Speaker 1: School of Humans.
Speaker 2: This show follows the investigation of serial murders and contains
Speaker 2: material that may be disturbing.
Speaker 3: Listener discretion advised.
Speaker 1: On the ground in Johannesburg, Jennifer and I spent a
Speaker 1: lot of time in the car with Detective Ben Boysen.
Speaker 1: The west Rand gold Mine looms in the distance over
Speaker 1: Krueger's door. A fine dust blows from the hill into
Speaker 1: the city, Stark trees, dead grass, dusty gutters lying the
Speaker 1: gray streets. As Ben offered us as many insights like
Speaker 1: this one about the state of the police force.
Speaker 4: So eventually there's about seventeen thousand cops in the whole
Speaker 4: of South Africa fully seen sixty million people. So how
Speaker 4: the hell do you think you're going to ever in
Speaker 4: your life crime and get your end of a crime.
Speaker 4: This will never happen.
Speaker 1: The South African police department and judicial system are often
Speaker 1: so overwhelmed that unsolved cases go cold and then fall
Speaker 1: by the wayside.
Speaker 4: Before you can start actually investigating the cause decently. You've
Speaker 4: got a next murder guise, and you've got a next
Speaker 4: hijacking guys, and you've got to a next roberty guise,
Speaker 4: and you continue to do the job. So yeah, this
Speaker 4: is this is ma South Africa. You know, it's the
Speaker 4: wild twist.
Speaker 1: This is one of the reasons EPD would continue to
Speaker 1: evade justice for four more years after Michaela's murder. The
Speaker 1: sights and sounds of South Africa stream past us. As
Speaker 1: we left the bustle, the dreary, loud streets of Krueger
Speaker 1: Store and ascended the green suburban hills with well manicured
Speaker 1: lawns and quiet avenues that overlook the city. Ben set
Speaker 1: the stage for the next tragedy. Is weary words build
Speaker 1: out as he drove the pain and his voice was
Speaker 1: unexpected and disarming.
Speaker 4: This country is you know, we're in a tunnel and
Speaker 4: there's a big light outside and everybody think that light
Speaker 4: is the sun. That light's not the sun. That light
Speaker 4: is a train coming with a huge speed, and something
Speaker 4: really bad is going to happen in the near future.
Speaker 4: It can't go on like this. Somewhere along the line
Speaker 4: things must change. But before things need to change, things
Speaker 4: need to be at the worst.
Speaker 1: From School of Humans and iHeart Podcasts, This is Queen
Speaker 1: Havoc and her Murder Cult. I'm your host Kurt Koopachak,
Speaker 1: Episode six House of Cards. The staggering amount of incompetence
Speaker 1: by law enforcement was already weighing heavy on Susette when
Speaker 1: she was brought on in twenty twelve.
Speaker 5: There was a gap in our legal system and it
Speaker 5: frustrated me. And to give for you all, but you're
Speaker 5: not not receiving half of that back.
Speaker 1: Susette did give her all for over twenty years. She
Speaker 1: served her country on the force.
Speaker 6: I gave my life.
Speaker 5: I even saved my two kids aside to do what
Speaker 5: was in my blood.
Speaker 1: And then there was the Cecilia Stein case. Detective Susette
Speaker 1: could see that Michaela's murder was directly tied to the
Speaker 1: case number debacle that allowed Marinda to walk when.
Speaker 2: It came in court. Mirinda couldn't be placed in this
Speaker 2: guise because this guy's and I said, but she can't
Speaker 2: be connected to this guys, so let her go, and
Speaker 2: I let her go. That is what happened.
Speaker 1: Detective Susette was fed up. The community was already racked
Speaker 1: with grief and terrorized by the murders, and now she
Speaker 1: feared for her own own family. As her then sixteen
Speaker 1: year old daughter Shaney remembers.
Speaker 7: She was so stressed and so worried about me and
Speaker 7: my brother and our safety that we could barely go somewhere.
Speaker 7: And we respected my mom because at the time we
Speaker 7: did not know exactly how dangerous those people were, so
Speaker 7: my mom just showed us pictures of how they look like,
Speaker 7: and if we see them in public, just go a
Speaker 7: different direction.
