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In this episode of Serial Streamers Jami walks listeners through the 2026 Netflix documentary series, Trust Me: The False Profit. From 2019 to 2022, Samuel Bateman led a breakaway polygamist FLDS sect in the aftermath of Warren Jeff's imprisonment. The sect of loyal Warren Jeffs followers were struggling and vulnerable when Bateman showed up in their Short Creek community, near the border of Arizona and Utah. Bateman declared himself the successor of Warren Jeffs and used religious authority to control his followers and sexually abuse minors. In 2016, Christine Marie, a survivor of abuse by a religious cult leader, ingratiated herself to the Short Creek FLDS community. She, along with her partner, Tolga Katas, began gathering evidence that would ultimately lead to Bateman's arrest, conviction and imprisonment. Follow Jami Rice on IG, TikTok and YouTube @jamionair. Watch Serial Streamers on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jamionair and subscribe so you don't miss out on the latest documentary recaps. Check out Jami's other podcasts: Dirty Money Moves: Women in White Collar Crime: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dirty-money-moves-women-in-white-collar-crime/id1619521092 Bravo's Most Wanted: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bravos-most-wanted-with-jami-rice-and-katie-ginella/id1896791981 Want to advertise on this podcast? We've partnered with Cloud10 Media to handle our advertising requests. If you're interested in advertising on MURDERISH, send an email to Sahiba Krieger sahiba@cloud10.fm with a copy to jami@murderish.com. Visit Murderish.com for more info about the show and Creator/Host, Jami Rice. Remember …cults are stupid, Ted Bundy is ugly, scammers suck at life, and binge-watching true crime documentaries IS self care! Stay safe out there! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Christine Marie is a Ceremonial Medicine Woman who specializes in holding safe and sacred spaces for healing and transformation through plant spirit facilitation, shamanic reiki healing, and spoken-word sound journeying. Additionally, she has a Bachelors in Nursing (BSN) and is a published author who has years of experience in helping men and women heal from C-PTSD, physical ailments, toxic relationships, and disempowerment.Two years into her nursing field, she realized the limitations that western medicine had to offer in treating the root cause of emotional and physical disease. As she began to heal herself through holistic modalities and plant medicine, she felt the call to bridge the gap between western and holistic health by opening up her own private practice.Her history in western medicine combined with her knowledge in alternative therapies offers you the experience of feeling safe and sovereign in your freedom of self-expression and healing.Christine Marie's personal survivorship from abuse, neglect and body violation deeply shifted when she started to reclaim her voice and power while working within non-ordinary states of consciousness. She has made it her life's mission to support you in discovering emotional, physical, and spiritual wholeness and well-being. www.christinemarieheals.comwww.instagram.com/christinemarieheals
Samuel Bateman is incarcerated in a federal facility serving a fifty-year sentence. He maintains regular telephone contact with followers. A meaningful number of the women and girls removed from his FLDS offshoot — including individuals Christine Marie personally helped extract — have reportedly returned to his sphere of influence. Adult wives continue to identify him as their prophet. The conviction and sentence have not disrupted his operational control over the belief system he constructed.The pattern has direct precedent. Warren Jeffs has maintained influence over FLDS members from a Texas prison cell for over a decade. Bateman is replicating the same dynamic with the same psychological infrastructure — what Christine Marie characterizes as an "IV of indoctrination" delivered through regular telephone contact.Christine Marie addresses what she has learned about the content of Bateman's prison communications with followers. She identifies the division between women who have permanently separated from the group and those who have returned — and the social consequences for those who left, including potential reclassification as fallen or as enemies of the faith. She confronts the clinical and moral question she returns to repeatedly: whether some adults who have been conditioned within high-control religious environments from birth can be reached through intervention, or whether some individuals are functionally unable to construct identity outside coercive structures.Short Creek remains structurally intact. The theology, the isolation mechanisms, and the obedience hierarchy that produced both Jeffs and Bateman continue to operate. Robin Dreeke and Shavaun Scott examine why the FLDS persists when comparable organizations — NXIVM, Peoples Temple — collapsed following their leaders' removal. They address Faith Bistline's circumstances — having lost her family to Bateman and now raising the children affected by his conduct. They evaluate what intervention methods demonstrate efficacy with children in high-control religious environments and the competing harms of removal versus continued exposure. Both experts address directly whether the conditions at Short Creek are likely to produce another leader operating on the same model — or whether the community possesses the capacity to interrupt the cycle.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ShortCreek #TrustMeNetflix #ChristineMarie #RobinDreeke #ShavaunScott #CoerciveControl #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime
Following their removal from Samuel Bateman's FLDS offshoot, the rescued minors were interviewed by trained forensic specialists. They disclosed nothing verbally about the conduct documented in the case. Their journals — recovered during the FBI's execution of search warrants — contained detailed accounts: dates, descriptions, and names, recorded in their own handwriting. The dissociation between written and verbal disclosure represents a specific clinical phenomenon in cases involving prolonged coercive control during childhood development.Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott, with more than thirty years of experience in forensic mental health, domestic violence, and coercive control, examines the psychological mechanisms at work. Bateman's "atonement ceremonies" — group acts conducted under the framework of divine commandment — functioned to normalize harm within a closed belief system. The behavioral presentations visible in documentary footage that viewers have interpreted as voluntary participation reflect clinical indicators of conditioned compliance, not choice. Eight minors went willingly with Bateman's wives when they were removed from foster care — a fact that demonstrates the depth of the psychological infrastructure Bateman had constructed.The co-defendants' cases present an unresolved moral and legal question. The women convicted of facilitating harm to children were themselves raised within the FLDS system, married off as teenagers, and conditioned from birth within the same coercive framework they subsequently perpetuated. Scott and retired FBI Behavioral Analysis Chief Robin Dreeke examine whether the legal system's binary framework can adequately address individuals who are simultaneously perpetrators and products of the same system.The investigative timeline preceding the FBI's intervention compounds the case's complexity. Christine Marie provided footage to local law enforcement repeatedly. The responding sergeant reportedly found the material credible but declined to act. The Short Creek community had normalized practices that constituted criminal conduct for decades. The recording that precipitated federal action came in late 2021: Bateman's own voice describing the transfer of wives to his male followers, including a minor. Christine subsequently facilitated the cooperation of Julia Johnson, a mother whose four daughters had been placed with Bateman, and assisted in physically removing the girls to enable the federal operation.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #TrustMeNetflix #ShortCreek #ShavaunScott #RobinDreeke #CultTrauma #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime
From inside a federal detention facility, Samuel Bateman maintained sufficient control over his followers that three women risked life sentences to execute his directives — communicated through a shared electronic tablet. That detail anchors the behavioral analysis of a case where the mechanisms of coercive control operated across physical separation, institutional confinement, and the threat of decades-long sentences for the people carrying out his instructions.Robin Dreeke, retired chief of the FBI's Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, and psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examine the operational playbook Bateman employed to construct his FLDS offshoot in the Short Creek community on the Utah-Arizona border. Bateman — homeless and without resources — entered a community still destabilized by Warren Jeffs' imprisonment. He appropriated Jeffs' prophetic authority by claiming Jeffs communicated through him. His requirement of public confessions functioned as a compliance mechanism: each confession created psychological investment that made departure increasingly costly. His insistence on being filmed reflected identity construction — the need for an external audience to validate the role he'd assigned himself. Law enforcement questioned him on two separate occasions and did not pursue charges.Christine Marie was inside Bateman's world with a camera for an extended period. She and her husband had relocated to Short Creek to document the community's recovery from the Jeffs era. Bateman identified their presence as an opportunity and granted access. Christine had previously experienced coercive control under another self-styled religious leader and recognized Bateman's behavioral patterns from firsthand experience. She understood what performance of trust was required to maintain access and preserve the evidentiary record she was building.In her first extended interview, Christine addresses the operational and psychological cost of sustained embedded access — the process of earning trust within a paranoid community, the daily discipline of entering an environment where documented harm was occurring, and the internal transition from documentary filmmaker to active participant in building the evidentiary foundation that contributed to Bateman's fifty-year federal sentence.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #TrustMeNetflix #ShortCreek #RobinDreeke #ShavaunScott #CoerciveControl #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
