Latest / NO FILTER / The Pharmacist that Ran a Voodoo Sex Cult on the Side _ Mark Foster _ Nothing Personal(M4A_128K)

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The Pharmacist that Ran a Voodoo Sex Cult on the Side _ Mark Foster _ Nothing Personal(M4A_128K) · NO FILTER

0:12
Speaker 1: You and I would call it a spongebab.
0:16
Speaker 2: To pharmacist Mark Foster, it's a sacrament last rites. In
0:21
Speaker 2: a few hours, Foster will be dead. The man bathing
0:26
Speaker 2: him is Greg Fresner. He'll be the guy who pulls
0:30
Speaker 2: the trigger. The strange thing is Mark's murder is his
0:37
Speaker 2: own idea.
0:39
Speaker 1: Yeah you heard me. This story as well unusual.
0:43
Speaker 2: It's a wild yarn of how the mild manned guy
0:46
Speaker 2: behind the prescription counter has a secret life, and in
0:50
Speaker 2: that life he is the leader of his very own
0:53
Speaker 2: voodoo sex call. Got your attention, Yeah, I thought so,
0:58
Speaker 2: So make yourself comfortable, because, boy, have I got a
1:02
Speaker 2: tale to tell you. My name is Steve Shirrippa. I
1:07
Speaker 2: grew up in a pretty rough neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York.
1:11
Speaker 2: I've seen good people turn bad and bad people turn worse.
1:17
Speaker 2: Some took contracts to carry out a hit, some of
1:19
Speaker 2: victims of a hit.
1:22
Speaker 1: To hit man.
1:23
Speaker 2: Life and death is just part of the business. It's
1:27
Speaker 2: nothing personal. Like many a strange story, Mark Forster's starts
1:41
Speaker 2: in an ordinary place, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Trust me, even Minneapolis
1:49
Speaker 2: has a dark underbelly.
1:57
Speaker 3: Minneapolis is in general a very good town. However, you
2:03
Speaker 3: never know what's lurking behind the next corner, if it's
2:10
Speaker 3: a McDonald's or a voodoo culture.
2:18
Speaker 2: In the history of Minneapolis, you might never find anyone
2:22
Speaker 2: with a weirdest secret than Mark Forster's. On the surface,
2:27
Speaker 2: he's a charming local businessman, nice house, a few kids,
2:32
Speaker 2: unremarkable right uh Now, pay attention, because this story is
2:39
Speaker 2: gonna get crazy real quick.
2:42
Speaker 4: My father was a phenomenal character who was like somebody
2:45
Speaker 4: never met in your entire life.
2:48
Speaker 5: He was very off the wall. I love my dad
2:52
Speaker 5: a lot.
2:56
Speaker 2: Mark and his wife were also standing parents for his nephew, Frank,
3:00
Speaker 2: whose mother died when he was a kid. Frank's not
3:03
Speaker 2: his real name, by the way. He asked us to
3:05
Speaker 2: call him that.
3:07
Speaker 6: I felt very loved by my uncle. He went out
3:11
Speaker 6: of his.
3:11
Speaker 3: Way to make me feel like I was a very
3:14
Speaker 3: special person and part of his family.
3:18
Speaker 4: He would read my poems and do tarot readings on
3:21
Speaker 4: me and stuff.
3:23
Speaker 6: See what you did.
3:25
Speaker 5: I looked at it more like a joke than anything else.
3:30
Speaker 6: How wt you put your.
3:31
Speaker 2: Stone into the fosterest fit right into that neighborhood of
3:34
Speaker 2: god fearing, wholesome people. They worship at the Seventh day
3:38
Speaker 2: Adventist Church. But for Foster, his church doesn't have all
3:43
Speaker 2: the answers. Foster is what you call a seeker. He's
3:49
Speaker 2: always looking for spiritual answers, you know, a panther follow.
3:53
Speaker 2: He doesn't find a truly satisfying one in his church,
3:56
Speaker 2: so he keeps looking. He finds lots of things that intrigue, hindle,
4:01
Speaker 2: God's Buddha, odin occult beliefs.
4:04
Speaker 1: The spiritual world fascinates him.
4:16
Speaker 7: Mark was a very spiritual person, or what I would
4:20
Speaker 7: call very new agey person. He was always into something.
4:25
Speaker 7: I'd come over to his house and he's like, look
4:27
Speaker 7: at this new Buddha statue I bought.
4:31
Speaker 4: I think he was seeking the internal knowledge of the universe.
4:35
Speaker 4: I think he just wanted to know everything there was
4:40
Speaker 4: to know about everything.
4:45
Speaker 2: Mark forced to grabs life with both hands. His curiosity
4:51
Speaker 2: about the world is insatiable.
