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00:12This was one of the toughest stories I've ever done.
00:19When there is a big train wreck, you want to go look at it.
00:23This was a train wreck with five babies lying on the tracks.
00:30Andrea Yates called 911. Authorities rushed to her home only to find her five young children dead.
00:38Andrea Yates confessing to police she drowned her children one by one in the bathtub.
00:44Everyone was horrified. A mother killed her kids?
00:50One of the most heart-wrenching tragedies we have ever heard.
00:53How could a mother kill her own family?
00:56Everyone was talking about it.
00:58Neighbors are understandably stunned.
01:00I felt very sorry for the children.
01:02It really had to be a lot wrong with that woman's head.
01:05They just immediately hated her.
01:07This was a very evil and calculated woman.
01:10Andrea Yates, she faces capital murder charges. If convicted, she could be put to death.
01:14The number one question is why? Why? Why?
01:18I wanted to find out what was the motive? How could she do this?
01:24Is this an act that is literally beyond our comprehension to understand or to deal with?
01:30When I got in that car down to Houston, I had no idea what I was going to face.
01:43One of the most heartbreaking tragedies we have ever heard.
01:47Neighbors are understandably stunned.
01:51This mom's actions are a calculated act of evil.
01:55These events are beyond our ability to understand.
02:01The number one question is why? Why? Why? Why?
02:13In 2001, I was a freelance writer primarily concentrating on true crime.
02:19When I was researching my book, Breaking Point, I was starting to get hints that no, she wasn't this horrible,
02:28evil person that was on the news.
02:30Her neighbors were saying she was a people pleaser and she was a caretaker.
02:36And everyone said, what a great mom.
02:40I was getting a totally different picture of Andrea.
02:46But I knew there was more.
02:48And I couldn't get the full story and it was driving me crazy.
02:52I had a few confidential sources.
02:56And one of them told me about this creature that Andrea was involved with.
03:02And they called it a cult.
03:07And then one day I received these letters.
03:10I was totally shocked.
03:12I didn't know they were coming.
03:13And it was just sort of a mystery source that dropped them in the mailbox to me.
03:23They were letters that Michael and Rachel Warnecki wrote to Andrea.
03:30I know you're frustrated, Andrea.
03:32I know things are not the way you would like them to be.
03:36But you can change them.
03:37There will be a day when it is too late.
03:43Andrea was searching.
03:46Andrea was lonely.
03:48And through their letters back and forth, Andrea could pour out her heart, her loneliness.
03:55In 1999, Andrea wrote that Luke has been born.
04:02And Rachel writes to Andrea,
04:05I have seen many women just continually put off their salvation in Jesus.
04:10Then as the years slowly slip by, so does any hope for them to be truly saved.
04:19To read those letters was heartbreaking.
04:23Because it was just nothing but how you're doing wrong.
04:30And that there's not any hope for you.
04:34If you allow Satan to come in and still be understanding, the consequences will be tragic.
04:41When I read those letters, you kind of go, it all makes sense now.
04:47Why Andrea did this?
04:50What was going on in her confused, mentally ill brain?
04:56Everything was pointing to this preacher named Michael Warnecki.
05:05According to the author of this new book, letters written to Andrea Yates by the Reverend Warnecki and his wife
05:11may have convinced Yates she was possessed by the devil.
05:15That is a way, you know, that God can use this.
05:18And everything, loneliness, depression, anything, was all separation with God in alignment with Satan.
05:27I was watching the Debbie Duncan show and there was this lady who wrote a book and she was talking
05:32about Michael being involved in the Yates family.
05:36How did they meet when Rusty was a student in college?
05:40I learned that Rusty met Mike on campus just like I did.
05:44He started corresponding just like I did.
05:46Basically anything and everything from what I gathered but the Warneckis are sinful.
05:51Here's the thing, I knew, you know, what happened to me, you know, what he did to my life.
05:56But it just, when it hit me like, oh no, this Andrea Yates was so pressurized with that struggle for
06:04salvation that she had to kill her kids.
06:08And that's what's like, oh my God.
06:10How far can this go?
06:14Michael Warnecki.
06:15Fire and brimstone preacher.
06:17The preacher is mimicking Satan himself.
06:19We watched the news coverage like a hawk.
06:22It was all through the frame of these people are going to try to bring Michael down.