Speaker 1: But the final blow arrived when Detective Susette confronted Captain
Speaker 1: van Vick about the case number mix up. Captain van
Speaker 1: Vick maintained that he wasn't responsible and that he was
Speaker 1: following orders one's given to him by Colonel de Yager.
Speaker 2: When I found him to ask him what the hell happened,
Speaker 2: I was sorry, but Dad said, listen, I'm done. I'm
Speaker 2: done helping, I'm done assisting. I am withdrawing.
Speaker 1: Just following orders just doesn't cut it, says journalist.
Speaker 8: I mean, as an investigative officer, he had to make
Speaker 8: certain calls, not just say yon, I mean to what
Speaker 8: Dioga is saying.
Speaker 1: In other words, Vinvick was the lead officer and shouldn't
Speaker 1: have been just a yes man to Diager this issue
Speaker 1: with the wrong case number, plus Venvick being a willing
Speaker 1: pawn to Colonel di Yager and then the state's attorney
Speaker 1: refusing to grant Susette arrest warrants for the other members
Speaker 1: of Cecilia's gang. It was all too much for Detective Susette.
Speaker 1: Plus her children's lives were now at risk too. The
Speaker 1: strain became more than Detective Susette could bear.
Speaker 5: It was like it was in weeks that I left
Speaker 5: the police. It just cloaked me and I just decided
Speaker 5: that sad enough.
Speaker 1: After more than two decades of dedicated work, Detective Susette
Speaker 1: Canot say quit the force all together, and shockingly, so
Speaker 1: did Van Vick, who was still tracking the progress of
Speaker 1: the investigation.
Speaker 9: I was devastated because I knew that Maranda Stein she
Speaker 9: was somehow involved. But yeah, unfortunately our judicial system looks
Speaker 9: in such a mana that the prosecutor decides not to
Speaker 9: place the matter. Then they dined places bsically back to
Speaker 9: SQUAI one. Like I said, I was devastated, and I
Speaker 9: actually designed from the police a couple of months later.
Speaker 1: It's worth noting that wild Detective Susette Canot was on
Speaker 1: the case murders fitting the pattern of the EPD killing
Speaker 1: spree ground to a halt. Detective Ben Boysen suspects that
Speaker 1: her focus on the group had a lot to do
Speaker 1: with that.
Speaker 4: I know, if they're going to do something now, the
Speaker 4: spotlight is on them, and that's why they stopped with
Speaker 4: the killings and stuff.
Speaker 1: So the killing ceased in twenty twelve and the case
Speaker 1: against Ria Grunewald went cold. She subsequently left town to
Speaker 1: start a new life. Over the course of a single year,
Speaker 1: law enforcement let the same murderer walk twice and lost
Speaker 1: one of their most loyal investigators. Electus Perdais laid low
Speaker 1: from her only twenty thirteen to late twenty fifteen, but
Speaker 1: Cecilia kept them busy. They continued to do her bidding
Speaker 1: while she reminded them all about the cost of doubt.
Speaker 1: Here's journalist Maritzka Kotz there.
Speaker 3: Lari told me straight up that Mikayla's murder was always
Speaker 3: the example, and it was thrown in his face. You know,
Speaker 3: like to say that the same can happen to you.
Speaker 3: And I think the thing that freaked him out the
Speaker 3: most was for four years they basically got away with
Speaker 3: her murder.
Speaker 1: Also during this period, Marinda got a new job as
Speaker 1: a tenth grade English teacher the second rate Hammer wielding
Speaker 1: killer was considered one of her school's best educators, continuing
Speaker 1: to balance her to personas Her classroom was a repurposed
Speaker 1: whole economics room.
Speaker 4: In the old days, it was a classroom where they
Speaker 4: teach women to cook and to do nothing and all
Speaker 4: that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: It's still bothsted storage closets filled with ovens and old
Speaker 1: kitchen appliances. But Marinda made the class from her own
Speaker 1: with religious posters and Bible verses on the wall.
Speaker 4: When you go inside, they will say she's the biggest
Speaker 4: Christian on Earth.