4:55
Speaker 4: He wanted to know about everything and wanted to experiment
4:58
Speaker 4: with everything. He'd get into fly fishing for a couple
5:02
Speaker 4: of weeks, and he'd buy just thousands of dollars worth
5:05
Speaker 4: a year and all this fly fishing equipment, and he'd
5:08
Speaker 4: fly fish for like two weeks, and he'd be done
5:10
Speaker 4: with it, and he'd throw it in storage.
5:13
Speaker 7: I think that Mark very much was a boy at hearts,
5:17
Speaker 7: and maybe even more than that hearts. Everything about him
5:22
Speaker 7: was like, this is just gonna be great, This is
5:25
Speaker 7: gonna be wonderful.
5:27
Speaker 2: Being a seker works for Foster. It gets him out
5:33
Speaker 2: of his small Wisconsin town and into the Air Force.
5:36
Speaker 2: It gets some a pharmacist license and a successful career
5:40
Speaker 2: in the big city. It opens a lot of doors
5:43
Speaker 2: for him.
5:50
Speaker 1: One of those doors takes him to New Orleans.
5:54
Speaker 2: His trip there introduces him to Santa Ria. It's the
6:01
Speaker 2: spiritual awakening he's been looking for. Santauria is the Cuban
6:08
Speaker 2: version of Voodu. It's not a weird cult of spellcasters
6:12
Speaker 2: and zombie makings like in the movies. It's actually an
6:15
Speaker 2: ancient religion with millions of followers, and its roots are
6:18
Speaker 2: in Africa now. To people who believe in Santayria, the
6:22
Speaker 2: line between the spirit world and our world is not
6:25
Speaker 2: hard and fast.
6:26
Speaker 1: It can be cross.
6:30
Speaker 2: Let's not get this wrong. There are lots of reasons
6:33
Speaker 2: to talk to spirits. Santauria is gods and spirits care
6:37
Speaker 2: about you. They can help you get what you want
6:40
Speaker 2: out of life.
6:43
Speaker 3: My uncle believed in Santaia as a tool, a means
6:49
Speaker 3: to an end. The power that he believed he could
6:53
Speaker 3: get or influence over people, and he believed it with
6:59
Speaker 3: his whole mind and heart.
7:02
Speaker 2: In the world of Santaia, there are about a dozen
7:04
Speaker 2: gods and untold numbers of ancestral spirits. The first step
7:10
Speaker 2: is to discover your own personal Arisha, the god whose
7:14
Speaker 2: path you are meant to follow.
7:20
Speaker 3: For people that are initiated into Santauria, you use different
7:28
Speaker 3: necklaces to find out what you're guiding. Force or Risha is.
7:36
Speaker 1: My uncle.
7:37
Speaker 6: He had taken on the mindset of Isshue. The trickster.
7:42
Speaker 2: Ashu is a hell of a god to follow.
7:44
Speaker 1: Listen.
7:45
Speaker 2: He's no cosmic mischief maker. He's more dangerous. Did Mark
7:49
Speaker 2: force to pick Ashu or vice versa and Santaia. It's
7:53
Speaker 2: always a little of both, but it is a good
7:55
Speaker 2: match for one thing. There's nothing Forcedter loves more than
7:59
Speaker 2: a trick.
8:08
Speaker 4: Practical jokes are a huge part of his personality.
8:11
Speaker 5: He was a very funny man.
8:14
Speaker 4: He was into shocking everybody.
8:18
Speaker 2: A Shoe's no ordinary prank player. He's the god of
8:21
Speaker 2: fortune and misfortune and speaking of fortune, get on a
8:30
Speaker 2: shoe's good side with a few rituals and thoughtful gifts
8:33
Speaker 2: and he might just pay you back.
8:40
Speaker 1: Bingo.
8:42
Speaker 2: In the late eighties, a new business frontier is opening.
8:45
Speaker 2: Everybody's got a new computer, but it won't do much.
8:50
Speaker 2: The Information super Highway is still a dirt road today.
8:53
Speaker 2: Mention how spiritually connected pharmacist is also a computer pioneer.
9:00
Speaker 4: Who were growing up We always had computers in the
9:02
Speaker 4: house and he would network them before we even knew
9:06
Speaker 4: what networking was, so he was very into the computers.
9:13
Speaker 2: Mark starts a technology company. He calls it Quanta to
9:18
Speaker 2: exploit the opportunities compute his offer. Maybe it's marks insatiable
9:24
Speaker 2: curiosity that opens his eyes to a new opportunity. Maybe
9:28
Speaker 2: it's his boundless energy that helps him exploit it. Or
9:31
Speaker 2: maybe it's the gods in spirits he x for help
9:34
Speaker 2: one way or another. Mark Foster is about to become very,
9:39
Speaker 2: very rich. It looks like Ashu has showed them the
9:42
Speaker 2: right path. But what the gods give, the gods take away.