06:27It's going to hell.
06:29It's going to the lake of fire.
06:32The man who's now under fire for what some claim is destructive preaching.
06:37A bunch of fools.
06:39Michael reached out to my mom initially.
06:41He was like, hey, how are you?
06:42And it was like, oddly nice.
06:44It became pretty clear that Michael was afraid that this would be pinned on him.
06:50They had many conversations about God, Satan, and hell.
06:53Says, hey, they might bring me in to testify.
06:55The defense is trying to make the case that some of my teachings may have led Andrea to do this
07:02horrific crime.
07:03Michael Warnecki's influence is dangerous.
07:06And then he was the most positive he's ever been towards my mom.
07:11He said, God has told me that you're pretty close to getting into the kingdom of heaven.
07:16It was all damage control.
07:19He was scared.
07:22The time has come for Andrea Yates, the so-called killer mom, to defend her actions in court.
07:28If convicted, she could be put to death.
07:31Yates attorney Wendell Odom with Yates health records.
07:34Those records detail a history of deep depression, attempted suicide, and psychosis.
07:41The Andrea Yates case was certainly the most significant case I ever tried in my life.
07:46When I saw Andrea Yates, for the first time, it was one of the most shocking things I'd ever seen
07:52before.
07:53She had pupils that were giant and dark.
07:57She would jerk her head around and be looking at something behind her.
08:02I've never seen anyone that mentally ill before in my life.
08:06It was clear we need to start building an insanity defense.
08:10I thought the whole time, how ridiculous is this?
08:19Here's a loving mother who would never, ever, ever have harmed our children in any way had she not been
08:27psychotic.
08:29And the state's prosecuting her for capital murder.
08:32The defendant has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
08:36Our strategy was to explain to the jury that this was a psychotic episode created because of postpartum depression.
08:43If this woman doesn't meet the test of insanity in this state, then nobody does.
08:51Zero.
08:52We needed to explain that she knew that what she was doing was illegal, but she didn't know that it
09:00was wrong.
09:01She may have believed because of her mental depression that it was in the best interest of the children to
09:06drown them one after the other.
09:10But that's not the law in Texas.
09:12I'm asking you to vote in accordance with the law and the evidence and find her guilty as charged.
09:19And I appreciate your attention.
09:22The defense and prosecution have both presented their arguments in the Yates case.
09:26After a month-long trial, the court rests.
09:31Jurors face the task of deciding whether this is a case of illness or intent.
09:36Andrea Yates' fate rests in their hands.
09:40All rise for the jury, please.
09:50We, the jury, find the defendant, Andrea Pia Yates, guilty of capital murder.
09:55After only 35 minutes of deliberations, jurors said Andrea Yates should get life in prison, not the death penalty.
10:04Hearing the verdict, I didn't feel like I could get up.
10:09She's my wife, who I loved.
10:13I wouldn't wish that on anyone.
10:18During the trial, we didn't do as good a job as we should have, explaining her mental state, including her
10:26faith-based beliefs, which were provided by Warnecke.
10:31After the trial, I was thinking that Michael Warnecke is not being held accountable.
10:38He got a little bad press and all that, but he just marched on.
10:42And no one knows the real story.
10:45He's getting away with it.
10:48I started thinking, what do I do?
10:50I felt it was my social responsibility to inform who this man is.
10:58And maybe that could help a lot of people.
11:03So I called a local news studio and told them that I have some information on this preacher.
11:11It's simple brainwashing.
11:14It starts off very innocent.
11:15Your perceptions start altering, and pretty soon you're sucked into a system.
11:21I knew that Mike would be pissed.
11:23I knew he would see me as a traitor, that he would see me as a Judas.
11:31I didn't know how far he would take his displeasure with me.
11:39We all go to hell, yes!
11:42Tonight, preacher Michael Warnecke is responding to his critics and places the blame on Rusty Yates for his wife's actions.
11:51What about Rusty? I have never heard him once.
11:53I heard him blame the hospitals, the clinics, the postpartum depression, the drugs.
11:58Could you ever stand up and say, I'm looking in the mirror and I'm seeing the guy who's responsible.
12:02I should have shepherded my wife.
12:03They visited you in Florida.
12:05Right.
12:05And you told them, according to Andrea Yates, that they were going to hell.
12:11I was Andrea's friend.
