S5 E7 - Standing Tall

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Some of the subject matter in this podcast is difficult, including suicide and sexual abuse of adults and children. While the more graphic details will be left out, the specifics can be triggering. Please take care when listening. I mean, I just felt annihilated on that stand.

You know, it's really hard. So, Battle, for me made it the whole thing worth it. You know, through my struggles and the hard time I had,

“how many other children won't have to do that, you know?”

Shelly was 15 years old when Arvin Trieve was arrested. When you were the victims sitting on the stand and they're just so horrible to you, you were ashamed and you're scared. And you feel like you feel like a perpetrator yourself by the way they treat you. As the prosecutions reluctance star witness, few people had it harder during the Zion Society

Court proceedings than Shelly. But before I introduce her, I want to talk about the days and weeks immediately following Arvin's arrest. Detective Mike King, his partner, Dave Lucas, the Weber County Attorney's Office, the newly formed Children's Justice Center and the Ogden City Police Department,

were all running at Full Tilt. We had arrested now 13 individuals and we had probably 750 felony charges that we could have leveled against those individuals. And there were even more people that they were waiting to interview and charge. But our focus because it was such a huge undertaking was to get those most

egregious people first. While a dozen or so adults were now in custody, many more were not. Which meant that the Zion Society Children were still in harm's way. Many had been released back to their parents who often counted among their abusers. But getting warrants was a long and laborious process.

And keep in mind with every interview where you might spend an hour interviewing someone, you could potentially spend 4 to 8 hours just prepping for that one single hour so that you know every nook and cranny and every angle that they might take. As if that wasn't enough to do, when the local community learned that Arvin and other adults from this group in Northwood were being arrested, a whole new floodgate of information opened up.

The phones didn't turn off at that point. They only intensified. From postal workers to paperboys, people called in things they had seen while in the neighborhood. Things that maybe wouldn't normally raise any major flags, but now, in this new context,

“seemed much more sinister. The once secret sect was now in the news.”

One of the journalists who covered the story was Paul Murphy.

Paul first learned of the Zion society on the day of the raid. I was watching everything going on and I was working for a station that decided there were other things going on that day and so they didn't need to send a crew up. And then I went to the neighborhood often and tried to like knock on doors of the people who had not been arrested and didn't get really anywhere with anybody. You knock on the door and they would

vein ignorance and they say, "Oh, no, we're not part of the group." I asked Paul if he ever had the chance

to talk to Arvin. Just what he was going in and out of court, but he would never say anything.

"So sure you guys are anything you like to say? We're going to be sorry." I mean, he just seemed like this friendly old man, but he was marrying 13 and 14-year-old girls. Another reporter haunting the courthouse hallways during all of this was Mike Watkes, with the TV show "A Current Affair."

And we did several stories. Well, Arvin was making his way through, you know, the criminal justice system. We met Mike last episode. One of the days he was in court, we were trying

chasing him around because we still wouldn't get him on camera. This is, you know, before they

lock him up, you want to get that purple walk. So I'm chasing around and he was trying to duck us and everything. But in the last minute he slipped, we see him slip on into an elevator. And so just like, you know, linebackers, we go crashing into that elevator door, pull it open, and now we're in there with Arvin. Poor little guy was scared to death. I mean, you know, it made great television. And when you're, you know, when you're sort of an ambush artist like me, it's it's something

that I love to do. You know, he wasn't going to talk to me, but he was going to have to at least hear the questions. We got him in a, we got him in this elevator for a couple of floors and then

opened up and his lawyer got him out of there and I thought, you know, whatever happens to this guy,

“I can honestly say to his victims, we scared the shit out of him in that elevator.”

Unlike the other adults involved, Arvin moved quickly through the court process. He had already given his taped confession to detectives Mike King and Dave Lucas. So he skipped a handful of appearances one usually makes before they're actual trial date. It was very clear in my mind that Arvin shrieve thought that he was smarter than the system and that his charisma that he had used over and again throughout his life would carry him through this that someone would just say,

oh, the guy made a mistake and he's a good guy and let's move on. I mean, it had worked pretty well for him so far. I don't think he ever expected that it would hit him as hard between the eyes as his charges hit him. Arvin shrieve, the serial pedophile and self-proclaimed profit, pled guilty and was convicted of two counts of Sodomy of a child and two counts of sexual abuse of a child. Now, if you're wondering, why a man who committed thousands of acts of child abuse

“was only brought up on four charges, there is a reason. It's an important part of the story and I'll”

explain more in a bit. But a quick side note, Arvin admitted to many of the allegations against him, but something he refused to own up to was his sexual abuse of boys. The Zion society believed homosexuality was wrong and they were adamant that sex within sister councils was not considered lesbian. Arvin just flat out denied doing anything with boys, but we know he did. One of them was his own grandson, whom I spoke with, and he confirmed to me at least one instance of Arvin

sexually abusing him and another boy when they were both around five or six years old. Regardless, Arvin's shrieve was now a convicted child predator and all that was left was determining his punishment. My king, as he did with all the Zion society cases, attended Arvin's sentencing. When Arvin did something unusual, Arvin asked if I could come and stand next to him during the sentencing. And again, I mean, this, I'm the guy that has just spent a long, long time putting him in