9:49
Speaker 2: Mark Forster's life will soon be over. His chief disciple,
9:54
Speaker 2: Greg will be the one who kills him. Mark sniffew
9:57
Speaker 2: Frank will be there to help.
10:00
Speaker 3: He decided it was time to die, but he didn't
10:05
Speaker 3: want to do it himself. He wanted somebody else to
10:10
Speaker 3: do it for him.
10:17
Speaker 2: By nineteen eighty nine, Mark Foster, Pharmacist, Father, Spiritual Seeker,
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Speaker 2: Voodoo Initiate is on the cutting edge of modern technology.
10:28
Speaker 7: Mark a lot of inspiration and a lot of good ideas.
10:33
Speaker 7: He understood the principles of business, and he was a
10:36
Speaker 7: good salesman.
10:40
Speaker 2: By the end of the eighties, the computer companies have
10:43
Speaker 2: figured out a way to put huge amounts of data
10:46
Speaker 2: on a CD. Foster figures out if he puts loads
10:49
Speaker 2: of free information he gets from the US government on
10:53
Speaker 2: a disc, he can.
10:54
Speaker 1: Make a tidy profit. What he makes is a fortune.
11:02
Speaker 2: One of Quanta's first products is the CIA World Factbook.
11:07
Speaker 2: It's a US government publication that's basically an atlas. It
11:11
Speaker 2: costs pennies to burn one and sells for one hundred
11:14
Speaker 2: and thirty dollars.
11:17
Speaker 7: When I first started a Quanta, it seemed like this
11:20
Speaker 7: guy's limit. We had a good product that people hadn't
11:24
Speaker 7: seen before, you know, searchable discs full of information. It
11:29
Speaker 7: seemed like it would keep growing and becoming more successful
11:32
Speaker 7: as time went on.
11:36
Speaker 2: His sudden success opens the door for Mark to show
11:39
Speaker 2: another face.
11:41
Speaker 1: Ladies man.
11:46
Speaker 2: Right now he's ditch wife's number one and two. He
11:51
Speaker 2: finds number three right in his graphics department.
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Speaker 7: Mark was the ideal boss when you're young and you
12:00
Speaker 7: want to have fun too. We would go to a
12:06
Speaker 7: movie some days. Just let's close down to the company
12:09
Speaker 7: today and go to a movie. It was so easy
12:12
Speaker 7: to make money that you didn't really have to be
12:15
Speaker 7: business oriented. You didn't really have to think about the future.
12:20
Speaker 2: In nineteen ninety three, Vice President Al Gore comes to
12:23
Speaker 2: town to promote the new technologies that will put America
12:26
Speaker 2: back on top market. Quanta are the perfect photo whip.
12:31
Speaker 2: Does God know who he's really sitting next to? Not
12:35
Speaker 2: a chance to the world. Foster is the face of
12:38
Speaker 2: high tech capitalism.
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Speaker 7: It made you feel like we were really going places.
12:44
Speaker 7: It really seemed like a huge moment.
12:47
Speaker 2: Mark catches the technology wave and succeeds beyond his wildest dream.
12:52
Speaker 2: He likes to think of himself as the smartest guy
12:55
Speaker 2: in the room. He could grasp anything fast, then move
12:58
Speaker 2: on check off, master of the business universe. But he
13:03
Speaker 2: lets his company cost and dives deeper into Voodu. Mark
13:10
Speaker 2: returns to Solomon, his high priest in New Orleans. It's
13:13
Speaker 2: time to be reborn. For a resurrection to happen, of course,
13:18
Speaker 2: the old Mark must die.
13:21
Speaker 1: It's all symbolic.
13:24
Speaker 2: It turns out Mark wants to be more than a priest.
13:34
Speaker 2: He wants to be a spiritual master in voodoo. That's
13:38
Speaker 2: a position you have to inherit. You got to kill
13:41
Speaker 2: the priest who initiated you. It's more symbolic mumbo jumbo.
13:46
Speaker 2: No Shamans are actually harmed.
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Speaker 4: My dad always liked to be number one and the
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Speaker 4: biggest and the grandest of whatever he did.
14:00
Speaker 5: He played the role of the supreme being.
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Speaker 1: And what's the leader without followers.
14:11
Speaker 2: Back in Minneapolis, Mark sets out to recruit some, so
14:17
Speaker 2: he heads to the Magus Bookstore, I hang out for
14:20
Speaker 2: spiritualists and other fans of the occult. There he finds
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Speaker 2: twenty four year old Greg Friesner, another seeker. Freezner's fresh
14:33
Speaker 2: out of Blooming Prairie, Minnesota, where he was raised by
14:36
Speaker 2: his mom, Jackie.
