hour, there was a mob of media ready to greet them, shouting and taking photos. They ushered Arvan into the building and booked him into jail. There was still a lot of work to do if they wanted to keep him there.

“But would any of his victims speak out against him and the other abusers in the cult?”

Mike told me there are two people, without whom there would not have been a case against the Zion Society. One is Arvan Anderson, whose confession blew the doors open and kick started the whole investigation. The other, you'll meet in the next episode. A 15-year-old girl who stood up in front of her tormentors and whose testimony became the heart of the entire case.

As Mike swung close the steel bars on Arvan's cell, he asked one final question. Arvan, how often did these kinds of things happen? His answer gave the seasoned officer chills. "It was a daily thing," he said flatly. "If I asked you what you had for breakfast last Thursday, you wouldn't know. You would know you had breakfast. Just not what? Or where?" If you or someone you know is experiencing sexual violence, contact the rape abuse and

incest national network at rain.org. That's r-a-i-n-n.org or call the National Sexual Assault

Gardens of Evil inside the Zion Society cult was written narrated and audio-produced by me,

“Aaron Mason, original music by Allison Layton Brown. No generative AI was used in the writing or”

production of this podcast. My sincere thanks to the entire Gardens of Evil Editorial team. Your

feedback was invaluable. Gardens of Evil is based on the book deceived, an investigative memoir of the

“Zion Society cult by Michael R. King, available at profilingevil.com on Amazon or Ingram's bark.”

Mike doughnuts all of his proceeds from the book and this podcast, the fun child advocacy efforts

and criminal justice scholarships. Check out Mike's podcast Profiling Evil where he explores

“unsolved criminal cases from around the world and dives deep into the minds of predators. Find”

Profiling Evil on YouTube or wherever you get podcasts. Executive producers John Goforth and Jeremy Sinon. Gardens of Evil is a production of the gamut podcast network.