“prison for the rest of his life. He didn't know how long it was going to be. And I think he's still”

fantasized in his mind that he could control the narrative, that he could manipulate the court and that he would somehow show look. I'm a changed man to show you how changed I am. I'm going to even have the investigator come up and stand with me. And so I looked at the county attorney who said, why not? Arvin's shrieve was given 20 years to life in prison.

and it was really quite an experience. I remember reaching up and patting him on the back and saying,

“good luck to you, Arvin. I'll check on you in prison.”

All in all, from his arrest to his sentencing, Arvin's time in the court system was only about three months. And although he was responsible for far more than he was actually charged with, it was clear that the 61-year-old sheave was going to die in prison. The same cannot be said for the cult's other abusers. I'm Aaron Mason, and this is Gardens of Evil, inside the Zion Society cult,

episode seven, standing tall.

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There was another member of the Zion Society that you could argue was just as if not more responsible for the abuses that occurred within the cult as Arvan. His loyal lieutenant, Carla. While she actively participated in the sexual abuse of children, Carla also identified groomed and facilitated their abuse for Arvan in a way that might draw comparisons to Jelaine Maxwell's relationship with Jeffrey Epstein. Unlike Arvan, Carla's case dragged on for years.

Her daughter, Shelley. When this podcast project began, I knew getting people to talk about this time in their lives might be difficult, and many said no, and I was respectful of that. There were a few people, though, who I really wanted to hear, tell their story in their words, but were firmly in the absolutely not column. One was the woman who blew this case wide open, who were calling Erin Anderson. From what little information I've been able to

cobble together, it seems like Erin has decided to move on and has no interest in looking back at this period in her life. Another was Jeff Peterson and Carla's daughter, Shelley. Shelley and her younger brother were at the center of Jeff's battle to get his kids out of

“the cult and away from their mother Carla. Remember the private investigators' wife who went”

undercover and videotaped the lingerie fashion show? 15-year-old Shelley was one of the model.

When I first talked to Jeff in early 2024, I asked how his kids were doing all these years later.

They're pretty good. As long as you don't bring it up, you even talked to my daughter about it, she falls apart, literally falls apart. He said his son, Shelley's younger brother, was the same way. They can't, they can't talk about it, they can't, they can't, they can't do it. Shelley couldn't. Physically could not even talk to her dad about her past, but I believed her experience was unique and important, so I told Jeff if his daughter ever opened up. I'd listen. To be honest,

“I never expected to hear from her. But I did. Something happened, which you'll hear about later,”

in the episode, and Shelley decided she wanted to share her story. It started when she was seven, and her mom Carla abandoned her family and moved in with the cult. And that's when I still leave little notes for my dad calling them. I wanted to live with my mom. Visitation continued on and off for another three years, until Shelley said they stopped going to Northwood all together. And then I secretly started calling her on the phone when I was 12

and sending her notes. Shelley stepped mom Kate, found out about the messages, and confronted her stepdaughter. Shelley copped to the clandestine communication and said she wanted to visit her mom. And so they let me go. And I returned 13 and I refused to get out of the car when my mom and I don't remember which other ladies were with her. Whoever I was in the car with, and they were dropping me off my dad. I just said no. I'm not getting out. And then we're home with my mom.

“Shelley had a great relationship with her stepmom. So I asked her, why were you so determined to leave?”

I wanted my mom. I wanted a mother. I mean, she was my mom. She was amazing mom, but um,

every little girl wants her mother. And I just wanted, I wanted her to hold me and tell me it was pretty. Walked me through life. But her desire to be with her mom wasn't part of Arvin's plan. The Zion Society intentionally kept children away from their families. They don't do parents. I'm sure you found that out. There's no parents. So um, just I think it was a facade to get me in. Here's your mom. There she goes. She's there. She's gone. Um, they had a house in my mom's

name. So I thought I was going to live there. But they I just bounced between there's four houses that were in the sisterhood and I just bounced between the four houses. I just want to address something quickly. Shelley is a nervous laughter. I do it too. The American Medical Association says that nervous laughter, smiling or joking during the disclosure of traumatic events is a common involuntary coping mechanism or stress response. It can happen for all kinds of reasons, but

it's not a sign that the story is untrue or unimportant. So she was no longer just a visitor.