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Speaker 8: He was never shy, very outgoing, curious about everything, and
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Speaker 8: once he sinks his teeth into something, that's it he's
14:49
Speaker 8: he goes for it.
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Speaker 2: Greg's spiritual quest started in a small prairie town, just
14:56
Speaker 2: like Markstad.
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Speaker 8: He was dark music, and I think that's when he
15:03
Speaker 8: started getting into the dark religious beliefs.
15:07
Speaker 5: Also.
15:09
Speaker 8: We tried to get him to change, but like I said,
15:12
Speaker 8: he was stubborn, and that's we had a big fight,
15:15
Speaker 8: and that's when he left for Minneapolis.
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Speaker 9: Greg was very impressionable, very hungry for knowledge. He wanted
15:26
Speaker 9: to find a path. He wanted to feel at home somewhere.
15:30
Speaker 9: Greg was reading a book and then Mark I think,
15:32
Speaker 9: asked him about the book or they just started talking about,
15:35
Speaker 9: you know, the occult. I would say he fell under
15:40
Speaker 9: his spell, no pun intended.
15:43
Speaker 2: Greg becomes Foster's first disciple.
15:48
Speaker 9: Voodoo is a religion about nature and different types of
15:53
Speaker 9: gods and learning which God you correlate with. Everyone supposedly
15:59
Speaker 9: holds an energy of a God in them, and you're
16:03
Speaker 9: supposed to discover what path you're on in order to
16:06
Speaker 9: fulfill your life's purpose. He felt that he had fulfilled
16:09
Speaker 9: his life purpose by finding out what God he was
16:12
Speaker 9: to serve or what God actually was to serve him.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, he's in a pod those two. So with Mark's help.
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Speaker 2: Greg discovers that his personal god is Ashu, that same
16:27
Speaker 2: Arisha as Mark a'sho the tricks to the scamp, the
16:31
Speaker 2: one who misleads you to make you wise. At the beginning,
16:36
Speaker 2: it's all fun, of course, but hey, the more the merrier,
16:40
Speaker 2: Mark is on the lookout for other spiritual seekers. His
16:43
Speaker 2: charm and personal magnetism turns them into followers. Mark's gathering
16:52
Speaker 2: more and more initiates, and it's no coincidence that most
16:56
Speaker 2: of them are attractive young women.
17:00
Speaker 3: Had a unique way with words and was able to
17:05
Speaker 3: convince almost anybody of almost anything. He was a very
17:13
Speaker 3: manipulative man, however most of the time he really meant well.
17:23
Speaker 3: He would manipulate anybody to accomplish his goals, but in
17:28
Speaker 3: his own mind, his.
17:31
Speaker 6: Goals were just and proper.
17:37
Speaker 3: He was somebody that people trusted. He built the rapport
17:41
Speaker 3: with people almost instantaneously. You met the guy and you
17:46
Speaker 3: just loved him.
17:48
Speaker 2: Mark's nephew, Frank, his surrogate's son, is drawn in.
17:54
Speaker 3: At first, my attraction to Centuria was curiosity, and that
18:01
Speaker 3: curiosity was met with some very intense sexual experiences with
18:08
Speaker 3: a number of different women that brought me deeper in
18:15
Speaker 3: there were so many women coming and going, and anybody
18:19
Speaker 3: would do just about anything for you. I began to
18:23
Speaker 3: believe what my uncle was teaching, and of course I
18:27
Speaker 3: looked at him like a father figure, so I had
18:31
Speaker 3: complete trust. If you were adopted into this cult, you.
18:38
Speaker 6: Were family.
18:43
Speaker 2: Mark Forster, the only man in America who's a voodoo
18:46
Speaker 2: high priest and a high tech CEO, is getting richer.
18:51
Speaker 1: By the day.
18:53
Speaker 7: This was a really high margin business when he started,
18:55
Speaker 7: which is why he called it a cash cow business
18:58
Speaker 7: and took the cows had logo as the symbol of quanta.
19:02
Speaker 4: He just had a fetish with bovine art for a while.
19:04
Speaker 4: He really got into the cows for a long time.
19:09
Speaker 4: That's probably the longest thing he held on to was
19:12
Speaker 4: his love of cows.
19:15
Speaker 2: As the cash cow keeps filling his bank accounts. Mark
19:18
Speaker 2: treats his followers to a great time.
19:25
Speaker 4: The business was going like gangbusters, and he was treating
19:30
Speaker 4: his family and friends.
19:32
Speaker 5: He loved Lemos.
19:34
Speaker 4: Just about every weekend he was in a limo driving
19:37
Speaker 4: his friends around. My father was very generous, and the
19:42
Speaker 4: more wealthy he got, the more generous he was.