12:13She had just had this experience with watching a caterpillar become a butterfly.
12:17And she left there with a tremendous hope that things were going to change in their life.
12:21He was a respected psychiatrist.
12:23He said flat out that Andrea Yates never would have killed her children if it were not for you.
12:28That is ridiculous.
12:30So if you go out and kill somebody, that's my fault?
12:32If I know you like this other guy that was on there.
12:34You're talking about David Della Isla.
12:35I knew that guy, what, 15 years ago.
12:38For 15 minutes, I made a McDonald's restaurant.
12:41Just the fact that he's saying that he didn't really know me just was like, wow.
12:45He said you communicated with him considerably.
12:47He has a stack of letters, he said.
12:49Stack of letters?
12:49From you.
12:50I don't think a stack of letters.
12:51That said that he was living a not righteous life.
12:53You're just a damn liar, you know?
12:55Like, here is the stack.
12:57This is a correspondence of about 12 years.
13:00And so he knows me very well.
13:03That was the lie.
13:04He's like, no, you know exactly who I am.
13:11When I found out that Mike had some sort of relationship with Andrea Yates, I was dumbfounded, numb.
13:21It was heartbreaking.
13:23And I thought, I hope they're wrong about Mike Warnecki.
13:31Mike Warnecki and I were born in Grand Rapids, Michigan on February 4th, 1954.
13:36And we went through school together.
13:38Grand Rapids is also known as the city of churches.
13:40Mike and I were both altar boys.
13:42His dad was an usher in our church.
13:45As a senior in high school, Mike was an excellent football player.
13:48He was the typical gung-ho jock.
13:51Confident to the point of being cocky.
13:53Like being the center of attention.
13:55I was going to be the great charismatic hotshot.
13:58Mike goes to Central Michigan on scholarship.
14:01And he, if not for some bad luck, might have gone to the NFL.
14:05At this time, God had been dealing with me and began to read the word.
14:08I began to just realize what it was to follow Jesus Christ.
14:11He was all in as a football player.
14:13He was all in as an evangelical preacher.
14:17He is everything to me.
14:19I'm totally committed to Him.
14:22He tried to get into different seminaries.
14:24But he was rejected for being too fanatical, too earnest, too over the top.
14:29I was offended by it at first, but I didn't realize, yeah, that's exactly what God wants me to be.
14:34And I began to realize, no, this world belongs to Satan.
14:37Totally contrary to what you see in the demon dens, the vipers, the snake pits of today called churches.
14:42And so he was going to make his own way.
14:44And he did wear that rejection as a badge of honor.
14:50In the early 1980s, Mike's profile around town grew exponentially.
14:57I preached outside of football games, basketball games, car races, baseball games, tracts, festivals, parades.
15:03God is going to destroy this earth and all you wretched sinners.
15:07He would stand outside of churches on Sunday morning and tell the churchgoers that they are going to hell.
15:14It was totally aggressive and it was obnoxious.
15:17I don't care no more about ministry, about position, about reputation, about image, about what anybody says about me.
15:24He was scorned.
15:25He was ridiculed.
15:26Probably everything he related to through what Jesus went through.
15:30In fact, all they say now is bad things.
15:33You're off.
15:33You're cult.
15:34You're weird.
15:36Around that time, I started working at the Grand Ravis Press as a police reporter.
15:40So reporting on him, journalistically, was awkward.
15:43Because we were still friends.
15:45And he's arrested various times.
15:49Cops intimidating me, arresting me.
15:51Not because I'm breaking any orders.
15:53Because they don't like me.
15:55There was an event that was the straw that broke the camel's back.
16:04The Shrine Circus was an annual institution in Grand Rapids.
16:09Mike was doing his preaching outside the ticket office and accosted a woman verbally about her religion, about her faith.
16:17I interviewed her subsequently.
16:19He roughed her up pretty good, according to her.
16:28She was so upset, she wanted him to go to trial.
16:31See him pay for what he had done to her.
16:34But the city cut a deal with him that he would leave town.
16:37And that was the start of his worldwide tour.
16:46I don't recall hearing from him for quite a while until Mike became a prominent figure in the Andrea Yates
16:53story.
16:56I get a call and it's Mike.
16:59He was unhappy with the story in the Grand Ravis Press.
17:02He thought the story was slanted against him.