Shelley was there to stay and that is when things began to change. I always remembered a little

weirdness from day one, but it wasn't until I came back and I refused to get out of the car

volumes of teaching materials. They began with the more religious stuff, sisterhood and pre-mortal existence. Those things didn't shock her. Shelley says, "It's what came next." The porn, they pulled out porn and I immediately freaked and it was like, "You guys are perverted. I was pretty upset and they would push me in a room and isolate me. Tell me that I was along and what was wrong. Make me feel like I was like this terrible person for even implying

things like that and I couldn't come out and tell I had to agree with them and do what I was told." And so that happened quite a few times where I would dig my feet in and say, "No," and they would

be like, "Okay, well, you're the one that's, you know, and I always felt like I was locked in

the room, but as an adult, I realized it probably wasn't even a walk on the door. I just didn't know I could leave." I never tried. I just sat in the corner and just wept, you know. So here we have 13 year old Shelley trying to stand her ground, trying to establish a boundary. But the pressure from the group was just too much for her to withstand. It was just a lot of emotional abuse. It was hard because you'd learn from the older girls and

“you have to teach the younger girls or you'd learn from the adults, you have to teach the”

younger kids. Shelley recalls one of the young girls specifically. I loved her so much and I was so hard to have to train her in something. I was just bolting about myself, you know. I was locked in my room because I wouldn't do this and now I have to teach you like stripping. You know, I didn't want to do it and then I'd turn around and teach her and I loved her and I didn't want to, you know, it was hard. It was exhausting.

Victims of abuse forced to perpetrate abuse who then blame themselves and suffocate under a lifetime of shame is an incredibly destructive loop. But at the same time I look at people like the girls that are older than me and I don't harbor any animosity towards them. I know what they were going through. I went through the same thing. Remember, in many of these instances, we're talking about children and teenagers. It's people like the ladies, the adult mothers that

you're, after you're on my my stuff every day that I need to forgive for me, not for them, but so that I don't destroy my body and hate, you know, I have to let go. But they're the ones that I struggle with. One of those women was her own mother, Carla. Now I don't believe in

ranking traumas. I would never look at two people's hardships and say this person had it worse than

that person. But your experience can be different if your parent is in a position of authority and being Carla's daughter, that is what Shelley's time in the Zion society was like. I personally felt picked on because my mom couldn't see me anyway and when she did, it was a demand of some stupid sexual thing she'd need me to do for someone. It was, you know, it was never, she came

“walking up. You weren't excited. But I think sometimes other people saw this as I got attention,”

you know, and I just wasn't attention I wanted. I don't know that they knew some of the stuff I had to do. I don't know what the girls had to do some of it. So like if they took me in a car for a ride, I don't know if they knew that they were taking me to a hotel room with another man. You know,

I don't know if they had that experience I've never heard. But I know I was told I couldn't talk

about it. I just felt like she'd always used me as the gitty pig for crap. But they sent me out dancing for other, the other couples in the group too. You know, that was weird. Like, would you spend your life out to the dance for your paper? It's stupid. And then the, the couple of guys, and then like, she made me like show my grandpa my underwear and the whole time I'm eating. I'm just like sick because I know this is something I have to do before the end of being able to

see him. So the very end is hurrying and just like, you know, I need these and put my dress down

“and ran to the car. You know, if they grab a lot, I don't want to do this. You know, what's terrifying?”

But she's, she's, she's just gross. Carla either sexually abused or facilitated the sexual abuse of some of her other children too. And she told me what she did to my little sister when she was a baby and on. And she's laugh and you're just like, why is that funny? You know, like, I don't, I can't comprehend the mentality of these adults. No where and no one was safe for the children of the Zion society. But in the summer of 1991, things changed.

and sends me up the Idaho to my aunt. They didn't invest if no one was a raid because they were

preparing everything. They were like, they're going to come. They can't get you if you're in Idaho. Not long after the raid, police tracked down now 15-year-old Shelley.

“Two cops, one I think was my king and then another one that he was just me. He was so mean”

and I was just sat there with my lips shut and just just, you know, like, go away. She did exactly as she had been taught to do. But after a week or so, Arvan lifted the gag order he had given the group about talking to law enforcement, probably in an attempt to appear cooperative,

even if it meant throwing everyone else under the bus.

And my mom sent me that card and she was like, go ahead and talk, tell him whatever, tell him everything and I'm like, okay, but I remember, I told them I'd only talked to my car. I was like, I will only talk to this one detective that was nice to me. I told him everything. In Ogden, the wheels of justice were turning. A couple days after someone is arrested, they go before a judge for a formal reading of the charges against them.