19:46
Speaker 5: Money didn't really change my dad at all.
19:49
Speaker 4: He was just allowed to buy more expensive things and
19:53
Speaker 4: give more money away to people.
19:54
Speaker 5: He always treated everywhere we went.
19:58
Speaker 2: Just one little problem.
20:01
Speaker 7: As time went on, Mark was the best, as I know,
20:06
Speaker 7: spending more money than what he was taking in. You know,
20:11
Speaker 7: he was more interested in having fun than in managing
20:14
Speaker 7: a company, and as long as the company was doing well,
20:17
Speaker 7: he could have fun and not have to be too
20:19
Speaker 7: concerned about it. But the more there was competition in
20:23
Speaker 7: the industry, the more difficult it became. So today suddenly
20:28
Speaker 7: we really needed to get something done on whatever front.
20:32
Speaker 7: Our technical manual isn't good enough tomorrow at something else.
20:36
Speaker 1: It's always, you.
20:37
Speaker 7: Know, rush to do this, rush to do that. But
20:41
Speaker 7: there was no clear vision, no clear plan.
20:45
Speaker 2: Look, I gotta admit I'm no businessman, but I do
20:49
Speaker 2: know that Mark's walking a tightrope, carrying a balance sheet
20:53
Speaker 2: that ain't balanced to bid. His personal god is issue
20:57
Speaker 2: the tricks he loves you down strange paths. Mark's personal
21:02
Speaker 2: voodoo sect is about to morph into something closer to
21:07
Speaker 2: a sex cult. Mark Foster is on his way to die.
21:18
Speaker 2: He has convinced his number one follower, Greg Friesner, to
21:21
Speaker 2: be the hip man. In the past Foster's voodoo schemes
21:27
Speaker 2: have all been spiritual symbolism. This time it's for real.
21:35
Speaker 2: Forster believes his spirit needs to change bodies. He's figured
21:40
Speaker 2: out how to make that happen. He's got it all planned,
21:48
Speaker 2: the seeds of the bizarre tragedy that will enforce his
21:52
Speaker 2: life as sown by a simple turn of fortune. He
21:55
Speaker 2: doesn't realize how fast yesterday's sensation becomes tomorrow's. Where are
22:00
Speaker 2: they now? With technology, You've got to stay on your toes.
22:04
Speaker 2: His company is in trouble and he just can't turn
22:07
Speaker 2: it around. See, the ROMs are getting better and better,
22:15
Speaker 2: but Quanta is just churning out the same old, same old.
22:21
Speaker 7: Mark just started yelling about how things were so disorganized
22:27
Speaker 7: and we needed to get priorities straight. Just kind of
22:32
Speaker 7: everything under the sun that he could think of of
22:35
Speaker 7: the top of his head.
22:39
Speaker 2: Mark had his company on the cutting edge, a head
22:42
Speaker 2: start he's now squandering.
22:46
Speaker 7: There was kind of a window there where he could
22:48
Speaker 7: have reinvested in the company and tried to grow it,
22:51
Speaker 7: and I think he just continued to spend money, and
22:54
Speaker 7: then it got to the point where that window closed.
22:57
Speaker 7: He couldn't reinvest because he didn't have any love to
23:00
Speaker 7: do that.
23:03
Speaker 2: Marks not want to let business difficulties get in the
23:06
Speaker 2: way of his personal life. As the business sinks, wife
23:09
Speaker 2: number three walks out, but that's okay. It frees up
23:12
Speaker 2: Mark to explore another pet spiritual swinger. He discovers a
23:17
Speaker 2: form of in the emisticism called tantra. One branch of
23:22
Speaker 2: Tancher believes the mysteries of the universe can be explored
23:26
Speaker 2: through sex.
23:39
Speaker 4: U Tantras just a sexual religion that my dad was
23:43
Speaker 4: into for a while and taught classes at his house
23:46
Speaker 4: and stuff like that.
23:50
Speaker 2: Really, who could focus on business when beautiful young women
23:54
Speaker 2: keep ripping your clothes off.
23:57
Speaker 3: Tantric sex was another thing my uncle was involved in,
24:02
Speaker 3: where typically a man and a woman seek enlightenment through
24:08
Speaker 3: sexual prowess, where you could find happiness and true love
24:13
Speaker 3: through the use of these different spiritual means. But honestly,
24:19
Speaker 3: the main draw was the at first was just the sex.
24:25
Speaker 3: Women involved in this cult would do anything for you.
24:28
Speaker 3: They were used for their sexuality and pleasure, and that
24:31
Speaker 3: was a big draw to get people into the cult.