Speaker 1: Back home at Casana Flats, LaRue and Zach stockpiled weapons,
Speaker 1: building up the hidden arsenal for EPD. The group had
Speaker 1: moved beyond knives and hammers. They'd now graduated to firearms,
Speaker 1: purchased illegally from a brothel owner Cecilia Knew.
Speaker 8: Was owned by a man and his wife, and the
Speaker 8: men passed away, and then the widow gave them the firearms, revolvers, pistols,
Speaker 8: automatic weapons, and then Zak was the one that went
Speaker 8: to pick it up. He fetched the weapons.
Speaker 1: LaRue was put in charge of creating and maintaining the
Speaker 1: hiding places for this rookie armory. Under Cecilia's orders, each
Speaker 1: member of EPD chose their favorite gun they were to
Speaker 1: name it. Marinda called her pistol Charlie, after Charles Manson himself.
Speaker 1: While the killings may have stopped epd's collective goal to
Speaker 1: be gods, or rather Secilia's warriors had not changed. Cecilia
Speaker 1: had no plans for a peaceful existence. Also during this period,
Speaker 1: Zach Valentine left his job at Discovery Life Insurance to
Speaker 1: strike out as an independent agent, not making nearly as
Speaker 1: much as he had been.
Speaker 4: During two thy fifteen. After Zach Valentine leaft Discovery and
Speaker 4: started his own business and taking money from people, eventually
Speaker 4: that money was used by them, there was no money anymore.
Speaker 1: This presented a major hurdle for EPD to clear. Marinda's
Speaker 1: teaching salary was not enough to make up for Zach's losses.
Speaker 1: This would essentially force EPD out of hiding. Marcel was
Speaker 1: now living with Cecilia full time, carrying for Cecilia's two
Speaker 1: young children. Psychologist Rosalind McNabb advocated for Marcel in court.
Speaker 1: She painted a picture of what life was like for
Speaker 1: the high schooler.
Speaker 6: She was on all sorts of drugs, before, which would
Speaker 6: have also been aggravating factors in her committing the Crowns
Speaker 6: because that's how she copd. She spaced herself out with
Speaker 6: the drugs that she took.
Speaker 1: And there were plenty of drugs around, especially thanks to
Speaker 1: a new recruit, the blue eyed Gaunt and weather John Barnard.
Speaker 1: When money was tight, Cecilia made some scratch selling bootleg DVDs,
Speaker 1: and sometimes she would trade them for the street drug cat.
Speaker 1: Cat is a highly addictive stimulant similar to what's commonly
Speaker 1: known as crystal meth. Through the exchange of bootleg DVDs
Speaker 1: for KAT, Barnard found himself over time becoming one of
Speaker 1: Cecilia's subjects, so Marcel and all the rest could easily
Speaker 1: detach from their grim reality. Barnard had no idea that
Speaker 1: he was living among a pack of killers. Like most
Speaker 1: folks in the Krueger Stop area at the time, Barnard
Speaker 1: believed that Rhea was the murderous mastermind that the cops
Speaker 1: never managed to pin down. Their fledgling new member. Luke
Speaker 1: hadn't panned out. He was now in protective custody, so
Speaker 1: there was room, and Barnard was certainly a welcome addition
Speaker 1: to the group, he had steady employment at a printing company.
Speaker 1: His income helped address EPDs mounting money troubles.
Speaker 4: Cecilia started thinking about how are we going to get
Speaker 4: a lot of money because now he's suffering.
Speaker 1: John Barnard gradually began supporting Cecilia financially saving orphans over
Speaker 1: or so he thought. He was also suspected to be
Speaker 1: entwined romantically with Mirinda, and in November of twenty fifteen,
Speaker 1: he proved his loyalty to EPD.
Speaker 4: John Barnard came with the idea that why don't you
Speaker 4: rob my boss because he's got a big business and
Speaker 4: he's going to start the theme park. But it was
Speaker 4: only supposed to be a robbery.
Speaker 1: Peter and Joan Meyer, a wealthy couple from Kruegersdorp, owned
Speaker 1: the printing company where John Barnard worked. Since he was
Speaker 1: one of their oldest employees, Barnard knew that the couple
Speaker 1: was planning on opening a water park in the area,
Speaker 1: a franchise, and they had been saving for some time.