After which, the judge sets a date for a preliminary hearing. That is where the prosecution presents enough evidence that a judge says, yeah, let's take this to trial. We were county attorney and lead prosecutor read Richards. Defense attorneys at the time found out as a convenient forum to try to scare the

“daylights out of a victim. Remember when I said there was a reason Arvan was only charged”

with four counts as opposed to the many, many he could have been? This is why. Mike King says the prelimbs often got ugly. The defense in those days could be more aggressive with the witness on the stand than they would ever dare try to be in front of a jury. So we would see children having to really take the brunt of some pretty direct and hard-hitting questions from the defense. And in some cases, not all cases, but some cases,

that interrogation of the victim became so strannuous that the victim no longer wanted going into court for trial. I said, we don't care if he goes free, we don't want to go through that again. Criminal charges depend on the testimony of the victims who, in this case, were children.

“If defense attorneys could shut these kids down at the preliminary hearing,”

they might be able to get the charges tossed before their clients even have to enter a plea. Not to mention, if they did make it through this gauntlet, the kids would have to do it all over again at trial and this time face to face with their accused abusers. Things have changed since 1991, but back then, children were dragged through this process over and over again. In the Zion Society case, 13 different people were charged with crimes.

That would mean 13 different hearings for an original initial appearance. 13 preliminary hearings and potentially 13 trials. Not to mention, many of the child victims would have to testify multiple times about several different people. And the idea of not only having them do it 13 times, but if it goes to trial, having them do it 26 times is too tremendous of a cost. One instance really brought this home. Carla's son, who was the other boy, abused alongside

Arvin's grandson, was scheduled to testify against a number of adults, including his mother.

He was interviewed first at the Children's Justice Center, where he answered their questions,

but his step mom Kate says he was in a very fragile state. He was really, really unhappy. Of course, when we got in there, he got up on the stand, took one look at the one gal and shut down and they got nothing. Here's Kate's husband, Jeff Peterson. My son, he's sitting on the chair and court and he curls up in a little ball. Starts trying.

been done in private, in another room. Jeff then refers to the boy's mom, Carla.

“And she had been gone for a long time if he had testified. The stuff that happened to him.”

There were things Carla was accused of that carried big sentences that didn't stick because her son couldn't testify. Step mom Kate believes Carla trafficked her son as well. She said the boy told her Carla would take him out to a house. To a man's house and she would leave him and I said, well, why would she leave you at a house? She said, well, she told me I had work to do and that I was to go do some work.

Oh, I said what kind of work was it? Did it was it in the yard?

And he said, oh, no, and then he wouldn't tell me. And I immediately was like, oh, boy,

and this is not good. And so I said, so at what point did you go home? And he says, well, when I went home, I went out in the driveway to get in the car and she gave money to the man

“and then we left. And then later he did tell me that that's what was going on.”

So Reed Richards devised a strategy to keep the children away from as much harm inherent to the court system as they could, while still getting maximum penalties for their abusers. In exchange for pleading guilty, the accused could avoid most of the 750 felony charges that Mike says could have been levelled against the group.

And that became a very powerful bargaining chip. And that led to a number of the defendants

deciding to plead guilty, which kept many of the Zion society children from having to testify. And that was probably more on our mind than than the trying of the cases. You get all these kids that now are in the process of hopefully recovering. I don't know that we did as good a job then as we would now, but at least they were out of the group for the time being and out of the influence of Arvan. And try to keep them from having to go back

to court and actually testify in court, middle off. And there's a lot of reason to try to do what you can do if you can get what you think is the maximum you get anyway and do that without having to put the kids through the trauma of testifying and going through the court process. That's a win win in my mind. But not all the children were spared. There's just no right way. There was nothing that could have been right. That's Shelley. It was cool. How do you stand there in front of someone

that you're scared to death of or that you your whole life just wanted to please and then you know like oh my gosh, scary as heck. Shelley did what many of the others couldn't or wouldn't. The children were not terribly helpful. Shelley certainly was, but many of the others either wouldn't talk or would just talk in a limited way. They'd been trained to not answer questions and many of them didn't answer questions. Some of them did. So we had good cases against some and not such good

cases against others. Like I said, victim testimony is often the difference maker. As the defense dragged her character through the mud called her a liar and tried to discount all of her experiences, Shelley stood tall again and again for years as they worked through all 13 charged adults. I know I didn't want to do any of it. I changed my last name. I used my aunt's last name in Idaho.

“If he came like a really hidden person, I just didn't want to be seen. And I just remember being asked”

the same thing over and over and over and over and then you'd have to relive it and relive it. I was scared to death that the people are charging and we're going to come get me. The county attorneys office did everything it could to bring charges against Carla and over a dozen other Zion society adults that would compel them to plead guilty. So as to spare the 32 children involved in these abuse cases from repeated traumatization while seeking the maximum penalty.

Eventually all saw their day in court, but you might not like the result. The punishment is supposed to fit the crime. That's the core of justice. Now I don't know what exactly should be done to people who commit the vial and despicable offenses, the adults in the Zion society committed. But I do know, in this case, justice was not served. So in some cases we were seeing sentences that were so light that it was

be allowed to go into a halfway house and then with good behavior, get a shortened sentence.