24:34
Speaker 3: Say come on, come in join up with us here,
24:38
Speaker 3: have her or have her or have these three and
24:42
Speaker 3: talk to you when you're done. They had very low
24:48
Speaker 3: self esteem, and they felt accepted, they felt love, and
24:55
Speaker 3: then my uncle would manipulate that into whatever he wanted.
25:03
Speaker 2: The ceremonies get wilder and wilder. It's the meaning to
25:12
Speaker 2: the vessels, but lots of fun for a young Heatonists
25:16
Speaker 2: like Frank.
25:20
Speaker 3: The drums started going, and as we danced, blackness just
25:26
Speaker 3: came across my body. I knew I was there, but
25:31
Speaker 3: I wasn't completely elucid of what was happening. And when
25:38
Speaker 3: I came to I was completely naked, and so were
25:44
Speaker 3: these two other women. We were in a different state
25:48
Speaker 3: of mind. I know I had had sex with both
25:51
Speaker 3: of these women. This was a very intense ceremony.
25:56
Speaker 4: Well, I was told by my father that everybody in
25:58
Speaker 4: the house was sleeping together.
26:01
Speaker 5: I would say he was happy with us.
26:02
Speaker 2: Or In case you're wondering what any of this has
26:09
Speaker 2: to do with voodoo, the answer is nothing at all.
26:13
Speaker 2: The mixture of tantric sex and African gods has forced
26:16
Speaker 2: his own invention. He's woven a mismash of beliefs into
26:20
Speaker 2: something I might as well call fosterism. It suits him
26:24
Speaker 2: just fine. And the handful of followers. He'll keep hanging around.
26:31
Speaker 2: By now, Mark's company, Quantor is a far cry from
26:34
Speaker 2: the beacon of innovation.
26:36
Speaker 1: Out Gore admired.
26:39
Speaker 2: The office is empty except for Foster and a giant
26:42
Speaker 2: stack of bills.
26:47
Speaker 7: He'll be trying to scramble around doing everything himself, Phil
26:50
Speaker 7: well the lawyers he had for ups that day, and
26:53
Speaker 7: answer whatever phone calls he could answer. And you could
26:57
Speaker 7: just see in his face kind of the weight of
26:59
Speaker 7: the world. He was taking things very, very hard. He
27:05
Speaker 7: wasn't fun loving anymore. For so long he could focus
27:12
Speaker 7: in on the fun and the generosity to people and
27:17
Speaker 7: ignore the reality of the life he was making, of
27:21
Speaker 7: the problems he was making. And now everything was coming with.
27:26
Speaker 1: A price tag.
27:27
Speaker 7: There's all these bills coming in, all these dollar signs
27:32
Speaker 7: telling him how much he had screwed up.
27:35
Speaker 1: I think that.
27:36
Speaker 7: He he felt like he had failed, and he just
27:42
Speaker 7: didn't have it in him to pick himself up and
27:45
Speaker 7: start over again.
27:48
Speaker 4: When the business collapses, income collapsed with it. Losing the
27:52
Speaker 4: cash cow was difficult on him.
27:56
Speaker 2: Not long afterwards, a relative finds Foster in a closet
28:00
Speaker 2: holding a gun.
28:01
Speaker 1: He ends up hospitalized for depression.
28:04
Speaker 2: It's a low point for sure, but you can't keep
28:06
Speaker 2: a smart, charismatic high priest down for long. When Mark
28:13
Speaker 2: Foster is released from the hospital, he's broke. He rents
28:17
Speaker 2: a few rooms on the wrong side of the tracks.
28:20
Speaker 2: He takes yet another wife, Sarah, Believe it or not,
28:24
Speaker 2: she's the sister of Wife number three. Well, Sarah comes
28:27
Speaker 2: with some baggage, a kid in a hostile ex who
28:30
Speaker 2: wants custody. Mark believes voodoo spirits can help fix Sarah's
28:36
Speaker 2: custody battle. He sends a posse of followers to a
28:39
Speaker 2: cemetery to cast some evil spells.
28:44
Speaker 3: Myself and Greg had been asked to intervene in a
28:51
Speaker 3: magical sort of sense.
28:58
Speaker 2: The plan is to persuade the spirit to make something
29:01
Speaker 2: bad happen to take Sarah's X out of the picture.
29:05
Speaker 3: So we brought what could be termed vessels, people that
29:09
Speaker 3: could be used without consequences to ourselves.
29:13
Speaker 6: Into a cemetery.
29:16
Speaker 3: And did a ritual ceremony involving a sacrifice over a
29:21
Speaker 3: person's grave.
29:24
Speaker 2: Now I'm told you have to be really careful when
29:27
Speaker 2: you call them dark spirits.
29:29
Speaker 1: They can turn on you.
29:30
Speaker 2: It's way safer to doup somebody else into doing your dirty.