Speaker 4: The Mayers is very very rich. John Barnett told Cecilia
Speaker 4: that you know that they is hiding millions of friends
Speaker 4: in the vault.
Speaker 1: Jana Marx can firm Barnard as the initiator as well.
Speaker 8: He introduced the Mayas as victims first as for a robbery,
Speaker 8: because he was under the impression they kept millions hidden
Speaker 8: in a safe in cash.
Speaker 1: Cecilia's pupils turned to dollar signs, and she began to
Speaker 1: delegate responsibilities to her sheep. The worst part about this
Speaker 1: narcissistic scheme. The saddest thing was that Cecilia plan to
Speaker 1: manipulate the Meyer's own children to become involved, guaranteeing access
Speaker 1: to the couple. Lieutenant Colonel Christelle Boison had an interesting
Speaker 1: take on how Cecilia brought out the worst sides of
Speaker 1: her followers. When we spoke with her. She quoted as saying,
Speaker 1: that's often attributed to the indigenous Cherokee people of North America.
Speaker 10: There's an Indian proverb that's say, all of us has
Speaker 10: two wolves in us, a good wolf and a bad wolf,
Speaker 10: and whichever one you feed takes over.
Speaker 1: Peter and Joan Meyer had two sons, Nicholas and Thaine.
Speaker 1: Nicholas resided with his parents and then well he was estranged.
Speaker 1: He struggled with addiction, and his parents had cut him
Speaker 1: off because of his friendship with John Barnard, the newest
Speaker 1: member of EPD. Fayne found himself hanging around Cassana Flats
Speaker 1: in the orbit of Cecilia, Mirinda and Zach.
Speaker 4: He actually went with John Barnard to buy drax at
Speaker 4: Cecilia's house.
Speaker 1: He knew Cecilia, Peter and Joan Meyer trusted John Barnard.
Speaker 1: They practically helped raise him.
Speaker 4: Peter brought him in when he was still a child
Speaker 4: and he was also a drug addict, and he assisted him.
Speaker 4: He fired him a few times, but he eventually took
Speaker 4: him back because he felt for him and he was
Speaker 4: good in his work.
Speaker 1: So in the plot to rob the Myers thing was
Speaker 1: an easy mark.
Speaker 4: I think because he's Bedens wanted to disown him because
Speaker 4: of his drug abuse. You wanted money.
Speaker 1: Fain of course never suspected that the people he was
Speaker 1: dealing with were desperate and greedy killers.
Speaker 4: It was only supposed to rob his Betens, and he
Speaker 4: gave him aloud of Da Housman, so that was actually,
Speaker 4: in my view, robbery Da Dwindron.
Speaker 1: On November nineteenth, twenty fifteen, Peter Meyer receives a phone call.
Speaker 1: The woman on the line is Mirinda, but she identifies
Speaker 1: herself as Gloria, a representative from the Department of Trade
Speaker 1: and Industry. She says the department is interested in helping
Speaker 1: to finance their proposed water park project. Peter is suspicious
Speaker 1: for one, he has not yet filed government paperwork to
Speaker 1: start the franchise, and two, the only person who knows
Speaker 1: of his plans to do so is his longtime employee,
Speaker 1: John Barnard. Lured by an investment offer, Peter disregards his
Speaker 1: gut feeling that something might be off and agrees to meet.
Speaker 1: Zach creates counterfeit documents good ones on official government letterhead.
Speaker 1: There are then three false starts before these bumbling criminals
Speaker 1: can follow through on the robbery. First, LaRue, while preparing
Speaker 1: the guns for the robbery, accidentally shoots himself with a
Speaker 1: twenty two revolver and is rush to the er. Marinda
Speaker 1: calls and reschedules with the Myers on their next attempt,
Speaker 1: for reasons we can only guess at. Marinda, Zach, and
Speaker 1: Marcel show up two hours early for their appointment. Peter
Speaker 1: is not yet home from work, and Joan asks them
Speaker 1: to return later. When they come back at the appointed time,
Speaker 1: Myers are in the middle of dinner. Jennifer and I
Speaker 1: stand outside the Myers grandiose home with Detective Ben Boysen.