Christine Marie risked everything to get them out. Some of them walked right back in. Samuel Bateman is serving fifty years in federal prison. He still calls. The women still answer. Some of his adult wives still call him their prophet. Some of the girls Christine helped pull out of his house have returned to his sphere. The conviction changed nothing about his hold on them. The sentence changed nothing. One phone call at a time, the certainty keeps flowing — what Christine describes as an IV of indoctrination right into their veins.The same pattern held with Warren Jeffs twenty years ago. He ran the FLDS from a prison cell. Now Bateman is doing the same thing with a different phone and the same psychological infrastructure underneath it.Christine addresses what she actually knows about what Bateman feeds his followers from inside. The split between the women who got out permanently and the ones who returned — and whether the ones who left are now treated as traitors, as fallen, as enemies of the faith. Why some women can walk out of a coercive group and build a real life the way Christine did, and others can't. The question she keeps coming back to — whether some adults can be reached at all, or whether some people only feel at home inside something broken. And what real change at the federal and state level would even look like.Short Creek is still standing. Same theology. Same isolation. Same obedience structure. Every co-defendant in the Bateman case was convicted. Robin Dreeke and Shavaun Scott examine why the FLDS survives when NXIVM and Peoples Temple collapsed after their leaders fell. They talk about Faith Bistline — who lost her entire family to Bateman and is raising the children they helped destroy. What actually works to help children still inside high-control religious groups. And the question both experts answer point-blank: is Short Creek going to break the cycle, or is the machine just waiting for its next operator?Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #TrustMeNetflix #ShortCreek #RobinDreeke #ShavaunScott #WarrenJeffs #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
Christine Marie brought tape after tape to local police. The sergeant believed every frame. He wouldn't move. Short Creek had spent decades looking the other way — polygamy was lifestyle, not crime — and the local department had stopped seeing what was in front of them long before Bateman declared himself a prophet.The recording that changed everything came in late 2021. Bateman, in his own voice, describing handing three of his wives to three of his men — one of them a minor. That tape crossed a line local reluctance couldn't absorb. Christine flipped a mother named Julia Johnson, whose four daughters had been given to Bateman. She helped pull the girls away so federal agents could finally act. Every month the wall held was another month those girls weren't safe — and Christine still carries the weight of that timeline.The girls who were rescued sat across from trained forensic interviewers and said nothing. Their journals — seized by the FBI — told a different story. Dates. Details. Names. Written in their own handwriting. They could put it on paper but they physically could not speak it. That gap between what a child can write and what they can say out loud is where the psychological damage lives.Shavaun Scott has spent thirty years in trauma work, domestic violence, and coercive control. Robin Dreeke ran the FBI's Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program. They examine what the documentary footage reveals about body language viewers are misreading as consent or choice. What Bateman's "atonement ceremonies" — group acts framed as divine commandment — did to his followers' capacity to recognize harm being done to them. Why eight girls went willingly with Bateman's wives when they were removed from foster care. And the moral calculation that makes the co-defendants' cases the hardest question in this entire story — women who were raised FLDS, married off as teenagers, conditioned from birth to obey, and then convicted for facilitating harm to the next generation of children.Christine addresses what she'd do differently to get Bateman stopped faster. The regret isn't about what she did. It's about every month the system refused to listen.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #TrustMeNetflix #ShortCreek #ShavaunScott #RobinDreeke #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #FBIRaid
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
A broke, homeless man walked into a fractured religious community on the Utah-Arizona border. Three years later he was driving Bentleys, commanding fifty followers, and fathers were handing him their young daughters as spiritual wives. The behavioral question isn't whether he was evil. It's how he did it — and why every system that should have stopped him didn't.Robin Dreeke spent decades at the FBI studying exactly this kind of manipulation. Psychotherapist Shavaun Scott has worked in coercive control and forensic mental health for over thirty years. Together they pull apart Samuel Bateman's behavioral playbook — the one now at the center of Netflix's Trust Me: The False Prophet.Bateman read the vulnerability of a community still reeling from Warren Jeffs' imprisonment. He claimed Jeffs was speaking through him. His demand for public confessions wasn't about accountability — it was about manufacturing complicity. Every person who confessed became invested in the system because admitting it was false meant admitting what they'd given up for it. His obsession with being filmed reveals how he saw himself — not as a con artist but as a figure of historical significance. Police questioned him twice and walked away both times. From a federal detention cell, he maintained enough control that three women risked life sentences to carry out his orders through a shared tablet.Christine Marie was inside his world with a camera every day. She didn't go to Short Creek looking for Bateman — she and her husband moved there to document a community recovering from Jeffs. Then Bateman appeared and saw two outsiders with cameras as the path to the audience he wanted. He let them in. Christine had survived coercive control with another false prophet years before. She could read every move he was making because she'd seen it done on her. She knew exactly what trust to perform to keep his guard down.In her first extended interview, Christine describes the cost of living that double life — gaining the trust of paranoid believers, walking into that house every morning knowing what she was watching, and the moment "documentary maker" became "mole" inside her own head.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #TrustMeNetflix #ShortCreek #RobinDreeke #ShavaunScott #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #WarrenJeffs
Robin Dreeke ran the FBI's Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program. He's spent decades studying how people manipulate, recruit, and control. Samuel Bateman's playbook is one he recognizes — and the behavioral fingerprints are visible in every move the self-proclaimed prophet made on his way to fifty years in federal prison.Bateman targeted a community still fractured from Warren Jeffs' imprisonment. He claimed Jeffs was speaking through him — borrowing existing authority rather than building his own from scratch. His requirement of public confessions wasn't spiritual discipline. It was a compliance trap. Every person who confessed became invested because admitting the system was false meant admitting what they'd surrendered to it. His insistence on being filmed wasn't vanity — it was identity construction. He needed an external audience to validate the role he'd assigned himself. Police questioned him twice. They walked away both times.Even from a federal detention cell, Bateman maintained enough control that three women risked life sentences to carry out his orders through a shared tablet. Dreeke and psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examine what that level of remote control reveals about the psychological infrastructure he'd built — and whether it could survive his incarceration.Christine Marie saw it all from the inside. She sat at Bateman's table every day with a camera. She'd survived coercive control with another false prophet years earlier and could read every move he was making because she'd experienced the same techniques firsthand. She knew what trust to perform. She knew when his guard dropped. She knew the difference between a man who believed his own prophecy and one who was running a con — and she has an answer to that question.Christine describes the cost of maintaining the double life — earning the trust of paranoid followers, walking into the house every morning, and the moment her role shifted from documenter to something closer to an operative inside a closed world she'd entered voluntarily. That transition — and what it did to her — is the part the documentary couldn't fully capture.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #TrustMeNetflix #RobinDreeke #ShavaunScott #FBI #BehavioralAnalysis #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime
The girls who were rescued from Samuel Bateman's FLDS cult sat across from trained forensic interviewers and said nothing about what happened to them. Their journals — seized by the FBI — were full of it. Dates. Details. Names. Written in their own handwriting. They could put it on paper but they physically could not speak it.Robin Dreeke and psychotherapist Shavaun Scott examine that gap — what it tells you about the depth of psychological conditioning inside Bateman's world, and why the standard tools forensic investigators rely on to build cases involving minors broke down completely when applied to children raised inside coercive religious control.Scott has spent thirty years working with trauma survivors and people escaping coercive environments. She examines what Bateman's "atonement ceremonies" — group acts framed as divine commandment — did to his followers' ability to even identify what was happening to them as harm. The body language in the documentary footage that most viewers are reading as choice or compliance is neither — Scott explains what it actually represents clinically. She addresses why eight girls went willingly with Bateman's wives when they were removed from foster care, and the impossible question at the center of the co-defendants' cases: women raised FLDS, married off as teenagers, conditioned from birth to obey, now convicted for facilitating harm to children who were in the same system they'd been raised inside.Christine Marie saw the conditioning up close for months. She brought footage to local police repeatedly. The sergeant believed it. He wouldn't act. Short Creek had normalized what was happening for decades — the local department had stopped seeing it as crime. The recording that finally broke through came in late 2021: Bateman in his own voice describing handing wives to his men, one of them a minor. Christine flipped a mother named Julia Johnson. She helped pull the girls out so the FBI could move. Every month the system refused to act was another month those girls weren't safe.Christine addresses the regret she still carries — what she'd do differently to get him stopped faster, and what that delay cost the children she was trying to help.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #TrustMeNetflix #ShortCreek #ShavaunScott #RobinDreeke #CultTrauma #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime
The legal case is closed. Samuel Bateman is serving fifty years. Every co-defendant was convicted. And Short Creek is still standing — same theology, same isolation, same obedience structure that produced both Warren Jeffs and Bateman. The machine didn't break. It just lost its current operator.Robin Dreeke and Shavaun Scott examine why the FLDS survives when other cults collapsed after their leaders fell. NXIVM dissolved. Peoples Temple ended in mass death. The FLDS keeps regenerating. The theology provides the framework. The isolation provides the barrier. The obedience structure provides the pipeline. And the community has now demonstrated twice that when a leader is removed, the conditions that created him remain intact.They talk about Faith Bistline — who lost her entire family to Bateman and is now raising the children they helped destroy. About what actually works to help children still inside high-control religious groups when removing them causes devastating psychological consequences and leaving them in produces worse ones. About whether Jeffs can maintain control of the FLDS indefinitely from a prison cell — and whether Bateman is doing the same thing right now.Because Bateman is still calling. Every day. From federal prison. The women still answer. Some of his adult wives still call him their prophet. Some of the girls Christine Marie helped rescue have returned to his sphere. The sentence didn't end his control. The conviction didn't end his control. Christine describes the phone calls as an IV of indoctrination — certainty flowing one conversation at a time into people whose entire identity was built inside a system designed to make leaving feel like dying.Christine addresses the split between the women who got out and the women who went back. Whether the ones who left are now treated as enemies of the faith. The ugly question she can't stop asking: whether some adults can be reached at all. And what real systemic change would look like — or whether this is just the cost of a country that lets people believe whatever they want, even when what they believe is destroying children.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ShortCreek #TrustMeNetflix #RobinDreeke #ShavaunScott #FaithBistline #WarrenJeffs #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime
The Netflix docuseries Trust Me: The False Prophet introduced the world to Christine Marie — the cult psychologist and survivor who walked into Samuel Bateman's FLDS inner circle, gathered the evidence the FBI used to put him in federal prison for fifty years, and is still living in Short Creek today. The documentary couldn't tell you everything. This conversation can.This is the complete extended interview — all three parts in one continuous sit-down. Christine takes Tony through how she got inside. She and her husband Tolga moved to Short Creek in 2016 to film a different project entirely, and then Bateman emerged from the post-Warren Jeffs FLDS community and declared himself the next prophet. He let them in because he thought their cameras would make him famous. He had no idea Christine had once fallen for a false prophet herself, years before, and could read every move he was making.She walks Tony through the years of getting local police to do nothing despite watching her footage. The late-2021 recording — Bateman describing "the Atonement," three of his wives, one a minor, handed to three of his men — that finally moved the FBI. Julia Johnson, the mother she flipped, whose four daughters had been given to Bateman. The morning of the raid, and how the girls were pulled away from him before agents moved. And the part the documentary can't end on — that fifty years in federal prison hasn't broken his hold, and a number of the women Christine risked her life to save have walked right back to him by choice.It's the deepest dive into this case anyone's published. The full story, from the only person who lived it all.LINKS BLOCKJoin Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodDISCLAIMERThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.HASHTAGS#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #TrueCrimeToday #TrustMeFalseProphet #ShortCreek #WarrenJeffs #Cults #TrueCrime #Netflix
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
All three parts of our interview with Christine Marie, woven together into one extended conversation — the cult psychologist and survivor who walked into Samuel Bateman's FLDS inner circle, fed the FBI the evidence that ended his freedom for fifty years, and is still living in Short Creek today doing the work nobody else will.She wasn't even supposed to be there for him. She and her husband Tolga came to that stretch of the Utah-Arizona border in 2016 to film a different story entirely. Then Bateman stepped out of the post-Warren Jeffs wreckage, declared himself the new prophet, and started taking "spiritual wives," some of them girls. He let Christine in. He thought she was going to make him famous. He didn't know she'd already lived through coercive control herself, years before, with a different false prophet — and that everything he was doing, she'd seen done before.In this extended interview, she takes us through it all. How she pulled off the cover. What it cost to live that double life. The wait — years of local police who believed her tapes and refused to act. The recording she captured in late 2021 that finally moved the FBI. Julia Johnson, the mother she flipped. The morning of the raid. And then the part of the story that doesn't fit on a documentary's ending card — that fifty years in federal prison didn't end Bateman's hold on those women, and a number of the ones Christine risked her life to free are calling him their prophet still.It's the longest, most honest version of the entire arc — getting in, taking him down, and the unfinished fight afterward.LINKS BLOCKJoin Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodDISCLAIMERThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.HASHTAGS#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #HiddenKillers #TrustMeFalseProphet #ShortCreek #WarrenJeffs #Cults #TrueCrime #Netflix
The complete three-part conversation, all in one extended sit-down. Christine Marie — the cult psychologist who walked into Samuel Bateman's FLDS world with a camera and a hidden agenda — sits down with me to tell the whole story from start to finish.Christine and her husband Tolga moved to Short Creek in 2016 with a completely different project in mind. Then Samuel Bateman rose out of the post-Warren Jeffs FLDS community, declared himself the new prophet, took "spiritual wives" — some of them girls as young as nine — and made the decision that would cost him fifty years in federal prison: he let two outsiders with cameras into his house. He thought they were going to make him famous. He didn't know Christine had been under a false prophet's spell herself, years before, and could read every move he was making the second he made it.In this extended interview, she walks me through the entire arc. The cover story. The mole identity. The years of going to local police who believed her tapes and refused to move. The Atonement recording she captured in late 2021 that finally turned the case federal. Julia Johnson, the mother she flipped, whose four daughters had been given to Bateman. The morning of the raid. And the hardest truth of the whole story — that fifty years in federal prison didn't break Bateman's grip on the people who believe in him, and a meaningful number of the women Christine risked her life to save are calling him their prophet still.If you've only seen the Netflix documentary, you've only seen the surface. This is the long version.LINKS BLOCKJoin Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodDISCLAIMERThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.HASHTAGS#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #HiddenKillersLive #TrustMeFalseProphet #ShortCreek #WarrenJeffs #Cults #TrueCrime #Netflix
Samuel Bateman is in federal prison, serving fifty years, and his hold on his followers has not loosened. Some of his adult wives still call him their prophet. Some of the women Christine Marie risked her life to pull out of his house have returned to him on their own. He picks up the phone from his cell every day and the indoctrination keeps flowing right into their ears.In this third and final part of a three-part conversation, Christine Marie sits down with Tony to tell the part of the Bateman story the documentaries struggle to land. The conviction didn't end it. The sentence didn't end it. The exposure didn't end it. Warren Jeffs went to prison for life and his followers never let go either, and now the same population, in the same town, is doing the same thing with the next prophet who rose to take his place.Christine takes Tony through what she actually knows about what Bateman is telling those women from inside. The split between the women who left and the women who returned, and whether the ones who got out are now treated as fallen, as enemies of the faith. Why some women can walk out of a coercive group and rebuild — Christine herself did exactly that, years before she ever met Bateman — and others cannot. The point at which she's had to ask herself whether some grown adults may only ever feel at home inside something broken. And whether any change at the federal or state level would actually stop the next prophet from rising in Short Creek next.LINKS BLOCKJoin Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodDISCLAIMERThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.HASHTAGS#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #TrueCrimeToday #ShortCreek #CultPsychology #CoerciveControl #TrueCrime #WarrenJeffs #Netflix
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
The end of the Samuel Bateman story isn't the end. He's behind bars for fifty years and the women he claimed as wives are doing something almost nobody wants to talk about — going back to him. Not all of them. But enough of them that the question stops being a fluke and starts being a pattern.In this third and final part of our three-part conversation with Christine Marie, we get into the truth the Netflix documentary couldn't fully hold. Some of the people Christine risked her life to save have returned to Bateman by their own choice. Some still call him their prophet. He communicates with them by phone from federal prison, and the same indoctrination he was running on them before the raid keeps flowing right through the line. Warren Jeffs' followers never let go of him either, and now the same pattern is repeating, with the same population, in the same town.Christine tells me what that's been like to watch. What she actually knows about what Bateman is telling those women from inside. The split that's opened up between the women who got out for good and the ones who returned — whether they still speak, whether the women who left are now treated as the fallen, the enemy, the betrayers. Why some women can leave a coercive group and rebuild, the way Christine did herself, and others physically cannot. The point — if there is one — where you have to accept that some grown adults may never want what you're offering them. And what real systemic change would even look like for the next prophet who rises out of this same community next.LINKS BLOCKJoin Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodDISCLAIMERThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.HASHTAGS#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #HiddenKillers #ShortCreek #CultPsychology #CoerciveControl #TrueCrime #WarrenJeffs #Netflix