29:35
Speaker 3: Work, and we had these three initiates actually do it. Manipulation,
29:44
Speaker 3: that's what it was.
29:47
Speaker 2: Selfish is another word selfish and evil.
29:53
Speaker 1: Make no mistake to a believer.
29:56
Speaker 2: Magic has power to help and harm, and Mark Foster
30:00
Speaker 2: has crossed a line here, using what he thinks is
30:02
Speaker 2: his influence in the spirit world to harm somebody.
30:07
Speaker 1: Up until now, you're not be far.
30:08
Speaker 2: Off and taking a Foster as a fun loving eccentric.
30:12
Speaker 2: But when you start trying to hurt people what your
30:14
Speaker 2: spiritual powers, well, there's a term for that.
30:19
Speaker 1: Black magic Santai is dark side.
30:26
Speaker 2: After almost a decade, the party's over for sex cold priest.
30:29
Speaker 1: And businessman Mark Foster. He's broke.
30:36
Speaker 2: Craig Frizner, Frank and a couple of die hard vessels remain.
30:42
Speaker 2: With his back against the wall, Foster's quest for spiritual
30:45
Speaker 2: power takes a dark turn.
30:50
Speaker 10: There was some talk of sacrifice. They talked about finding
30:55
Speaker 10: a black girl and raping and murdering the girl and
30:59
Speaker 10: then bearing the girl somewhere.
31:03
Speaker 2: It's Falseter capable of murder. He wants his followers to
31:07
Speaker 2: believe he is. Remember how he symbolically killed that voodoo
31:13
Speaker 2: high priest to take on his powers. Foster tells them
31:17
Speaker 2: it wasn't symbolic at all. He really killed them.
31:23
Speaker 3: Although he had loved him, He had taken his life
31:27
Speaker 3: in order to assume a lineage of priesthood into his
31:33
Speaker 3: own body.
31:35
Speaker 6: If we were to.
31:36
Speaker 3: Divulge this to anybody, the same thing or worse would
31:40
Speaker 3: happen to us.
31:42
Speaker 10: There is no evidence any of that happened. I think
31:45
Speaker 10: it was part of his way of manipulating the younger
31:51
Speaker 10: men around him, and to also create some fear.
31:55
Speaker 3: This is when the cult got really dark. Everybody was
32:01
Speaker 3: watching everybody, and it was a different atmosphere. It wasn't
32:06
Speaker 3: the fun party atmosphere that it had been.
32:12
Speaker 2: So Mark Foster has come to believe his black magic
32:15
Speaker 2: gives him power over life and death. Now you and
32:18
Speaker 2: I consider death to certainty. Foster doesn't. But here's the rub.
32:22
Speaker 2: You know that old saying about life having two short things.
32:26
Speaker 2: Mark Foster has no power over the other one. Oh
32:30
Speaker 2: what was it again? Oh yeah, taxes.
32:40
Speaker 6: He never paid his taxes.
32:42
Speaker 3: He just ignored it, and the irs was coming after him.
32:50
Speaker 3: He owed somewhere in the area of two to three
32:52
Speaker 3: million dollars in taxes.
32:56
Speaker 2: That's two or three million more than he has paying
33:00
Speaker 2: your taxes. That's jail time. Not even evil spirits can
33:05
Speaker 2: stave off the Irs, or can it. Foster comes up
33:10
Speaker 2: with a getaway plan. He buys life insurance and names
33:16
Speaker 2: wife Sarah, nephew Frank, and follower Greg as his beneficiaries.
33:22
Speaker 2: So what's his bright idea. It's simple but bizarre. He
33:25
Speaker 2: will get Greg to shoot him. Then Ashu can move
33:29
Speaker 2: his spirit into Greg's body. Oh, the Irs will never
33:32
Speaker 2: find him there, and the plan gets even more ingenious.
33:36
Speaker 2: The insurance money will make life comfortable for Sarah and
33:39
Speaker 2: the kids and the reborn Foster. All his problems solved
33:43
Speaker 2: with just one little magic bullet. It's flat out crazy.
33:50
Speaker 2: Does Foster believe it? No one knows, but he does
33:54
Speaker 2: convince Frank and Greg.
33:57
Speaker 9: Foster said that it was his time to go. He's
34:00
Speaker 9: reached his spiritual capacity on earth and his body. It's
34:04
Speaker 9: just useless here at this point, and that his soul
34:07
Speaker 9: now needs to enter into his highest disciple. Greg was
34:11
Speaker 9: supposed to take on Mark's identity spiritually, emotionally, psychologically. He
34:16
Speaker 9: was now supposed to be, in a sense, the man
34:18
Speaker 9: of Mark Foster's household.
34:20
Speaker 5: That was the.