Speaker 1: It's an affluent area perched on a hillside. The house
Speaker 1: looks like an Italian villa. The towering ten foot gate
Speaker 1: surrounding it is ornate, and above its stone and casing
Speaker 1: is electrified wire.
Speaker 4: Winde kamya on false pretendents that day are working for
Speaker 4: the government, and they all prepare to assist them with
Speaker 4: extra money to bould that Walter premises you open.
Speaker 1: During this very strange second attempt, the murder squad comes
Speaker 1: into the dining room and sort of just stands there
Speaker 1: awkwardly while the Myers dig into steak and potatoes. Mirinda
Speaker 1: is clad in rhinestone jewelry and the most business casual
Speaker 1: outfits she could find to cover her many lurking tattoos.
Speaker 1: She launches into her investment pitch. Somehow it works. Before
Speaker 1: they depart, Mirinda insists that they set one final meeting
Speaker 1: to get the official paperwork signed. On Friday, November twenty eighth,
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen, a day earlier than they'd agreed to meet. Mirinda,
Speaker 1: Zach and Marcel show up again, hoping to take them
Speaker 1: by surprise, and again Peter is not home. Over the
Speaker 1: building's intercom, the Meyer's son, Nicholas says he'll call his father.
Speaker 1: Nicholas reports back that Peter is busy and the appointment
Speaker 1: is supposed to be the following day. The amateur assassins
Speaker 1: are really hitting it out of the park, further peaking
Speaker 1: Peter's suspicions.
Speaker 4: He didn't trust him, so he actually found one of
Speaker 4: his business for instance, said you need to come to
Speaker 4: my premises. I'm meeting this people tonight. That is said
Speaker 4: in thime.
Speaker 1: This coworker and friend, whose name is Jason, agrees to
Speaker 1: come over, but then he remembers that his kids have
Speaker 1: a school recital that evening, so Jason tells his boss
Speaker 1: he'll do everything he can to make it to the meeting.
Speaker 1: Best case, he'll most likely arrive late. That night, Nicholas
Speaker 1: gets a rare call from his brother Fain, asking him
Speaker 1: to meet for drinks to catch up. Nicholas jumps at
Speaker 1: the chance to see his kin. Shortly before seven pm
Speaker 1: that Saturday, a silver BMW pulls up outside the Meyers home.
Speaker 1: Inside the car are Zach, Mirinda, and Marcel LaRue stays home.
Speaker 1: He's still healing from shooting himself in the growing. His sister,
Speaker 1: Marcel goes in his place. She's a senior in high school.
Speaker 1: Now that special time when most kids that age are
Speaker 1: dreaming of their future, not climbing into a murder way again. Mirinda, Zach,
Speaker 1: and Marcel open the car doors. They step out, guns
Speaker 1: concealed under the clothes. Peter and Joan are both home
Speaker 1: and welcome them in. As they make small talk, Peter
Speaker 1: Meyer mentions that his colleague will be joining them in
Speaker 1: about ten minutes. Adrenaline kicks in. Mirinda turns red and
Speaker 1: locks eyes with Zach an unspoken agreement. It's now or never.
Speaker 4: But I took out the file home and pointed them,
Speaker 4: and then Marcel put on them.
Speaker 1: The now ashen couple is seated on the floor, their
Speaker 1: hands and feet bound.
Speaker 4: And then the O's team with the monies. And then
Speaker 4: the guy said, but they have money. The money is
Speaker 4: my house. I only go to a seven box.
Speaker 1: On him, Zach barks in their faces. He demands the
Speaker 1: keys to they're safe. Peter Meyer pleads with Zach repeats
Speaker 1: the truth. They don't keep money at home. The couple
Speaker 1: is left alone with Zach as Mirinda and Marcel go
Speaker 1: hunting for a safe that Barnard told them about. Scared
Speaker 1: for their lives, Peter talks a mile a minute. His
Speaker 1: chatter only fuels Zach's fury. Peter and Jant beg Zach
Speaker 1: to have mercy, repeating over and over again that they
Speaker 1: have no money in their home. Eventually, there's nothing more
Speaker 1: to say. Silence hangs in the air as the couple
Speaker 1: waits for Marinda and Marcel to return. The two come
Speaker 1: back empty handed. They can't find a safe. That's bad
Speaker 1: news for the Myers. Peter offers them what little cash
Speaker 1: he has on hand in his wallet.