“Well, that was really troubling especially to many of the victims who said, "Are you really”

telling me that I went through all of this?" And this individual only spent three or four months behind bars, particularly many of the women predators were given lighter sentences than we had hoped for. One possible explanation is that most of the defense attorneys portrayed their clients not as perpetrators of child abuse, but as victims of our ventreve. One of the places where I feel like I may have really failed in this entire investigation

was not spending more time on the behavior of the predator that showed that this was not a mistake

or a belief in a religion that this was truly predatory behavior and that they were people who understood what was right and wrong and they chose to do it anyway.

“Carla, Arvin's second in command, pleaded guilty to charges of "sautomy on a child,"”

attempted aggravated sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of a minor, and dealing harmful material to a minor, which landed her a 10-year-to-life sentence. Personally, I felt like she was still getting off with an awfully light sentence, considering the magnitude and the role that she played in the Zion society cult, and yet we had committed that we would not level the many, many, many, felony charges that could have been leveled against her in exchange for that guilty plea.

I just don't think we ever anticipated that the court would be as lenient with the women predators as they were at that particular time. An article from the Associated Press dated March 31, 1996, that's roughly four years after she was sentenced, says quote,

“"A first-degree felony conviction for a child's "sautomy was overturned last December by”

second district judge Michael Glassman. He ruled she had been incorrectly charged by the state

with child's "sautomy because her alleged victim, her daughter, was 14 years old at the time, not 13." End quote. It's a heck of a technicality. When she was in prison, my family moved to Texas and I felt pretty alone and we connected, and I thought maybe this is when I get to have my biological mother, you know, maybe because in the group she was very, um, spacey like she couldn't see you. She couldn't respond. She was

in another world all the time. We didn't call her mom, but she just wasn't available emotionally ever. Carla did not end up serving her full sentence and was released early due to good behavior. It's like, oh my gosh, maybe I can have my mom. She's changed. She's a different person. So when she came out, we did have contacts. We did reconnect and I was pretty hopeful that that it was going to be good. My brothers were extremely reluctant, but we tried to reformulate a

family with her. She's just not there and not healthy and she's not safe. She just lives in the town next to me, probably five minutes away, and there are people who go in and out of her door that are from this cult that I don't want to see that I'm scared to death of. Shelley says some of the leopards haven't changed their spots. It sounds like they needed to be there longer than they got. They didn't learn any lessons. Maybe that's too much of a blanket

statement because I don't know where everybody is, but in talking to the women, none of them seem to feel like any of their parents were killed or no one's like, oh my parents, great. You know, I don't hear that. Although he was behind bars, Arvin continued to exert influence over his followers. Phone calls in prison are recorded and my king kept tabs on Arvin by reviewing his.

And what I found was very disturbing that he was continuing to meet with members of the cult on the regular basis through phone calls, through visits to the prison by family members and others. And during those visits, there were recorded conversations that supported the idea

was by prison standards pretty good. In fact, they used him at the prison to do landscaping for

“the prison, I believe. Because of this grandfatherly figure and frankly, his ability to manipulate”

others, I think that he created some friends around him. And oftentimes, child abusers are treated poorly, but he was in the sex offender unit at the prison. So he was not with other violent predators who might, you know, look at that much differently than other sexual predators. An article in the Desirette News mentioned Arvin spent his early years in prison recording narration for the state's books on tape program and that those tapes were sent out to libraries

all across Utah. I figured since we've talked so much about his oratory skills and the way people responded to his voice, it would be interesting to hear him. As I've mentioned before, all audio from the investigation was destroyed. So I tried to track down one of those books on tape but couldn't find anything. That said, I do have one recording of Arvin's Shreeve. And this is difficult. I debated playing it on this podcast for two reasons.

One, there are people involved in this story who are going to hear this and could be very triggered by hearing their abusers voice. I want to protect them. The other reason is selfish. I want to hear Arvin's sad, defeated, miserable. I want shot in Friday, but that is not what this is. In episode three, I played for you the only audio I had of Aaron Anderson's real voice. It was from a training, Mike King organized in the early 2000s where around 500 law enforcement

officers could get insights on how cults recruit and operate from people who were directly involved with them. Well, Arvin was there too. One of the reasons Mike King wrote his book deceived the one this podcast is based on was to learn what law enforcement could do differently

so that the tragedies of the Zion society would never be repeated. It was in that spirit that Mike

asked Aaron and Arvin and others to speak that day. He told me it's rare that cops hear directly from leaders of these coercive groups. I'm going to play a clip of Arvin just this once and I won't cut back to him again. It's about 45 seconds long. I'm not asking you to accept my past.