He's locked up. He's still calling. And his wives are still picking up.In this third and final part of a three-part interview, Christine Marie walks me through the part of the Samuel Bateman story that doesn't fit on a true crime documentary's ending card. The arrest didn't free those women. The fifty-year sentence didn't free them. The conviction didn't free them. A number of the people Christine risked everything to get out have walked right back to him by their own choice, the same way Warren Jeffs' followers never let go even after his life sentence.Christine has called what Bateman is doing from inside an IV of indoctrination — the certainty fed directly into the believers' veins, one phone call at a time. She tells me what she actually knows about what's being said on those calls. The split between the women who got out for good and the ones who returned, and whether the ones who left are now seen by the others as traitors to the faith. Why some women in coercive groups can leave and rebuild — Christine herself did exactly that, years earlier, with a different false prophet — and others cannot. The hardest question of the whole conversation: when grown adults keep going back to something that's hurting them, how long do you keep trying to get them out, and when do you have to admit some people may only feel at home inside something broken? And whether anything at the federal or state level would actually keep the next prophet from rising out of the same town.LINKS BLOCKJoin Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodDISCLAIMERThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.HASHTAGS#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #HiddenKillersLive #ShortCreek #CultPsychology #CoerciveControl #TrueCrime #WarrenJeffs #Netflix
The Netflix docuseries Trust Me: The False Prophet shows Christine Marie repeatedly bringing footage to the local police on the Utah-Arizona border — and the local police repeatedly sending her home. In this second part of a three-part conversation, Christine tells Tony what was really happening on the other side of that door.Short Creek had spent decades teaching itself to look away from its own children. By the time Samuel Bateman declared himself the new FLDS prophet and started taking "spiritual wives," some of them girls as young as nine, the local authorities had long since stopped seeing the patterns that were sitting right in front of them. The sergeant in the documentary believed Christine's footage. He still wouldn't move. Christine has thoughts on whether that was incompetence — or whether the town was quietly protecting one of its own.She walks Tony through the entire wait. Why she stayed with local cops as long as she did. What finally pushed her to skip them and go to the FBI. The recording in late 2021, where Bateman described handing three of his wives — one a minor — to three of his male followers, that finally broke the case open. The conversation she had with Julia Johnson, a mother whose four daughters had been given to Bateman, that turned her into a federal witness. The morning of the raid. And what she'd do differently if she could go back, knowing every month it dragged on was another month those girls were still in that house.It's a conversation about how a community can know what's happening to its own children and still find a way not to act.LINKS BLOCKJoin Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodDISCLAIMERThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.HASHTAGS#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #TrueCrimeToday #ShortCreek #PoliceFailure #FBIRaid #TrueCrime #Cults #Netflix
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
Samuel Bateman wasn't hiding. He was operating in the open, on a street where the local police knew his name, in a town where the sheriff drove past his house every day. The most disturbing question about his case isn't how he got away with it. It's why everyone around him let him.In this second part of a three-part conversation with Christine Marie, we get into the wall that almost saved him. Short Creek, the FLDS community where Bateman built his sect, had spent decades teaching itself to look the other way. Polygamy was "how things are out there." Child marriages were "their lifestyle." By the time Christine and her husband Tolga arrived with cameras, the local authorities had stopped seeing what was happening in plain sight long before. The sergeant in the Netflix documentary all but says it himself — he believed her tapes, but moving on what they showed meant going to war with the way the town had always done things.Christine takes me through what that wait did to her. The moment she stopped trying to convince local cops and reached for the FBI. The recording she captured in late 2021, where Bateman described "the Atonement" — handing three of his wives, one a minor, to three of his men — that finally broke through. The mother she sat with and helped flip, Julia Johnson, whose four daughters had been given to Bateman. The morning of the raid, and how she pulled the girls away from him before federal agents moved. And the regret she lives with — what she'd have done differently to make it move faster.LINKS BLOCKJoin Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodDISCLAIMERThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.HASHTAGS#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #HiddenKillers #ShortCreek #PoliceFailure #FBIRaid #TrueCrime #Cults #Netflix
Late 2021. Christine Marie's camera was rolling. Samuel Bateman started talking. And what he said in his own voice on that recording finally became the thing the FBI couldn't ignore.In this second part of our three-part interview, Christine tells the story of building a case against a man the local police would not touch. Short Creek — the FLDS community on the Utah-Arizona border where Bateman built his sect — had spent decades training itself not to notice what was happening to its own children. Polygamy was "their lifestyle." Underage marriages were "how it is out there." The sergeant Christine kept going to in the Netflix docuseries all but admits, on camera, that he believed her tapes and still couldn't move. The reasons he gives sound a lot less like incompetence the longer you listen.Christine walks me through the wait. Why she didn't go to the FBI sooner. What it cost her to keep going back to local cops who kept sending her home. The exact moment she captured Bateman describing the so-called "Atonement" — three of his wives, one a minor, handed to three of his men — and knew the dam had finally cracked. The conversation she had with Julia Johnson, a mother whose four daughters had been given to Bateman, that flipped her into a federal witness. The morning of the raid, and the precision it took to separate the girls from Bateman without tipping him. And the question she still carries with her — what she'd do differently to stop him faster, knowing every month it dragged on cost those girls more.LINKS BLOCKJoin Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodDISCLAIMERThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.HASHTAGS#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #HiddenKillersLive #ShortCreek #PoliceFailure #FBIRaid #TrueCrime #Cults #Netflix
The Netflix docuseries Trust Me: The False Prophet introduced the world to the woman who took Samuel Bateman down from the inside. But the documentary couldn't tell the whole story. There's a conversation behind that footage — about what it actually took to walk into a self-proclaimed prophet's house every day, lie about why you were there, and quietly build a case that would put him in federal prison for fifty years.In this first part of a three-part interview, Christine Marie sits down with Tony to tell that story.Christine and her husband Tolga moved to Short Creek on the Utah-Arizona border in 2016, planning a project that had nothing to do with Samuel Bateman. Then Bateman rose out of the post-Warren Jeffs FLDS community, declaring himself the new prophet, taking "spiritual wives," some of them girls as young as nine. He sized up the two outsiders with cameras and made a decision that would end his freedom — he let them in. He thought they were going to make a film that would carry him to the world. He didn't know Christine had once been under another false prophet's spell years earlier. He didn't know she could read him on sight.She tells Tony what it took to keep his trust. The double life she lived for years inside that community. The performance she had to put on for his wives. The moment "documentary" became "evidence-gathering" in her own head. And the strange truth she still wrestles with — whether Bateman knew, somewhere underneath all of it, that he wasn't really a prophet at all.LINKS BLOCKJoin Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodDISCLAIMERThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.HASHTAGS#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #TrueCrimeToday #ShortCreek #WarrenJeffs #Cults #TrueCrime #ColoradoCity #Netflix
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
A man who trusted almost no outsiders sat down across from Christine Marie and handed her the access that would eventually put him in federal prison for fifty years. He didn't know what she was. He didn't know her history. He didn't know what she could see.When Christine and her husband Tolga first moved to Short Creek — that quiet stretch of FLDS country along the Utah-Arizona border — they came for a completely different reason than the world now associates with their names. They had a different project, a gentler one, meant to humanize a community most outsiders had condemned. Samuel Bateman wasn't anywhere on their radar. Then, slowly, he became the entire story.He cast himself as the new prophet. He took "spiritual wives," some of them girls. He looked at these two outsiders with cameras and made a calculation: they could be useful. He let them film him. He let them sit with his women. He sat for the camera and preached, certain his words were about to be carried to the world.Christine carried them to the FBI instead.In this first part of a three-part conversation, she tells me how she pulled it off. What she pretended to believe. How she got him to keep handing her access. The moment she stopped thinking of herself as a documentary maker and admitted, even to herself, that she was a mole. Whether the women around Bateman were really performing or really believed. And the most uncomfortable question of all — did Bateman ever quietly know he wasn't who he said he was?LINKS BLOCKJoin Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodDISCLAIMERThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.HASHTAGS#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #HiddenKillers #ShortCreek #WarrenJeffs #Cults #TrueCrime #ColoradoCity #Netflix