17:04He said, come on Steve, you know me.
17:06We go way back.
17:07It was the only time he ever asked me for anything.
17:10And he said, I would like you to publish my objections to that press coverage.
17:15And so we do our interview.
17:20Mike denied any culpability.
17:22His defense was, we love those kids.
17:26We would never suggest that a mother should kill her children.
17:33And he said they needed Jesus.
17:36If the Yates's would have just listened to him and followed how they should live their lives according to his
17:44beliefs, this wouldn't have happened.
17:50Over the years, I had done some research and the word cult occurred to me.
17:56Because of his charisma, his performance, skills, and all those things, he could be a cult leader.
18:11I started thinking, how many victims are out there? How many people are still under his spell?
18:17And then I came across the first survivor's website.
18:20And I thought, wow, there's a lot more victims.
18:27I first met Michael Warnicki on campus at Michigan State University.
18:31For about a year and a half, I was very intensely enmeshed with the Warnicki cult.
18:38I fell for what he was preaching, hook, line, and sinker.
18:42But then I realized, no, the message is wrong.
18:45The fruit is bad.
18:48And Andrea Yates drowning her children is like the most symbolic fruit of his ministry you will ever get.
18:55And so I started the website, Michael Warnicki, The Ultimate False Prophet.
18:59I put that site out there in hopes of rescuing other people involved with the cult.
19:06I had thousands of views.
19:08I got contacted by as many as 40 people.
19:14And so that's how I met David.
19:17Reading similar stories from other survivors and what they went through,
19:21it made me realize that we were manipulated.
19:25That we were deceived systematically.
19:29That there was nothing flawed with me.
19:31It was him who was the flawed one.
19:36I believe that Michael Warnicki should stand accountable for it.
19:40And I believe he will on the day of judgment.
19:47I think it's a really good question to ask whether Michael Warnicki is a cult leader or if this particular
19:56belief system is a cult.
19:59People oftentimes assume that when you talk about the word cult, that means that there's a compound.
20:05But that's not necessarily true.
20:08Based off of all of our definitions on how to define a destructive cult, it's a dedication to a particular
20:16person, idea or thing.
20:18Michael is ultimately someone who does not want people to think independently.
20:27There is a clear pattern of indoctrination.
20:32He's sending people personalized messages, either audio or pamphlets.
20:38Something that Michael does is he really taps in and utilizes and manipulates.
20:44He creates this state of heightened emotionality in his messages for people.
20:49The effects of psychological manipulation and the effects of this type of ideological religious control can leave someone feeling trapped
21:02in a psychological prison.
21:05The impacts of that can be extremely devastating.
21:17An appeals court in Texas has overturned the murder convictions of Andrea Yates because of false testimony by an expert
21:25witness.
21:26A state expert claimed Andrea Yates watched law and order and may have copied a plot where a mother used
21:32postpartum depression as a defense for drowning her children.
21:36However, it was later proven that no such episode ever existed.
21:42The ruling means Yates is entitled to a new trial.
21:47In June of 2006, I was requested to participate in a jury for the state of Texas versus Andrea P
21:54.A. Yates and I gasped.
21:56It shocked me and it scared me.
21:59Everybody in Houston knew about this case and everybody had an opinion that I heard many, many times.
22:05Of course, she was crazy.
22:07She killed her children.
22:09With Andrea Yates set to stand trial once again, will the court affirm her guilt or will a new verdict
22:15reshape the legal and moral reckoning of one of the most harrowing cases in recent history?
22:21The first day of trial and really every subsequent day, Andrea Yates would come into the courtroom quiet and shy
22:28and reserved.
22:28The evidence will show you that she had been contemplating the death and the killing of these children for approximately
22:36two years, that she knew it was wrong and that she knew she would be punished.
22:41And that's what she told the police on June 20th of 2001.
22:47There was a vast difference between the first trial and the second trial.
22:50This was a mental illness and a delusion that she was acting.
22:54We thought we needed to do a better job of explaining what was going on in her head at the
22:59time.
22:59In 2001, her illness had gotten so great that their lives were gone.
23:04She wasn't worried about saving their lives anymore.
23:07She was worried about saving their souls.
23:11Explain how the delusion got formed.
23:13The entire word of God speaks about the last days, days of intense, powerful deception and delusion.