“I'm just asking you, can we have a rapport as to human beings? And that's what what have”

solved an awful lot of problems in the past and you're going to be facing a lot of these communities. Well, our all of these people are going to turn into child with users. Of course, not. And if you go out with the attitude of law enforcement and anybody who's banding together is a group, I've got some skull degree going on. You may find that you're wasting an awful lot of time. Talk to them, get to know them. I congratulate you, Mike. I want you to go with that group

in mankind. It is the proper approach. I don't know whether they've got problems or not. I don't suspect anything, but for heaven's sake, don't isolate them. Mike recalls being in the room and being surprised as Arvin, who had been locked up for 10 years at this point, began to speak. Like he hasn't skipped a beat in being able to talk to the crowd and try to manipulate through word and emotion. And we had to remind ourselves, this was a debate champion when he was a young

man. And so he was clearly very good at being very bad. Even after spending so much time learning

about this story and telling you that things aren't always as they seem, I still had an idea in my

mind about what this predator must have been like and was wrong. Something else that struck me about that clip was Arvin's plea for connection. Odd from a man who spent years isolating people

“from their loved ones. But what I think he's really doing there is trying to squeeze into a spot”

to control the situation. When he tells a room full of cops, don't assume that every group is doing something bad, get to know them. What I hear is get close to me so I can try to exert my power over you. Arvin Shreeve would spend another eight years incarcerated in the Utah State prison until he died of natural causes on August 10, 2009 at the age of 79. I had a dance boy that I have a dance.

statically happy. I asked everyone. I interviewed for this story where they were and how they felt

“when they learned Arvin died. The reactions varied, but they usually fell into one of two categories,”

catharsis or indifference. The first thought I had is how little I had thought about him. I was very

grateful that I could have cared less what happened Arvin Shreeve after that. But I hoped that it brought some semblance of justice to the victims. Jeff Peterson, Shelley's dad, was, let's say, not sad. We had cupcakes. Shelley told me she heard the news from her mother, Carla. I didn't care, like, whatever. I didn't even want to talk about him. I don't even bring him up to me. I was just even offended that she'd even think that I would want to hear that. I don't care.

Why are you even telling me? She was telling her because Carla was concerned about Arvin's first and only legal wife, Joanne, who was now in her late 70s. She was worried that Joanne needed some order to live. Like, what are they going to do to Joanne? What about Joanne? I'm like, this is when I started connecting that my mother was still the same person. And so it was, I was, I was, I was born out of her. I was in Switzerland. This is Carrie, who you met in episode five. She talked about

having reoccurring nightmares about Arvin and being with him on the day of the raid. And my mom called me on the phone to tell me. I felt like, oh, okay, I don't care.

“Thanks for letting me know. I mean, I think she was upset about it.”

Well, it's hard because my mom frequently treats me like I believe that stuff, right? She still treats me like I'm going now to darkness because I've protected all of this stuff. And so I think she expected me to have some emotion for his loss. And I didn't, I was relieved that he was gone.

And I was never after on and dim or see him. We've heard from Andrea several times. She and Amber were

the ones who first reached out to Mike back in 2018. And I'd say she had the most surprising response out of everyone. I had a whole dream about Arvin the night before he came to me in my dream. When I was going to school in Santa Monica College, I was sitting at my table doing schoolwork and my phone was there and I got a text from Amber. And she said Arvin died last night in prison. And I'm sitting at my schoolwork and I look at the text and I process that.

“So I'm pretty convinced he came to me after he died. Yeah, wild, right?”

Because the imagery in my dream was he was digging a grave as he was talking to me. He was just digging a grave like I'm just doing some labor here while we're chatting. And he wasn't coming to say, I'm so sorry for all my actions, which I think would have been less impactful. His message was I was so wrong. I was wrong. I mean, I can't say it changed much my life at the time, but it was

really powerful to have that experience. It was helpful. Arvin Shreeve was dead. But the trauma he left

behind was radioactive. And when he died in 2009, many of those he abused were still suffering in darkness. Several of the cult survivors you've heard from in this series have only recently been able to confront their paths and talk about what happened to them. And one of the most powerful moments of healing came last spring in May 2025. It's the early afternoon of May 21st, 2025, and I'm on a flight to Salt Lake City from my home in

Seattle. For months, Mike King has been telling me I had to come to Utah for this ribbon-cutting ceremony for a new children's justice center, where CJC, and he says it's going to be something special.

Zion Society children arrived in vans after the raid in Northwood. It started out in an old house,

“moved a few times since then, but this new building was designed from the ground up specifically”

to be a place where kids can be comfortable and safe with art and activities and toys while they go through the daunting process of investigating child abuse. As I pull up in my rental car, I am struck at how beautiful the setting is for this place. Perched a top of hill overlooking a river and flanked by mountains. The building looks like a fancy, small private school. There's stonework and landscaping and a ruthless sculpture garden in the center.

There's a big white tent set up in the parking lot. Swing and the gusty wind on this warm clear spring morning. There may be a hundred chairs set up underneath that tent,

“and by the time the dedication ceremony starts at 10 a.m., it is standing room only.”