Christine Marie watched Samuel Bateman every single day for years. She sat at his table. She filmed his sermons. She listened to his wives recite their devotion to him. And she has an answer to the question true crime listeners keep asking about him — was he a true believer, or did he know, deep down, that he was a fraud?She's the one outsider who got close enough to actually know.Christine and her husband Tolga moved to Short Creek with a completely different project in mind, planning to film something else entirely in the FLDS community along the Utah-Arizona border. Then Samuel Bateman walked into their lives — a self-proclaimed prophet rising out of the wreckage of Warren Jeffs' imprisonment, taking "spiritual wives," some of them children, claiming Jeffs spoke through him. He thought Christine and Tolga were going to make him famous. He gave them access nobody else got. And the entire time, she was watching him with the eyes of a woman who'd once fallen for a false prophet herself, years earlier — a woman who knew every move he was making because she'd had them made on her.In this opening conversation of our three-part interview, Christine takes us inside Bateman's world. Why he trusted her. What it cost to maintain that lie every day. The performance the women around him put on — and the real belief underneath it. The moment she admitted, even to herself, that "filmmaker" had become "mole." And what she saw in Bateman that made her wonder whether even he knew the whole thing was a con.LINKS BLOCKJoin Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/ Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1 Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/ Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspod X Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodDISCLAIMERThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.HASHTAGS#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ChristineMarie #HiddenKillersLive #ShortCreek #WarrenJeffs #Cults #TrueCrime #ColoradoCity #Netflix
In this episode of The Jimmy Rex Show, Jimmy sits down with Dr. Christine Marie, the psychologist featured in Netflix's hit documentary Trust Me, which became the #1 show on Netflix.Dr. Christine shares the incredible story of how she and her husband infiltrated the group led by self-proclaimed prophet Sam Bateman, gathered evidence against him, and helped expose years of abuse and coercive control inside a fundamentalist religious community.The conversation explores cult psychology, manipulation, religious authority, trauma, coercive control, deconstruction, and why intelligent people can find themselves trapped in destructive belief systems. They also discuss political cults, social influence, human behavior, and the psychology behind belonging and belief.This is a fascinating look inside one of the most shocking cult investigations in recent history.Follow Dr. Christine Marie: IG
When Warren Jeffs, the “prophet” of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS), a Mormon fundamentalist group whose members practice polygamy, stopped communicating regularly from prison where he is serving a life sentence for child sexual assault, his followers were at a loss. But, as Rachel Dretzin depicts in her powerful, eye-opening four-part Netflix series “Trust Me: The False Prophet,” Jeffs' silence created the opportunity for a new leader to fill the void. Enter Samuel Bateman, a seemingly unremarkable guy, who claimed that he was the new prophet. Rachel joins Ken on the podcast to talk about the consequences of Bateman's rise within the FLDS, his influence over a handful of adults and girls in the community, and the tragic consequences of his actions. The centerpiece of “Trust Me” and the key to Bateman's undoing is Dr. Christine Marie, a former Mormon who, along with her husband, the videographer Tolga Katas, grew close to the group with the intent of exposing Bateman's crimes. Relying heavily on Tolga's insider footage, as well as key interviews with women who eventually turned against Bateman, the series shows how far trust can take some people and a measure of justice that can occur when that trust is finally broken. “Trust Me: The False Prophet” is streaming on Netflix. The Presenting Sponsor of "Top Docs" is Netflix. Follow: @topdocspod on Instagram and X
What to Expect While Fostering and Adopting | Adoption, Foster parent, Foster care, Adopting
Jen Lilley and Dr. John DeGarmo | Called to Foster — The Honest Guide to Foster Care and Adoption Foster care. Adoption. The calling that changes everything. If you have ever felt that quiet pull on your heart — that nudge that says maybe we are supposed to do something — this episode is for you. In this episode of the What to Expect While Fostering and Adopting Podcast, Christine Marie sits down with actress and foster care advocate Jen Lilley and international foster care expert Dr. John DeGarmo to talk about their brand new book Called to Foster — the honest, hope-filled guide to every stage of the foster care and adoption journey. Jen Lilley, known from Days of Our Lives, Hallmark films, and dozens of beloved family movies — has fostered and adopted children through the Los Angeles County system and has become one of the most recognized voices for foster care in America. Dr. John DeGarmo is the founder of The Foster Care Institute, a TEDx Talk presenter, international consultant, and foster and adoptive parent to over 65 children. Together they wrote the book that every foster parent, adoptive parent, and anyone considering foster care needs in their hands. Dr. John did not want to be a foster parent. He believed every myth. Until a child sex trafficking ring victimized many of his own students and he could not look away. Jen never planned to become a foster care advocate. Until she opened her home and her heart through the LA County system and could not stop. This episode is raw. It is emotional. It is deeply faith-filled. And it will challenge every person listening to examine what they are doing or not doing for the children who are waiting. Because this is a kingdom priority. And if you are listening you are part of the mission field. In this episode you will hear: What led Jen Lilley and Dr. John DeGarmo to foster care and why neither of them planned it The hardest truths about foster care that most families are not prepared for How to love a child fully knowing they may leave What the church is getting wrong about foster care and the cost of its silence The faith moments that sustained them when they wanted to quit Why Called to Foster is the guide every foster and adoptive family needs How to get the book into the hands of caseworkers and child welfare professionals who need it Get the Book Called to Foster: https://a.co/d/03razpJS Connect with Dr. John DeGarmo: Website: https://www.drjohndegarmofostercare.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/john.degarmo.7 Connect with Jen Lilley: Website: https://www.jenlilley.com Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jen_lilley Connect with Christine: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cortisol_coach If this episode blessed you: Leave a review on Apple Podcasts it helps other foster and adoptive families find this show Share this episode with someone who has been praying for a breakthrough in their journey Buy an extra copy of Called to Foster and take it to your local child welfare office and give it to a caseworker who needs a ray of hope SEO Keywords and Tags: Jen Lilley foster care, called to foster book, Dr John DeGarmo foster care, foster care podcast, foster care adoption guide, how to become a foster parent, foster care and adoption journey, foster parenting advice, foster care Christian families, foster care faith, adoption journey podcast, foster care system, what to expect foster care, foster parent resources, foster care book 2025, foster to adopt, foster care calling, church and foster care, foster care community, Christine Marie podcast, what to expect while fostering and adopting, Jen Lilley book, Days of Our Lives Jen Lilley, foster care advocate, called to foster guide
Dr. Christine Marie, who along with her husband Tolga helped expose a man named, Samuel Bateman, who claimed to be the self-proclaimed prophet of a religious polygamous sect, known as the FLDS. Samuel Bateman claimed the group's leader, Warren Jeffs, had died while in prison, and he was the now the prophet. It is reported that Bateman formed his own group within the FLDS, where his male followers not only gave their adult wives to the him, but also their underage daughters, as young as 9 years old, to become Bateman's “wives,” and who he would sexually abuse. Dr.Phil will speak with Dr. Christine, who along with her husband Tolga, would earn the trust of Samuel Bateman and his followers, and be invited to spend one and a half years filming hundreds of hours of footage with them. Dr. Christine and Tolga would eventually begin secretly working with the FBI, while continuing to be embedded within the sect. Samuel Bateman would eventually be arrested and sentenced to 50 years in prison for the crimes he committed against his underage wives. Many of his adult male and female followers were also held to justice. Christine, Tolga, and their footage are featured in the Netflix 4 part documentary series, “Trust Me: The False Prophet,” which chronicles the rise and fall of Samuel Bateman, and is streaming now on Netflix.This episode is brought to you by:Don't wait! If you're on Medicare or will be soon, reach out to Chapter: Call: (352)-845-0659 or go to https://askchapter.org to learn about your Medicare options and get help finding ways to save money.Diabetes doesn't wait. And the cost of waiting can be devastating. But there is another option you need to know about. Learn more: https://drphildiabetes.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Cult expert Dr Christine Marie found herself in the unique position of becoming an FBI informant and taking down a cult leader - somewhat by accident. Alongside her filmmaker husband, they documented the process in the Netflix mini-series Trust Me: The False Prophet. But long before the documentary, Christine was herself a survivor of cult-based human trafficking. She talks to Mihingarangi Forbes about how that experience went on to shape her groundbreaking research into victim-blaming, public shame and media trauma.