Speaker 4: It's not much, so you guys him to savent and
Speaker 4: and Zak then became berserk, and he started stabbing them both.
Speaker 1: The poultry some infuriate Zach.
Speaker 4: Their husband start besiting Psalm twenty three.
Speaker 1: The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He
Speaker 1: makes me lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me
Speaker 1: beside the still waters. He restores my soul.
Speaker 4: And then he got really mad.
Speaker 10: Marshall told us when she testified Zach went berserk, she
Speaker 10: said they didn't even recognize he was stabbing Joan and
Speaker 10: stabbing Peter, and then after Peter going back to Joan,
Speaker 10: and they wouldn't know when he was finishing, and they
Speaker 10: had to tell him, listen, you have to finish now
Speaker 10: because we need to get out of yet.
Speaker 1: At the climax of the bloodshed, the buzzer sounds. It's
Speaker 1: Jason come to attend his boss's investment meeting.
Speaker 4: He saw Zach Valentine's vehicle and he praysed the button,
Speaker 4: and then Marcel came into the intercom and told him, listen,
Speaker 4: we're busy on now and there's water fighting and al
Speaker 4: he must come later. And then he left.
Speaker 1: Standing outside the imposing security gate of the Meyer's home,
Speaker 1: Jason pulls his phone out and calls his boss Peter
Speaker 1: to check the story. No answer. Jason calls him again
Speaker 1: and again, still no answer. Jason gets back in his
Speaker 1: car and drives off with no idea just how close
Speaker 1: he came to death That night inside Zach's volcanic iron
Speaker 1: frightens even Mirinda, which is saying a lot.
Speaker 11: Then Zack suddenly freaked out. Now why would he do that?
Speaker 11: He went like a possessed person. I got fearful years
Speaker 11: and they were lying on the floor ready, cable died
Speaker 11: and everything, and he started stabbing them like.
Speaker 1: Mirinda has to yell at Zach to stop. He finally does.
Speaker 1: Then he stands up and grabs Peter's wallet. Before the
Speaker 1: three of them had out the.
Speaker 4: Door, they left only with his wallet.
Speaker 1: Mirinda, Zach and Marcel killed Joan and Peter Meyer for
Speaker 1: the grand sum of seven hundred rand, less than a
Speaker 1: tank of gas for most of us. Cecilia was expecting
Speaker 1: a much bigger payday when it came.
Speaker 8: Back and said, now, I mean seven hundred rands. She
Speaker 8: was extremely, extremely angry. The fact that Zach killed them
Speaker 8: like he did, like this whole outrage thing, angered even
Speaker 8: more because that was never part of the plan.
Speaker 1: The killers split up the proceeds of their robbery doesn't
Speaker 1: take long.
Speaker 8: The plan was to go rob them, and then the
Speaker 8: robbery became a murder.
Speaker 1: As the knight wears on and the adrenaline leaches away,
Speaker 1: Zach's mood shifts dramatically. He begs Cecilia for her forgiveness.
Speaker 1: He swears his allegiance to her over and over. He
Speaker 1: let his rage get the better of him. It won't
Speaker 1: happen again, he promises. The groveling restores Cecilia's sense of power.
Speaker 1: To show their loyalty, Cecilia makes her followers renew their
Speaker 1: vows to her and swear a new oath of secrecy.
Speaker 1: No one must speak of this mistake ever again. Once
Speaker 1: again secure in Cecilia's favor, Zach and Marcel hit up
Speaker 1: a nearby casino try to double their money. They invite
Speaker 1: John Barnard.
Speaker 8: He gladly joined in the casina trip afterwards, to see
Speaker 8: if they can win anything.