Thank you everybody for being here. My name is Rod Layton. I've been the director for 22 years and I'm going to... I'm shocked at how many people are here. A non-profit group is opening its new facility, Big Whop. I thought there would be a few suits and maybe some volunteers,

but the community is here. It's my first glimpse that this thing is different.

I crouch up beside the front row, adorned in my huge black headphones and awkwardly wrangling cables while I point my mic at the podium. I see my king and former county attorney read Richards. There are former and current directors, volunteers, CJC staff as well as officials

“from local government and the LDS church. Utah's attorney general, Derek Brown, an Olympic gold”

metal skier, peekaboo street. Friends and family are here, law enforcement, and a whole swath of people whose lives have been touched by this organization, including Zion Society survivors. Half a dozen or so women in their forties and fifties are sitting beside one another in the front row. A few I recognize from having spoken with them for this podcast, a few I don't. Read Richards is at the podium, talking about changes he's helped make in the law since

the Zion Society case. And so I've worked now for 40 years to try to change that. We've passed two constitutional amendments, providing for victims rights in the state of Utah under the state constitution. We've passed nearly hundreds of pieces of legislation to assist victims and part of that, rolls over to what we're talking about today. One of the amendments passed said that in preliminary hearings recorded interviews of children could be used instead of forcing them

to testify. And in the vast majority of the cases, that's the only time that the child's testimony is heard. Most of these cases don't go to trial. So by passing those constitutional amendments at all of you voted on, we've kept the children from having to testify in most cases at all during the criminal justice process. Also, we found that... Then Dawn, Arvin's granddaughter,

got up to speak. She was one of the first Zion Society kids to arrive at the original CJC,

the morning of the raid. I was walked into a little room that had child-sized tables and chairs and some toys and paper and crayons. And there was a TV on a roller cart with a VCR so we could watch Disney cartoons and a very nice lady who helped some of the kids make cookies. And I was stubborn and uncooperative and absolutely terrified. But what I didn't understand in that moment was that I had just been saved. And ultimately, I've come to realize that a lot has been learned

in 30 years. And seeing how the culmination of that knowledge is being put to use in this building behind me now has been very healing. Because what you do here and how you do it matters and makes an enormous difference in the lives of the children that have to come through here. After Dawn came Andrea. The slow rebuilding of yourself after trauma is a painful, messy and brave journey. It takes time and tenderness and a lot of support. That's why the Children's Justice

in one of the most disorienting painful moments of their lives and offers them stability, safety,

“and hope. So to see this amazing building open today, it's deeply meaningful. It sends a message”

to children being removed from abuse right now. We are here for you. Not just the moment of intervention, but in the long, complicated journey that follows. You are not alone and your life has value. Now it's ribbon-cutting time and a big group of folks crowd around the giant scissors for a photo of. Then, with a snip, the center is open. As everyone filters inside the building, I see people from the giant society past. Cheryl Noggle, who went undercover as the lingerie buyer, talking

with some of the women who were in the fashion show she recorded. Joan Helstrom, who was there the day the children arrived at the CJC, baking cookies in grandma's house, is running around like a tornado, pinging from person to person. Joan, by the way, is a force of nature. A truly

incredible woman who I'd wager knew the name of everyone there that day. I walk outside and pass

a cluster of survivors as Mike approaches them, escorting another woman over to the group who hasn't been mingling like the others. She has dark sunglasses on and is visibly nervous. I actually remember seeing her sitting in the back during the ceremony, head down, shrinking back in her chair,

“like she would have disappeared if she could. Do you remember Shelly?”

Hey, I know! I can't believe it! Okay, wow, bring it up! Thanks for all the air! This was the first time Shelly had seen any of these women since their days in the cult and vice versa.

Remember when I said earlier that Shelly was in the absolutely not column?

Well, this was absolutely not Shelly. She was still having a really hard time, but she was here. She told me when Mike initially invited her to the ribbon cutting. It didn't even dawn on her that she'd run into anyone. She said if it had, she probably wouldn't have gone. But I showed up. I wasn't the back. I typically very early person. So what was there for a while? I didn't just walk in. My dad wasn't very yet. So I waited outside for him.

“So I could see Mike King. I was pretty sure that was him. And I thought I started seeing other girls,”

but I couldn't place them. And Mike came back and asked me if I'd meet them. And my entire body just started shaking. I was so scared. And he brought me in and pushed me into home. And it was just shaking. My knees were shaking. Everything was shaking. And they were beautiful. They wanted to hug me. And they were just very beautiful about seeing each other again after so long. Shelly's step mom Kate. We sat in the back and she held my hand hard and was shaking.