23:22And where she got the delusion was from this faith-based relief that Michael Wernicke was espousing.
23:31I first heard the name Michael Wernicke on the second week of the trial, when the Wernicke pamphlet of the
23:37perilous times was entered into evidence.
23:39At this point, I was starting to realize that Yeats' religious beliefs were not necessarily mainstream.
23:47This actually was something that was brought up in the courtroom to give us some context as to the religious
23:53beliefs of Andrea Yeats.
23:54Modern Mother Worldly was very, very lazy. All of her children drove her crazy.
23:59Now, the Bible told her to spank and train them. So, if the Bible's telling Modern Mother Worldly to discipline
24:05her children,
24:06but because she's not, on the day of judgment, she will have no plea.
24:10Modern Mother Worldly gets cast in hell.
24:13Now, what becomes of the children of such a Jezebel?
24:16Because the delusion is still that she's a bad mother, that the children are flawed, that they're going to hell
24:22unless she sends them to heaven.
24:24This really started to paint a picture for us as to the mind of Andrea Yeats.
24:28So, I knew that there was something about this Wernicke that needed to be paid attention to.
24:36Dr. Resnick, who interviewed Andrea Yeats shortly after her arrest, will take the stand today.
24:46You love your children?
24:50Yes, not in the right way, though.
24:53Mrs. Yeats had a number of paranoid ideas.
25:00She claims that she and the children would watch cartoons.
25:05The characters would speak directly to her, telling her she was a bad mother.
25:13Mrs. Yeats believed that she was marked as evil.
25:17She believed she had 666 tattooed on her head.
25:24And she believed that Satan was literally within her and surrounding her and influencing her during her psychotic period before
25:36the killing.
25:38Michael Wernicke lectured about Satan being a very powerful force.
25:47The ravaging power of Satan. He will destroy your mind.
25:52Michael Wernicke is emphasizing how real Satan is and how these demons and Satan will take over your mind.
26:02Satanic powers of darkness are seeking to war against you.
26:06So, she clearly was strongly influenced by Michael Wernicke.
26:10You need to wake up and to learn how to effectively fight.
26:15His testimony was one of the most powerful.
26:17I've never forgotten what Dr. Wernicke stated.
26:20Andrea Yeats's religion was the trellis upon which the ivy of her mental illness grew.
26:27Everything in her psychosis tied back to her religious beliefs.
26:34After the last day of testimony and closing arguments, we went into the jury room.
26:39We had eight jurors that believed she was not guilty by reason and insanity and four that claimed she was
26:44guilty.
26:44We were arguing kind of back and forth about what she believed and what she didn't believe.
26:48One of the most challenging aspects of this trial was trying to get into the mind of Andrea Yeats.
26:55In order to ascertain whether or not she knew what she was doing was wrong, we did request a number
27:01of items, including the pictures of the kids and a copy of the Perilous Times,
27:05which was the newsletter that we knew was in the Yates home when the children were killed.
27:11So we had been told that this picture, this image that was brought into evidence was from the Perilous Times,
27:19but that's all that we saw, right?
27:21And in this limerick that was discussed was really the essence of everything, but it wasn't.
27:28There was a lot more.
27:30And so this copy of the Perilous Times was brought into the deliberation room.
27:36The eternity of my children is my accountability while they are children, and I would be sending them to hell
27:43if I raised them to think according to the standards of this world.
27:46By the time a child is the age of accountability, it's too late. By this time, the thinking of the
27:51world that you have taught them takes over.
27:54God is going to hold you accountable.
27:59The Perilous Times is the most relevant media to me in my life.
28:04The highest stakes thing for you is if you are a parent, your responsibility is your kid's salvation.
28:10There's a lot of pressure on parents to make their kids obey, fall in line, and the price to pay,
28:19if you didn't do that, you cause one of your kids to go down.
28:27You told me earlier there came a time when you felt you were being a bad mother. Could you explain
28:33that?
28:34Well, they weren't developing right and, you know, academic sense and, you know, righteous sense.
28:45According to Michael's teachings, a child becomes no longer a child, they become no longer innocent.
28:53If they're not saved before the age of 12, which is the age of accountability, you're going to hell.
29:02And if you had not taken their lives, what did you think would happen to them?
29:06If they were to continue to dumbling.
29:09And where would they end up?