A rising prophet, a fractured FLDS community, and the shadow of Warren Jeffs set the stage for the story of Samuel Bateman and the unsettling power he claimed. Hidden recordings, shifting loyalties, and the presence of Christine Marie and Tolga Katas reveal a world where belief and control blur in unexpected ways. What unfolds raises deeper disturbing questions about influence, trust, and how far people will go in the name of faith.Head over the ShakenAndDisturbed.com for new merchandise, blogs for our episodes, YouTube videos, and Patreon!Watch and listen to this and every other episode several days early on Patreon! Patreon members can join us during our live recordings, comment on the case, participate in polls and get shout outs! Join for as little as $5 a month right here!Follow John on Twitter @jthrasher, Instagram @jthrasher and TikTok @johnthrasherFollow Daryn on Twitter @CarpeDaryn and Instagram @CarpeDaryn
A new Netflix docuseries pulls back the curtain on self-proclaimed FLDS cult “prophet” Samuel Bateman, revealing how he built a secretive polygamist group that spiraled into shocking allegations of child abuse. The series highlights the courageous work of Christine Marie and Tolga Katas, who gained Bateman's trust and secretly documented his inner circle — ultimately helping authorities take action. Law&Crime's Jesse Weber breaks down the key evidence, disturbing claims, and how the case against Bateman came together.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Go to http://www.gamingadvocates.com to start your free, confidential case evaluation.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrimeTwitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
When Dr. Christine Marie and her videographer husband moved to Utah, they befriended members of the polygamous FLDS church. With the community's former leader now in prison, Samuel Bateman claimed to be their new prophet and took on 20 wives. Concerned about the underage girls among them, Christine convinced Bateman to let them film a documentary about him. The couple recorded evidence that Bateman was trafficking the girls, but local police were reluctant to take action. Meanwhile, Christine worked secretly to convince the young wives — and the parents who allowed the marriages — that they were under the spell of a false prophet. The Netflix series “Trust Me: The False Prophet” provides a look at Bateman's crimes from the perspective of the filmmakers embedded in his home. Featuring their original footage along with new interviews, it shows Christine's efforts as a double agent, using the documentary to gather evidence while trying to free his devoted victims from his grip. OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "TRUST ME: THE FALSE PROPHET" BEGIN IN THE FINAL 11 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE. In Crime of the Week: pick pocket. For exclusive podcasts and more, sign up at Patreon.Sign up for our newsletter at crimewriterson.com.This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio. Click to find out more. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Today is a solo episode, and I share all of my thoughts on Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke, The Drama and Trust Me: The False Prophet. I briefly discuss the discourse around Yesteryear and The Drama without spoilers, and go in depth on Trust Me: The False Prophet, WITH spoilers. Then, for anyone who wants spoilers, I discuss spoilery aspects of Yesteryear and The Drama at the end of the episode. Here is the link for the Substack article I mentioned about The Drama. Check Out Author Social Media PackagesCheck out the Bookwild Community on PatreonCheck Out My Stories Are My Religion SubstackGet Bookwild MerchFollow @imbookwild on InstagramOther Co-hosts On Instagram:Gare Billings @gareindeedreadsSteph Lauer @books.in.badgerlandHalley Sutton @halleysutton25Brian Watson @readingwithbrianMacKenzie Green @missusa2mba
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
Bateman is in prison. Bistline got life. The case is over. But every time someone asks whether this is finished, the answer keeps circling back to the same uncomfortable truth — the FLDS has survived every attempt to dismantle it for nearly a century. Warren Jeffs is still reportedly running operations from a Texas cell. The One Man Rule doctrine that created the vacancy Bateman filled hasn't changed. And somewhere in Short Creek, children are growing up under the same conditions that produced the last two generations of victims.This is the final part of our three-part panel with former FBI Behavioral Analysis Chief Robin Dreeke, psychotherapist Shavaun Scott, and Tony Brueski. We go where the Netflix documentary can't — into the structural question of whether any amount of prosecution can break a cycle that's embedded in theology, geography, and generational conditioning.We talk about Faith Bistline raising the children her brothers sacrificed. Christine Marie still living in Short Creek, still running her nonprofit. The Dream Center operating out of Jeffs' former compound. These are real signs of change. But Shavaun and Robin bring the hard lens — what they've each seen in their careers about how systems like this adapt, survive, and regenerate. The final question is direct: another Bateman, or is this where it finally turns? Both experts answer it honestly.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#SamuelBateman #FLDS #ShortCreek #FaithBistline #CultJustice #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #FalseProphet #TrustMeNetflix #CultRecovery
Christine Marie, cult psychology expert, joins me to discuss Netflix's Trust Me: The False Prophet. This four-part docuseries follows Christine and her husband, videographer Tolga Katas, as they embed themselves in the FLDS community in Short Creek, a town straddling the Utah-Arizona border long associated with fundamentalist Mormonism. What begins as an effort to support a fractured community in the wake of leader Warren Jeffs' imprisonment turns into something far more dangerous. As they gain the trust of Samuel Bateman, a self-proclaimed prophet who rises to power after Jeffs, Christine and Tolga begin documenting his inner circle. Bateman, believing he is being filmed for a project that will amplify his message, allows unprecedented access. But behind the scenes, Christine and Tolga are gathering evidence of coercion, control, and the sexual abuse of women and underage girls. The series captures, in real time, the unraveling of Bateman's authority. A 2022 traffic stop leads to his arrest, followed by a federal investigation and raid that exposes the full scope of his crimes. He was later sentenced to 50 years in prison. Reality Life with Kate Casey What to Watch List: https://katecasey.substack.com Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/katecasey Twitter: https://twitter.com/katecasey Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/katecaseyca Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@itskatecasey?lang=en Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/113157919338245 Amazon List: https://www.amazon.com/shop/katecasey Like it to Know It: https://www.shopltk.com/explore/katecaseySee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
Samuel Bateman, a self-proclaimed prophet of a breakaway FLDS sect, was sentenced in December 2024 to fifty years in federal prison followed by lifetime supervised release after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit transportation of a minor for criminal sexual activity and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. According to federal prosecutors, the case involved more than twenty claimed wives, at least ten of whom were under eighteen, with the youngest reportedly nine years old. Eleven of his adult followers were convicted in connection with the child sexual abuse conspiracy — two by jury trial and nine by guilty plea — with sentences including life imprisonment for one co-defendant.The case is the subject of the Netflix documentary Trust Me: The False Prophet, which draws on footage captured by cult researcher Christine Marie and videographer Tolga Katas during their infiltration of Bateman's inner circle. The documentary reveals evidence including recorded conversations in which Bateman described abuse, and chronicles the federal investigation that led to his August 2022 arrest during a traffic stop in Flagstaff, Arizona. In November 2022, while in custody, Bateman orchestrated the kidnapping of minors from state foster placements — the children were recovered in Spokane, Washington.Robin Dreeke, retired chief of the FBI's Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, provides expert analysis of the behavioral control patterns at work in the case and the broader FLDS context, including the continued influence of imprisoned leader Warren Jeffs. All nine of Bateman's identified underage victims have since testified against him. A significant number of his adult followers reportedly remain loyal.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#SamuelBateman #TrustMeTheFalseProphet #Netflix #FLDS #WarrenJeffs #ShortCreek #CultLeader #RobinDreeke #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
Samuel Bateman positioned himself as the heir to imprisoned FLDS leader Warren Jeffs, building a breakaway sect of roughly fifty followers along the Arizona-Utah border. By the time he was arrested during an August 2022 traffic stop in Flagstaff, Arizona, he had claimed more than twenty wives — at least ten of them under eighteen according to federal prosecutors, with the youngest reportedly nine years old. He was sentenced in December 2024 to fifty years in federal prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to transport minors for criminal sexual activity and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. Eleven of his adult followers were also convicted.The Netflix documentary Trust Me: The False Prophet chronicles how cult researcher Christine Marie and her husband, videographer Tolga Katas, infiltrated Bateman's inner circle and gathered evidence that became central to the federal investigation. The footage captures Bateman openly describing abuse, followers operating under total obedience, and a community where children were given as spiritual wives while the town of Short Creek watched in silence.Robin Dreeke, retired chief of the FBI's Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, analyzes the behavioral control mechanisms Bateman employed — isolation, religious authority, family separation, and enforced compliance — and examines why some of his adult followers remain loyal even after his conviction, while all nine of his identified underage victims have since testified against him.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#SamuelBateman #TrustMeTheFalseProphet #Netflix #FLDS #WarrenJeffs #ShortCreek #CultLeader #RobinDreeke #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime
Robin Dreeke, retired chief of the FBI's Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, provides extended expert analysis across three interconnected investigations — applying decades of behavioral expertise to the Duggar family's private crisis communications, the family system that produced two sons facing charges or convictions involving children, and the psychological control mechanisms of FLDS cult leader Samuel Bateman.The behavioral throughline is chosen silence — how families, religious communities, and the people inside them develop and maintain systems that protect image at the expense of the people being harmed. Dreeke examines this pattern in the Duggar family's jail calls and emails, where language choices reveal trained minimization and crisis management. He identifies it in the family structure itself — the parenting model, the obedience framework, the internal culture that Jim Bob and Michelle built and exported — and the question of why that system produced the same kind of harm across two sons. And he traces it through the FLDS community of Short Creek, where Bateman operated openly — driving through town with underage wives visible to everyone — and no one called authorities.The analysis draws on the unprecedented footage captured by Christine Marie and Tolga Katas for the Netflix documentary Trust Me: The False Prophet, the public record of the Duggar family's communications, and Dreeke's expertise in reading the behavioral signatures that distinguish genuine ignorance from chosen silence.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#JosephDuggar #SamuelBateman #TrustMeTheFalseProphet #DuggarFamily #FLDS #RobinDreeke #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime #Netflix #CultPsychology
From a behavioral analysis perspective, the Samuel Bateman case presents a concentrated example of cult control mechanics operating at their most extreme — a man with no institutional backing, no financial resources, and no prior following who constructed a system of total psychological dominance within a few years. Robin Dreeke, retired chief of the FBI's Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program, applies his expertise in behavioral influence and manipulation to examine how Bateman achieved the level of control documented in the Netflix series Trust Me: The False Prophet.Dreeke's analysis focuses on the specific mechanisms: how Bateman exploited the existing FLDS obedience structure left vulnerable after Warren Jeffs's imprisonment; how he used religious language to reframe child sexual abuse as spiritual duty; how he isolated families from outside information while using internal social reinforcement to prevent dissent; and how the control persisted even after his arrest — evidenced by the coordinated kidnapping of girls from foster care, orchestrated from a jail cell, carried out by followers who believed they were rescuing children.The documentary provides an unprecedented window into real-time manipulation captured on camera by Christine Marie and Tolga Katas, whose undercover footage became critical evidence for the FBI. Dreeke examines what that footage reveals about the difference between what outsiders observe and what is happening inside the minds of people under cult influence — and why, even after Bateman's fifty-year sentence, a significant number of his adult followers remain devoted.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#SamuelBateman #TrustMeTheFalseProphet #Netflix #FLDS #WarrenJeffs #ShortCreek #CultLeader #RobinDreeke #HiddenKillers #TrueCrime
The Netflix documentary series Trust Me: The False Prophet follows Dr. Christine Marie as she pivots from confidante and documentarian to investigator, as she helps authorities build a case against fundamentalist cult leader Samuel Bateman. Featuring interviews with FLDS members and exclusive video from inside this insular community, Trust Me: The False Prophet provides a unique view on a story of coercion, abuse, faith, and redemption. In this episode of You Can't Make This Up, host Rebecca Lavoie interviews Dr. Christine Marie. SPOILER ALERT! If you haven't watched Trust Me: The False Prophet yet, make sure to add it to your watch-list before listening on. Dig deeper into all of your favorite Netflix documentaries and films at tudum.com! Read more about Samuel Bateman and FLDS community and where the survivors are today. Check our true crime hub at tudum.com/truecrime. Listen to more from Netflix Podcasts.