And I thought this is going to be okay. I'm not saying anything to her. This is going to be okay. She's working through this and pretty soon she moved away from me and pretty soon she's standing on her by Mike. And pretty soon she did great. And it's been great ever since. Mike begins to wrangle the Zion Society folks over to a big wall just inside the main entrance. And ask me if I can help him find any stragglers. So as I walk down one of the back hallways,

I run into Joan Heldstrom and Andrea. Andrea is holding a small quilt. It's sobbing. Yeah. Tell me what you're doing right now. I want her. These quilts were made for the children when they get in your view or after. So when I came and saw them, the rooms, I went at no. We got to have quilts. Because they're together for 11 comfort. Yeah. So as I'm talking, I thought, you've got to come and choose your quilt to take a

stuffed animal. Joan has an army of volunteers who make quilts that are then given to each child that comes through the CJC. Love and comfort when they need it most. I needed more of a 34 years ago. I'm going to quite get it and I had to give it to myself and that's okay. Good. This I figured it out. But to get it right when you leave the scene is extraordinary. This is all extraordinary. The survivors I've talked about in this podcast didn't feel like they had

Andrius of the world aren't left on their own ever again. Back at the wall by the entrance,

“Mike has everyone gathered around a small bronze plaque. He reads the inscription aloud.”

Dedicated to the survivors of the Zion Society called first to benefit from the children's Justice Center 1991. I've noticed something in the last hour or so. People's faces have changed. The air is lighter. I get the feeling that some of them don't

feel as alone as they once did. It's really powerful. There's a lot of love in this place.

As things wind down, Mike pulls me aside and invites me to lunch with the survivors and their families at a nearby restaurant. So I put away my gear and go to meet them. There must have been 25 of us at the Union Grill that afternoon, sitting shoulder to shoulder on benches and booths at one gigantic table in the back. If a new person walked in, someone would shimmy over and make just enough space for the new arrival to be crammed in and handed

him in you. To be around that many remarkable people, fighters was inspiring.

I saw a wider spectrum of human resilience than I ever had. No one here is defined by their experience. They are dynamic, intelligent, accomplished, caring, brave people. And no one had the same path to get here. It reminds me that there isn't one type of person who gets caught up in cults or abusive situations. It truly can happen to anyone. Here they were. As children, flowers plucked from the only soil they'd known. But did they wither and die? No. They found purchase in good earth and

began to grow again. I didn't record at lunch. It was a safe space and I wasn't going to puncture

it. And I'm glad I didn't. It was incredibly special. When I started making this podcast, I was on the outside. Many of the people I reached out to were hard knows in the beginning. But here I was, being invited to the inner circle. I will forever be grateful to each of them for trusting me with their stories and sharing themselves with all of us.

“I'll never forget looking across the table at Shelley, flanked by family and new friends,”

thinking about how she arrived only hours before, terrified, and sunk in into herself. Now, laughing and smiling and full of joy, able to shed more of the weight she'd been carrying for so long. This is quite a bit for my life. It struggled with self-force. If a boy were to tell me I was pretty, I would have done anything for him and I had no self-worth at all. It was terrible. It was awful. I want to be, I don't want to be me. I don't want to be here.

I didn't want to, I just don't want to be anything, you know? It's been a long road for Shelley, but she has a family who loves and admires her, and now a new group of friends to lean on. It was a healing that I didn't even know I needed after I've reminded myself that I don't need to be a victim anymore. I'm not 15, and I'm safe. It's awkward. You're not sure how to speak to anyone, so it was a very awkward

and now we're on text message group together, so I'm getting to know them a little bit. As I sat there and I listened to some of the women tell their stories and I watched my, because I had my stepmom and my dad with me, and I watched them, I just, it opened my eyes to see how many other people were victims. I had people who understood and, like, someone actually knows, like, I did, I forgot. Someone went through what I went through and could not just stand

“how I felt. You know, I think the hardest thing about being a child of abuse or of any type”

is just feeling like maybe you're not worthy, and nobody cares that you deserve it.

It's hard when these things happen to us and we don't feel like we have anywhere to reach,

“but you're not alone. I would have liked to have known that I wasn't alone. You're not alone.”

We're here and we're family and together if we can stand together and be brave, we can beat it. [Music]

This is where our story ends, but for the survivors, healing is a continual process.

“Over the next several weeks, Detective Mike King will sit down with the women who survived the”

Zion Society, sharing their truths, their pain, and how they're reclaiming their lives

after their experiences in the cult. There is much more to share with you. So stay tuned.

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 dot-o-r-g, or call the National Sexual Assault”

Hotline at 800-656-hope. Both services are free, confidential, and available 24/7. 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 to fund child advocacy efforts and criminal justice scholarships. Check out Mike's podcast ProfilingEvil, where he explores unsolved criminal cases from around the world and dives deep into the minds of predators. Find ProfilingEvil on YouTube or wherever you get podcasts.

Executive producers John Goforth and Jeremy Simon. Gardens of Evil is a production of the Gamet podcast network.