29:11Hell.
29:12I 100% believed all of this.
29:15All of this.
29:17I would be up at night, worried I was going to hell.
29:21How old are you, Moses?
29:22My mom would often express to us that if she found a way that we all died, that would be
29:29a blessing.
29:29Because if you die, I mean, you're going to heaven. You're going to paradise.
29:34What were you trying to accomplish then when you did take your children's lives?
29:41Maybe in their innocent years, God would take them up.
29:46And so when I found out that they died, it wasn't shock at all.
29:51It was, ah, damn it. They did it. They did it before us.
29:56And what does this mean for me and my place in heaven?
29:59You mentioned an aphorism from the Bible about a millstone. Would you say what that is?
30:06It's better to tie a stone around your neck and throw yourself in this sea than cause one to stumble.
30:16That's why she did it.
30:18She was saving her kids.
30:28I don't want to admit this stuff out loud.
30:30I don't...
30:34I don't...
30:37You don't...
30:52Jesus does single out one group.
30:56Children.
30:59It's better to tie a heavy millstone around your neck and he'd be drowned in the depth of the sea
31:05than cause one of these little ones will believe in me to stumble.
31:16In reading the perilous times, I was shocked. And I sat there shocked and I told the jury,
31:22hey, everything in her delusion is in this newsletter.
31:27She believed she was an unrighteous mother and this unrighteous mother had produced unrighteous children.
31:32And those unrighteous children were going to burn in hell unless they died before the age of accountability.
31:38That was everything that we needed to hear to basically understand why she did what she did.
31:50But there was one holdout juror who said, we just can't forget the children.
31:55It was an incredibly emotional moment for everyone.
32:00So on the last day of deliberations, we did have a moment of silence for each of the children.
32:06Two minutes per child where we reflected and prayed and thought about what the magnitude of what we were doing.
32:17And afterwards, I got up and wrote something on the board.
32:22It is our job, our duty to judge Andrea Pia Yates based on the facts presented to evidence and the
32:30law given to us by the court.
32:35Let God judge her after that.
32:38And after that, the last holdout said, I want to vote.
32:48Mr. Foreman, has the jury reached a verdict?
32:50Yes, Your Honor.
32:51Will you please pass them to the bed, please?
32:59We, the jury, find the defendant Andrea Pia Yates not guilty by reason of insanity.
33:06Signed, Todd Christopher Frank Foreman of the jury.
33:13I thought, wow, the result of not guilty by reason of insanity was quite a relief.
33:18I was super, super grateful.
33:20In many respects, she's a victim in all this because she became ill.
33:23We were unable to get adequate treatment for her.
33:25She did this horrible, you know, thing that just devastated all of us.
33:29But, you know, I can't lose out of the fact that this wasn't her.
33:34Rusty came across the survivor's website.
33:38This is an email that I got from Rusty saying that he found one of Michael Warnecki's tapes in the
33:44tape player at the time of the tragedy.
33:49It was called, What is Truth?
33:52It's a tape I've listened to before many times.
33:55Andrea Yates was listening to Mike all the way up until that tragic day.
34:01You want to submit to his kingdom?
34:03Then you must conform.
34:05You must go with his program.
34:06You must yield.
34:07You can't just do your own little thing or you will pay consequences.
34:12But then Rusty would say things like, Mike had influence, but it was, you know, Andrea was psychotic because of
34:18her depression.
34:19I think that he wasn't aware that other people went through some abuse from Michael.
34:26Everyone responds a little differently.
34:28You know, I've tried myself to think, well, how would life be different if I'd never met him?
34:35Even outside of the tragedy, even just for me, how would my views have changed or be different?
34:39And I don't know.
34:42I was stunned.
34:43I was in this cult for 12 years.
34:46I was like, Rusty, what are you talking about?
34:47It's horrible.
34:49He ruins people's lives.
35:00This is a news story about Andrea.
35:03A couple has ties to an out-of-state religious group.
35:07Andrea's brother says, to me, it was kind of a cult religion.
35:12They made statements like Catholics are going to hell.
35:15We're back with Karen Kennedy and Brian Kennedy, the mother and brother of Andrea Yates.
35:20What happened at Phil?
35:23Warnicky.
35:24Satan.
35:25A preacher.
35:26Andrea has introduced him through Russell.