Speaker 1: Neither he nor Zach have any luck on their side. Marcel, however,
Speaker 1: wins big, bringing home an extra two hundred rand. Marcel
Speaker 1: boasts to Cecilia when she gets home. Cecilia praises Marcel,
Speaker 1: calls her quote an exemplar of God's good grace, and then,
Speaker 1: with her typical confidence, Cecilia announces that a woman she knows,
Speaker 1: a fellow victim of the Satanic Church, is suffering from
Speaker 1: a kidney disease. It just so happens that she needs
Speaker 1: exactly two hundred rand. The dutiful Marcel hands over her
Speaker 1: winnings to Cecilia. That night, at around nine pm, Nicholas
Speaker 1: Meyer and his girlfriend return home from a night out drinking,
Speaker 1: they find his parents lying dead in a pool of blood.
Speaker 1: Nicholas runs to them in horror. His girlfriend wast pull
Speaker 1: him away so he doesn't compromise the crime scene. She
Speaker 1: convinces him to walk outside, where Nicholas phones his brother.
Speaker 1: When police finally arrive on the scene about an hour later,
Speaker 1: it doesn't take them long to find solid forensic evidence.
Speaker 4: The envelope that Maranda brought with her that she was
Speaker 4: supposed to work for the government. She left the envelope yard,
Speaker 4: so when the police came to the crime scene, they
Speaker 4: found the envelope and they found a thumbprint on it.
Speaker 1: Again, it's Miranda's fingerprints. This time they're on the forged
Speaker 1: government paperwork left on the Meyers coffee table. Would this
Speaker 1: be what finally doomed them or would the police once
Speaker 1: again match their incompetence. In order to help the police
Speaker 1: with their investigation, the Meyers brothers hire a private detective.
Speaker 1: He's thorough in his search for the killers. He quickly
Speaker 1: hones in on Zach's car.
Speaker 4: But there's a lot of cameras on the roads, and
Speaker 4: the private investigated went and he got camera footage of
Speaker 4: Zach Valentine's vehicle leaving the vicinity.
Speaker 1: Peter Meyer's friend and employee, Jason confirms that he spotted
Speaker 1: a silver BMW in the Myers driveway that night.
Speaker 4: So eventually didn't they They came to Zach and Marenda said,
Speaker 4: but listen, you were there.
Speaker 1: Between the fingerprints and the vehicle ID, the cops have
Speaker 1: enough to bring in Zach and Marender for questioning. When confronted,
Speaker 1: the two killers improvise and.
Speaker 4: They said, yeah, we were there, but there were other people.
Speaker 4: They were fighting with other people, and we didn't want
Speaker 4: to get involved, so we left. But the next day
Speaker 4: it was in all the newspapers that they were killed.
Speaker 4: So why didn't you come to the police.
Speaker 8: They implicated another couple, so they Zack and Marenda had
Speaker 8: this whole story worked out that they were at the
Speaker 8: Meyer's house. I didn't deny being there, but they said
Speaker 8: at some point they left, so they actually just blamed
Speaker 8: the other couple.
Speaker 1: The lies kept coming.
Speaker 8: It was just a fabrication, but they stopped to that story,
Speaker 8: and that was also the story in the statement, and
Speaker 8: they even gave descriptions of the other couple, and the
Speaker 8: police drew up identic kits of this other couple.
Speaker 1: So the cops began searching in Vain for people who
Speaker 1: didn't even exist. Still, they see Zax BMW. The forensics
Speaker 1: department searches the car top to bottom, inside and out,
Speaker 1: and they find nothing, not a single hair nor blood
Speaker 1: stain of evidence. Mirinda must have done one hell of
Speaker 1: a job cleaning Zach's car of any traces of blood
Speaker 1: or tissue. The police still had the Meyer's sons, Thane
Speaker 1: and Nicholas in their sights. After finding his parents murdered
Speaker 1: and before the police showed up, Nicholas, not knowing if
Speaker 1: the killers were still in the house, grabbed a screwdriver.
Speaker 1: When he didn't find anyone, he threw it in the
Speaker 1: empty pool.
Speaker 8: Nicholas threw that screwdriver into the pool and it looked
Speaker 8: very suspicious for the police. So that's why I took
Speaker 8: them in for pushing and polygraphs and.