The FBI couldn't get inside. Police had questioned Bateman twice and left empty-handed. The FLDS community was built over a century to resist outside scrutiny, and it was working. The formal institutions designed to protect children had failed to penetrate the wall. So two people who weren't part of any institution did it instead.Christine Marie is a cult researcher who moved to Short Creek with her filmmaker husband Tolga Katas in 2016. They came to help — Christine started a nonprofit supporting people leaving the FLDS. When Bateman declared himself a prophet and the abuse began, they shifted from humanitarian work to covert intelligence gathering. Tolga filmed hundreds of hours inside Bateman's operation. Christine built trust within his circle and recorded a critical conversation where Bateman described orchestrating sexual acts with minors. She delivered that recording to law enforcement. The FBI investigation that followed led to Bateman's arrest and a fifty-year sentence.Their footage became the basis for Netflix's Trust Me: The False Prophet, directed by Rachel Dretzin of Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey. Dretzin has called what Christine and Tolga captured "a blueprint for how to dismantle even the most entrenched systems of abuse."But the personal cost was steep. Christine had children of her own in the community. Bateman's followers had already shown they would kidnap children and flee across state lines. If her role was discovered, the danger was not hypothetical. She reflected: "I was so trusted. I wanted to help them before they found out I was a mole. I'm not betraying them — I'm helping them, right?" The girls now living free probably have an answer to that question. Whether it's the only answer is what makes this episode worth hearing.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#SamuelBateman #ChristineMarie #TolgaKatas #TrustMeNetflix #FLDS #FalseProphet #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #ShortCreek #CultExpert
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
Every cult case reaches a point where the same question surfaces: when parents won't protect their children, when police ask questions and accept lies, when a community closes ranks around a predator — who steps in? In the Bateman case, the answer is two civilians who had no obligation to act and every reason not to.Christine Marie and Tolga Katas moved to Short Creek to help a broken community. They ended up inside the inner circle of the man breaking it further. Christine ran a nonprofit called Voices for Dignity. Tolga was filming a documentary. When Bateman rose and started collecting wives — including children — they pivoted from community support to covert documentation. They captured conversations, recorded daily life inside his compound, and gathered testimony from women who were beginning to speak about what was happening behind closed doors.The pivotal moment came when Bateman sat Christine in his Bentley and described the "Atonement" — the sexual acts he was orchestrating with adults and children — as if it were church business. She called her law enforcement contact and said: "I got the bombshell you've been waiting for." That recording, and the hundreds of hours of footage Tolga forwarded to the FBI, became foundational evidence in the federal case.This is the episode that connects directly to the Netflix docuseries Trust Me: The False Prophet, built from Christine and Tolga's footage. But we go beyond the documentary into the ethical complexity of what they did — the relationships they built under false pretenses, the women who trusted them and are now in prison, and the daily calculation Christine made between the evidence she was gathering and the safety of her own children living in the same community.Join Our SubStack For AD-FREE ADVANCE EPISODES & EXTRAS!: https://hiddenkillers.substack.com/Want to comment and watch this podcast as a video? Check out our YouTube Channel. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8-vxmbhTxxG10sO1izODJg?sub_confirmation=1Instagram https://www.instagram.com/hiddenkillerspod/Facebook https://www.facebook.com/hiddenkillerspod/Tik-Tok https://www.tiktok.com/@hiddenkillerspodX Twitter https://x.com/TrueCrimePodThis publication contains commentary and opinion based on publicly available information. All individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Nothing published here should be taken as a statement of fact, health or legal advice.#SamuelBateman #ChristineMarie #TolgaKatas #TrustMeNetflix #FLDS #FalseProphet #TrueCrime #HiddenKillers #ShortCreek #CultExpert
What to Expect While Fostering and Adopting | Adoption, Foster parent, Foster care, Adopting
Welcome to the What to Expect While Fostering and Adopting podcast! I'm Christine Marie, adoptive mom, former foster parent, and biblical mindset coach. Whether you're considering foster care, navigating adoption, supporting birth families, or trying to hold it all together in the middle of the unknown, you're in the right place. In today's episode, I sit down with Jeremy Walden, foster and adoptive dad, college professor, ministry leader, and co author of The Heart Work of Foster Care. Jeremy shares his family's powerful journey through foster care and adoption, including adopting one child and later welcoming her siblings, building relationships with biological parents, and witnessing restoration, reunification, and healing unfold over years of faithful obedience. This is one of those conversations that reminds you foster care isn't a moment. It's a long road of love, patience, boundaries, and trust in God. Jeremy opens up about: • The real challenges of foster parenting and adoption • Supporting birth families with compassion and humility • How foster care impacts marriage and biological children • Saying yes, saying no, and protecting your family while keeping your heart open • Why foster care is truly heart work, caring deeply, loving deliberately, and trusting God when outcomes aren't guaranteed Jeremy and his wife have adopted three children from foster care and have cared for many more over the past decade. With over 25 years of ministry experience and 15 years as a college professor, Jeremy brings both practical wisdom and deep faith to this conversation. He also shares about their book, The Heart Work of Foster Care: A Hopeful and Honest Guide to Foster Parenting, a Christ centered resource filled with real stories, encouragement, and practical insight for anyone walking the foster care journey. Jeremy is currently conducting an anonymous survey to better understand how fostering impacts foster parents' marriages. If you'd like to participate, you can find it here:
The 100K Project | New EpisodeThe 100K Project features earners who have built a minimum of six figures annually through consistency and execution.This episode features Christine Marie.Christine goes solo and breaks down the three-step Instagram growth framework that took her from zero to 418,000 followers in just 22 months.No hype. No guessing. Just a clear process.This framework brings clarity to how Instagram actually grows when it's done with intention, structure, and consistency. It will give you confidence and hope if social growth has felt confusing or out of reach.Fast. Focused. Under 20 minutes.
What to Expect While Fostering and Adopting | Adoption, Foster parent, Foster care, Adopting
Welcome to Season Two of the What to Expect While Fostering and Adopting podcast! I'm Christine Marie — adoptive mom, former foster parent, and biblical mindset coach. Whether you're navigating foster care, adoption, or parenting a child with trauma or mental health challenges — you're in the right place. In this season premiere, I'm joined by Donna Kirkwood — former special education teacher, adoptive mom, author, and woman of deep faith — as she shares her family's journey of saying “yes” to adopting a child with high needs. From the early days of behavioral challenges and medication decisions to the later diagnosis of schizoaffective bipolar disorder, Donna walks us through how faith, structure, and community helped them navigate trauma-informed parenting and deep unknowns. We talk about: Adopting a child with high needs and complex diagnoses Parenting through mental health challenges with grace and structure Medications and behavioral support through a trauma-informed lens Why boundaries, faith, and consistency matter Donna's book, He Is the Vine, as a source of spiritual encouragement during hard seasons Whether you're parenting a child with trauma, navigating mental health in adoption, or walking through uncertainty with God — this episode will speak to your heart. ☕ Grab your coffee and settle in — this one will stretch you, strengthen you, and remind you why love is always worth it.