35:28You paint him as part of the villain of the piece?
35:30Oh, absolutely.
35:31There she's always talking about the devil.
35:32Everybody's going to hell.
35:34Everybody's a sinner.
35:35And he's preached to Andrea.
35:36Yeah, but I mean, he's got some type of a cult following.
35:42What do you think about it being referred to as a cult?
35:45Well, it could be seen that way.
35:48But I mean, I don't think it is.
35:54It's a fine line.
35:55I'll admit that.
36:02Interesting.
36:07Before I kill them, they went up to heaven to be with God and be saved.
36:13Who told you to do that?
36:14Satan.
36:16Satan told you to send their children to heaven?
36:18No, to kill them.
36:29I asked to talk to you because there's a lot of things I just wanted to ask you and get
36:35your advice on.
36:36Your story and your family has been such a significant part of my life.
36:40This religion, this ideology had absolutely fractured our family and continues to affect us today.
36:48Even though we have never had to face the pain that you and your family had to face.
36:55His whole thing is like, well, it's the sixth of us and everybody else is going to hell, basically.
37:01Yes, you will be saved like in the days of Noah.
37:03Yeah.
37:03You become, you're a caterpillar, you go into a cocoon and then eventually become a butterfly and then you're saved.
37:10That's a crystal to us.
37:11So it was like, how do you get into Michael's favor?
37:14Oh, yeah.
37:15That starts bordering on manipulation, right?
37:16I mean, if there's a carrot and there's a bar and the bar keeps going up, you never get there,
37:20so don't.
37:21So for me, I thought, okay, well, he's not God, so I'm not going to worry too much about his
37:27heaven and hell speech.
37:29How did you hear the same teachings that my parents heard and you took that from it?
37:35I think it's a mistake I made with Andrea is that, you know, I was raised in a tradition of,
37:40you know, grace and forgiveness, not a tradition of, you know, fire and brimstone, right?
37:45Right.
37:45So when she heard this heaven and hell stuff, you know, did it make her more concerned than she otherwise
37:50would have been about her standing before God?
37:52I think, of course, how could it not?
37:54Absolutely.
37:54So your situation is probably more similar to Andrea's than it is to mine.
37:58And this helps me just try to understand my own parents more.
38:02And I love my parents.
38:04I want to have a relationship with them.
38:06You know, I see them.
38:07I understand how they were taken advantage of.
38:11Can I tell you something?
38:13I 100% believe what the warning case would say in my parents' definition of God until I was 16.
38:22And when I found out what happened with your family, I was jealous of your kids because they didn't.
38:37They, in my definition of heaven, they, yeah.
38:44Oh, well.
38:51And I'm sorry I felt that way because obviously I know what you, that's so irresponsible.
38:58I'm so sorry.
39:00But yeah.
39:06I guess I hadn't realized how much some have struggled with the, in what the impact of his messaging has
39:13been.
39:13But there are a lot of people whose lives took a completely different route than they would have and who
39:18are still suffering from emotional damage from that exposure.
39:22And I, I had no idea.
39:24Yours, yours is an amazing story because it started so young.
39:28You know, you were born into that.
39:32Ugh.
39:33It's mostly conversation we'd have over a beer, I hope.
39:36I know, let's have a beer.
39:37Yeah.
39:38That's so cool.
39:40That's so cool.
39:40That would be pretty, seriously.
39:41No, likewise, yeah.
39:45The tragedy in our family is related.
39:49I think this has maybe helped expose a bit of a pattern of manipulation with the Warneckis.
39:55They are so exclusive, they're going to heaven, everyone else is going to hell.
40:01I think that looking back, I miscalculated the effect on Andrea.
40:06Now, I believe her delusions could well have been influenced by her exposure to the Warneckis.
40:15If I had to do it all over, I would not have introduced her to them.
40:32I'll never be able to love as freely as I did before the tragedy.
40:36I'll try, but it's not easy.
40:43The way I see it, we're this tiny blue dot in an enormous universe that's barely a speck,
40:49you know, that's the reality.
40:51That's what we can see.
40:53It's a cold, harsh universe.
40:56I hope this isn't it, you know.
41:25Even though, we have to take to the author of the Warneckis and the the
41:29We're able to do it.
41:32We'll be able to do it.
41:33We'll be able to do it.
41:34We'll be able to do it.
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