Speaker 7: All of that.
Speaker 1: Nicholas was brought in for questioning alongside Mirinda and Zach.
Speaker 1: That's when he made a positive ID, reporting that Zach
Speaker 1: and Mirinda had shown up during dinner one night claiming
Speaker 1: to be government officials. Even so, the police didn't have
Speaker 1: enough to keep any of them in jail. No DNA
Speaker 1: evidence to connect Zach and Mirinda to the murders, and
Speaker 1: fingerprints aren't enough for a murder charge. So the four
Speaker 1: of them, the real criminals and the Meyer boys, were
Speaker 1: all released with the promise that they would be called
Speaker 1: back in for a polygraph test. One thing to note
Speaker 1: about this particular and often questioned forensic.
Speaker 4: Tool, polygraphications that Africa cannot be used in a court
Speaker 4: of flow.
Speaker 1: But they can narrow the focus of an investigation.
Speaker 4: Both of them filed the polygraph taste then the police
Speaker 4: will know that listen, now we need to go deep
Speaker 4: into this investigation. And he tried to get more information
Speaker 4: to link them to the murders.
Speaker 1: Fain and Nicholas are brought in first, nerves racked. They
Speaker 1: don't do so well on the polygraph.
Speaker 8: So the siblings they actually failed.
Speaker 1: So the police remained skeptical about the brother's involvement. The
Speaker 1: walls were closing in and Zach was fast becoming a liability.
Speaker 11: They were going to do a lie dedicted test, and
Speaker 11: Zak knew he can't do the liight deddicted test because
Speaker 11: they will see that he killed the.
Speaker 1: Guy behind on his car payments. The bank sees the
Speaker 1: silver BMW. He'd been spotted in now with no way
Speaker 1: to get around independently, no steady income, and the police
Speaker 1: hounding him to come in for a polygraph. Cecilia began
Speaker 1: to question and the man who'd long been her ever
Speaker 1: loyal piggybank, the.
Speaker 4: Need was decided that now he needs to die.
Speaker 1: On the next episode of Queen Havoc.
Speaker 4: He was found in a car with a pipe to
Speaker 4: the exhaust and then they put said, Okay, committed suicide.
Speaker 3: That's really bad.
Speaker 1: You don't explain something to go, just pass away.
Speaker 11: We actually met Cecilia and the whole group, Zack and
Speaker 11: Mirinda and all of them, And it's only afterwards that
Speaker 11: I realized that we were being groomed.
Speaker 8: It could have been me and you. They were doing
Speaker 8: regular jobs, showing up for appointment and they were killed.
Speaker 1: Queen Havoc in Her Murder Cult is a production of
Speaker 1: Schooly Humans and iHeart podcasts. Queen Havoc is hosted and
Speaker 1: created by me Kurt Kupachack, produced and written by Jennifer Zucchini,
Speaker 1: Julia Chriscau, and Kirk Kupachick. Lead producer is Julie Crisca.
Speaker 1: Story editor is Saren Burnett. Senior producer is Amelia Brock.
Speaker 1: Production manager is Daisy Church. Original music composed by Claire Campbell, editing,
Speaker 1: sound design and scoring by Jesse Niswanger. Associate producers are
Speaker 1: DaShan Moodley and Jermaine Kritterer. Additional producing by Ben Melman,
Speaker 1: fact checking by Dennis Webster. Recording engineers are Graham Gibson,
Speaker 1: Clay Hillenberg and Josh Hook. Brinda Stein was read by
Speaker 1: Angelique Pretorious. Executive producers are Virginia Prescott, L. C. Crowley,
Speaker 1: Brandon Barr, Jennifer Keeney and Kurt Kupachak. We want to
Speaker 1: thank all of those who so generously welcomed us in
Speaker 1: South Africa and shared their stories. We're incredibly grateful to
Speaker 1: you all. We also want to acknowledge how traumatic these
Speaker 1: events are for the victims and their family. Please respect
Speaker 1: their privacy. If you or someone you know has been
Speaker 1: affected by cult behaviors, there are resources available, including voices
Speaker 1: for Dignity at Christine Murray dot com