Why do some home service owners stay stuck while others build companies that run with predictability? Many think the problem is marketing or labor, but the real issue is a lack of clarity. When the owner is unclear, the team becomes unclear. That creates mixed messages, slow decisions, and systems that break under pressure. In this episode of The Better Than Rich Show, Mike Abramowitz sits down with Christine Marie, a 4th-Gen trades professional and consultant to leaders in the home service space. Christine explains how Legacy, identity, and apparent self-awareness influence the way an owner leads. She shows how personal clarity impacts the brand message, decision-making, systems, customer experience, and team alignment. Christine guides business owners through vision work, emotional drivers, customer journey audits, and essential systems to help their businesses grow without personal burden. She shows how emotional intelligence, clear values, and strong relationships create predictable companies that scale confidently. Timestamps [00:00] Opening and guest introduction [02:48] Legacy and the fourth-generation story [07:26] Why Legacy matters for every owner [11:26] Bringing identity into the business [12:31] Vision, clarity, and the eulogy exercise [18:58] Prompts for self-reflection [22:48] How relationships affect business health [26:39] Systems, audits, and predictable operations [30:42] The customer journey from first search to follow-up [32:33] Why emotions drive buying decisions [36:20] Understanding how customers feel [39:56] A simple testimonial framework [42:41] Emotional transformation for the customer [45:53] The complete client journey and referral loop [49:50] Bottom of funnel strategies [50:50] The Knowing Framework [52:15] How to connect with Christine [53:30] What it means to be better than rich Key Quotes “Every owner has a personal brand, even if they ignore it.” “Your decisions today create the legacy your kids live with.” “Predictability comes from systems, not talent.” “Customers buy with emotion before they buy with logic.” “Relationships shape the future of your business.” Key Takeaways Get clear on who you want to be and what you want your business to become. Audit the whole customer journey from search to follow-up. Track how customers feel at every step. Use systems to remove friction and free up your time. Keep nurturing customers long after the job is done. Links Mentioned https://christenemarie.com/ theknowingagency.com Connect with The Better Than RichWebsite - https://www.betterthanrich.com/Facebook - https://m.facebook.com/betterthanrich/Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/betterthan_rich/Twitter - https://mobile.twitter.com/betterthan_richTikTok - https://www.tiktok.com/@betterthanrichYouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3xXEb7rKBvkCOdtWd4tj2ALinkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/company/betterthanrich
About Christine Marie Aitchison:Christine Marie is a trauma-informed healer, ceremonial guide, and founder of Soul Medicine. With a background in nursing and certifications in Celtic Shamanism and Reiki, she brings a rare blend of clinical grounding and sacred wisdom to her work. Christine helps people move from victimhood to empowerment using energy healing, ritual, and plant medicine, and she's the author of Grieve with Guidance—a deeply supportive book for navigating loss through spiritual frameworks and ceremony. Today, Christine joins us to explore how true healing begins when we speak, feel, and live from authenticity rather than our trauma story. In this episode, Dean Newlund and Christine Marie Aitchison discuss:Near-death experiences and their transformative impactThe intersection of spirituality and holistic healingEmotional and ancestral grief as pathways to self-awarenessTransitioning from traditional nursing to intuitive healing practicesThe ongoing journey of self-discovery and energetic boundaries Key Takeaways:Christine's near-death experience as a child became the catalyst for her lifelong commitment to bring light and healing into the world.Her transition from traditional nursing to holistic healing reveals the importance of aligning one's work with deeper personal values.Create space for ongoing personal inner work, recognizing that self-healing is a continuous journey of understanding and compassion.When pain or grief arises, approach it with curiosity instead of resistance to uncover its hidden lessons for growth. "It's been a really beautiful challenge to breathe light and love back into my bones, back into my body.” — Christine Marie Aitchison Connect with Christine Marie Aitchison: Website: https://www.christinemarieheals.com/Books: https://www.christinemarieheals.com/booksLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinemarieheals/Substack/Newsletter: https://christinemarieheals.substack.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/christinemarieheals/ See Dean's TedTalk “Why Business Needs Intuition” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEq9IYvgV7I Connect with Dean:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgqRK8GC8jBIFYPmECUCMkwWebsite: https://www.mfileadership.com/The Mission Statement E-Newsletter: https://www.mfileadership.com/blog/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deannewlund/X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/deannewlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/MissionFacilitators/Email: dean.newlund@mfileadership.comPhone: 1-800-926-7370 Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.
What to Expect While Fostering and Adopting | Adoption, Foster parent, Foster care, Adopting
Welcome to the What to Expect While Fostering and Adopting podcast. I'm Christine Marie — adoptive mom, former foster parent, and biblical mindset coach. Whether you're in the early stages of foster care, navigating adoption, or standing in a season of unknowns — this space was created for you. Today's episode is different. It's not polished or perfectly planned — it's real. It's raw. It's what I'm walking through right now. Last night, my daughter chose to leave. And after years of fighting, praying, loving, and believing for healing, I came to a place I never thought I'd be: surrender. Not because I stopped loving her — but because love doesn't force. Love releases. Love trusts. This episode is a reflection on what it means to surrender your child to God when nothing makes sense. It's for the mama who's exhausted. The one who's grieving. The one who has done everything “right” and still feels like it's falling apart. If you've ever had to release control, grieve what could have been, or trust God with the child you love — I pray this message meets you in that sacred space. ☕ Grab your coffee and settle in — this one will stretch you, strengthen you, and remind you why love is always worth it. XO-Christine
What does it take to turn a century-old family trade business into a modern, people-first brand? In this episode of Bridging the Gap, Todd Weyandt sits down with Christene Marie, founder of The Knowing Group, host of the Craft & Calling Podcast, and fourth-generation leader in her family's 100+ year business. Christene shares her journey of balancing legacy with innovation, why authentic communication is the ultimate business advantage, and how bravery fuels personal and professional transformation. From branding Amazon to scaling her family's company, she reveals how principles, values, and storytelling can shape a great legacy in construction. Tune in for a conversation that blends wisdom, legacy, and modern insights on building a construction career that lasts.
Trust Me has joined Exactly Right Media. Hosts Lola Blanc & Meagan Elizabeth will be back with new episodes on Wednesday, July 30th. In their first ever episode, Lola and Meagan interviewed Christine Marie, Lola's mom, about her and Lola's experiences believing in a self-proclaimed Mormon prophet. They discuss how they came to believe in him, their separation from each other, Christine's harrowing trafficking experience, and Lola's childhood memories of Keith Raniere from NXIVM. Original Airdate: 10/06/2020. Subscribe on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
If you or someone you know has had to go through Grief related to the loss of a loved one crossing over to the other side, this is the episode for you. On this week's episode, Shanta is joined by Christine Marie Aitchison. In this powerful episode of Authentic Talks 2.0, host Shanta Generally welcomes trauma-informed healer and ceremonial guide Christine Marie Aitchison for a heartfelt conversation on grief, healing, and sacred transformation. Christine Marie opens up about her personal journey—growing up with a father who struggled with heroin addiction, a mother dealing with mental health challenges, and surviving a near-death experience that changed everything. Together, we explore the emotional terrain of loss, trauma, and the healing practices that help us move from pain to empowerment.Christine Marie shares insights from her 90-day healing journal, Grieve with Guidance, offering rituals, reflection, and real tools for anyone walking the path of loss and forgiveness. We also talk about the silence around grief, the weight of “not knowing what to say,” and the sacred power of presence. This episode is an invitation to heal—authentically, gently, and with grace. Christine Marie will return for a future panel discussion centered around her journal—so stay tuned!Connect with Christine Marie:Earth & Energy Medicine SchoolWebsite: ChristineMarieHeals.comInstagram: @christinemariehealsBook: Grieve with Guidance (Available on her website and major retailers)Website:https://www.christinemarieheals.com/?msID=815c5e15-0e36-4451-a7ef-dfb83abaf278https://www.christinemarieheals.com/energymedicineschool?msID=589050f4-082f-43d7-899c-de02d118efe7Amazon:https://www.amazon.com/Grieve-Guidance-support-journey-forgiveness/dp/B0F1C298JW?msID=c91c57e0-2c95-499e-84a7-6b8f90da246fApple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Spreaker | Castbox and more. Connect with the host:Instagram: @AuthenticTalks2.0 Email: AuthenticShanta@gmail.com Website: www.AuthenticTalks2.com Facebook: AuthenticTalks2 Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/authentic-talks-2-0-with-shanta--4116672/support.