Palo Verde Valley Times article

Suicide/murder linked to cult
Video made by victim claims Children of God religious group sexually molested and physically abused children of members
By Marty Bachman
PALO VERDE VALLEY TIMES

A suicide in Blythe on Jan. 9 has attracted international interest as the background of the victim and his relationship with an alleged Christian cult has come to the forefront.

Richard Rodriguez, 29, of Tucson, Ariz., was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his car in the vicinity of Main and 14th Ave. Blythe police investigators, who had contacted Rodriguez’s family in Lakewood, Wash., learned that he had informed them of a murder he had committed in his apartment in Tucson. Blythe police contacted Tucson officials who went to the apartment and discovered the body of Angela M. Smith, 51, of Tucson. Smith had been stabbed multiple times.

As Tucson police continued to investigate the murder, it was discovered that Smith was a member of the Children of God (COG) religious organization and had had a part in the rearing of Rodriguez, whose family were also members of the religious order.

David Berg, who preached a version of Christianity out of the mainstream, founded the group, known as the Family, in the 1960s. Past members of the Family, including Rodriguez, have accused Children of God adult members of having engaged in rampant and serial sexual acts with minors. The cult has been the subject of investigations concerning child abuse allegations throughout the world.

A Web site created by children of Children of God members who have left the fold (movingon.org), is rife with letters and tales of rapes of children as young as age 4 by members of the group. A history of the Family, as depicted on the site, said that Rodriguez’s mother, Karen Zerby, who was renamed Maria and is known as “Mama,” was a companion of Berg’s and together, they viewed Rodriguez as being “a divine prince, destined to lead the Children of God through the biblical endtime.”

The Web site posting described Rodriguez’s childhood as being “spent in a highly controlled environment characterized by intense indoctrination, stringent discipline, and sexual initiation by adults.”

After Berg’s death in 1994, Zerby became the leader of the Family and, together with Steve Kelly, known as “Peter,” or the Husband,” act as central figures in the organization.

In a videotape Rodriguez made just days prior to the murder and suicide, he discussed his motives for killing Smith and his own subsequent suicide.

“The main reason is that I want there to be some record of the way I feel, my ideas, just who I was, really,” Rodriguez said, speaking into the video camera while loading bullets into gun clips. “I thought I’d have an opportunity to do this in March but I learned the opportunity was going to arise this weekend.”

Rodriguez was referring to the arrival in Tucson of Smith, who called on him while she was in town and made plans to have dinner with him.

Rodriguez then apologized for “having to cram” in reference to his having to load the gun clips and make the video simultaneously.

He said that thoughts of suicide began with the infamous “teen training,” a schooling alleged to involve barbarous treatment and sexual demands of the children of cult members.

Rodriguez mentioned several methods of suicide he had planned before settling on firing a shot from a .40-caliber Glock into his head, which he later did on a Blythe street corner.

He also displayed a knife he said would be used to kill Smith, whom he implied had a significant role in the sexual abuses that occurred to him, comparing her death to “taking out the trash.”

“It’s a horrible thing when adults contemplate suicide,” Rodriguez said. “It’s worse for a little boy — when you (expletive) him over because you’re a sick pervert.”

Rodriguez claimed that the sexual abuse happened to thousands of children of COG members, and that the abuse wasn’t only sexual. He did say that the sexual abuse of the girls was worse than what happened to boys.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “It shouldn’t have happened to anyone.”

He said that while the abuse was a problem for all the children, his was worse in that, as heir to the religious order, he was kept secluded from the other children and so basically, only around the adult “perverts.”

He said that it was his love of martial arts that led to his fascination with knives as was a desire to be able to stand up to a group of strong men and hold them accountable. He said that while he knew that people would view what he was going to do as being wrong, he saw it as extracting revenge, justice and making a difference.

“I’ve seen how ugly humans can get,” he said. “I don’t want it to go on — I just want it to be over.”

At one part of the video, he displayed a drill covered with padding to muffle any noise, duct tape to gag Smith, and a stun gun, equipment he said would be used to torture her so he could extract information from her. His main targets were to be his mother and Peter (Kelly).

“If I don’t make it,” he said, “Hopefully someone else will pick up the torch — somebody will do something.”

His main incentive, he said, was not only to feel better, but for the thousands of kids he said were being sexually abused.

“I have a need for revenge, a need for justice,” he said. “Anger doesn’t explain how I feel about these people and what they’ve done. I feel livid. This will be liberating.”

He said he had no desire to hurt any law enforcement officers, saying he respected them, even though the justice system had let him down. He talked about seeing the movie “White Noise” before dying and how he would like to hunt traffickers who steal little kids in Indonesia and use them as sex slaves.

“Like what they did to us,” he said. “We were slaves just for these sick, (expletive) pleasure.”

He closed the video by encouraging the other children of COG members to keep fighting the fight.

“Some of us will be around to watch them burn,” Rodriguez said, prior to signing off.

Blythe police detective/sergeant Jeff Wade said he has been contacted by the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, as well as ABC’s 20/20 Prime Time and NBC’s Dateline, which plans to do filming in Blythe today for a segment on the murder/suicide.

“Every day these people are alive and free is a slap in the face to the thousands of us who have been methodically molested, tortured, raped, and the many who they have as good as murdered by driving them to suicide,” Rodriguez wrote in an Aug. 14, 2004 Web posting linked to Movingon.org.

Peter (Kelly), in a memo to COG followers, said that the media is trying to make Rodriguez look like an innocent victim, ignoring the fact that he actually murdered someone.

“No matter what his motives might have been, and no matter how overcome by the Enemy and forces of darkness he was at the time, that does not justify his killing someone,” Kelly wrote. “Ricky was 29 years old. He made his own decisions — decisions that Mama had nothing to do with. To the contrary, Mama went to every length she could to love Ricky, to try to communicate with him, and to pray for him. This turn of events is very sad for Mama and me; we never wanted Ricky’s life to turn out this way. But it did, because of his choices.”

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