34:20
Speaker 9: Intention for the money was so that, you know, Greg
34:23
Speaker 9: could administer it accordingly, for the children, for their futures.
34:26
Speaker 5: For the wife.
34:30
Speaker 3: It was a very convoluted story, but somehow my uncle
34:35
Speaker 3: was able to have it make sense and we believed him.
34:42
Speaker 6: We all did like it was the morally correct thing
34:47
Speaker 6: to do.
34:49
Speaker 8: I don't know why he got caught up in it.
34:52
Speaker 8: Sounds ridiculous to me to inherit demand's soul.
34:58
Speaker 5: It just it's too bizarre for me.
35:05
Speaker 2: July seventeen, nineteen ninety seven, the day before he is
35:08
Speaker 2: to die, Mark Forster sends wife Sarah away. Then he
35:12
Speaker 2: tapes a goodbye video for his kids to watch.
35:16
Speaker 8: The Africans believe that this life is a party. In
35:20
Speaker 8: order to go home, we have to get our party right,
35:23
Speaker 8: or at least we have to strive.
35:25
Speaker 3: To get that party right.
35:27
Speaker 4: It was hard to watch because I could see the
35:29
Speaker 4: sadness in my dad's eyes.
35:31
Speaker 8: We celebrate life as we celebrate death.
35:35
Speaker 10: Death is nothing to.
35:36
Speaker 5: Be afraid of.
35:37
Speaker 7: Death is a great crossroads, a change in attitude, a
35:42
Speaker 7: change in longitude, a.
35:44
Speaker 9: Change in the way that we perceive our spirit.
35:48
Speaker 7: When we reach that porthole, they'll ring some golden baths.
36:09
Speaker 4: He was depressed, and I saw a man who needed
36:12
Speaker 4: help and just couldn't get it together enough to get
36:17
Speaker 4: help for himself, to admit that he had a problem.
36:20
Speaker 7: Sometimes you may need to call on the help of
36:23
Speaker 7: what the Africans called the reshars or the spirits.
36:30
Speaker 3: I asked him, is there anything else we can do?
36:33
Speaker 3: Do we have to do this? There's got to be
36:35
Speaker 3: another way. And he had said, well, there's two choices.
36:41
Speaker 3: We can go do this and this will happen to me,
36:44
Speaker 3: or we'll take you and we'll sacrifice you and you
36:48
Speaker 3: can take my place. And then he said it was
36:51
Speaker 3: his destiny. He was master of the domain, and you
36:58
Speaker 3: didn't have a choice.
37:03
Speaker 2: Mark's plan requires him to treat his body to one
37:06
Speaker 2: last fling at earthly pleasure.
37:13
Speaker 3: There was a woman that came in and she was
37:15
Speaker 3: considered a vessel to use before we did this. There
37:24
Speaker 3: was a number of different sexual acts performed with this woman,
37:31
Speaker 3: and then she left.
37:33
Speaker 6: My uncle was prepared for what was to happen next.
37:44
Speaker 2: When morning comes, Foster and his two loyal followers had
37:47
Speaker 2: out to meet their destinies. It's waiting for them on
37:51
Speaker 2: a dirt road just across the Wisconsin border.
37:56
Speaker 3: The emotion was so intense it's hard to put into
38:01
Speaker 3: words the feelings that I had to help end my
38:10
Speaker 3: uncle's life. My uncle and Greg got out of the
38:18
Speaker 3: car well. Greg covered himself in kind of rubber clothes
38:32
Speaker 3: and had a gas mask on to avoid any blood
38:36
Speaker 3: splatter as it were, which seemed to me to be
38:41
Speaker 3: just not fitting. If this is meant to be, why
38:43
Speaker 3: would you do that. My uncle grabbed his forty four
38:49
Speaker 3: caliber rifle, cocked it, put it in Greg's hand, and
38:54
Speaker 3: then pulled the barrel up against his chest. My uncle nodded,
39:03
Speaker 3: and Greg pulled the trigger, but it didn't fire.
39:09
Speaker 9: Mark Foster was a prankster. He was a trickster, and
39:12
Speaker 9: he tested Greg's courage, so to speak, and I think
39:17
Speaker 9: that maybe somewhere inside of him he thought, oh, this
39:20
Speaker 9: is just another one of his tests.
39:23
Speaker 3: So my uncle took the gun, made sure the bullet
39:27
Speaker 3: was chambered, handed it back.
39:46
Speaker 2: Marks nephew Frank watches from the car.
39:51
Speaker 3: I don't know if he helped him squeeze the trigger
39:54
Speaker 3: or if Greg did it on his own, but there
39:57
Speaker 3: was a shot.
40:03
Speaker 6: My uncle fell over and died.
40:14
Speaker 9: Mark was the trickstern, which there's a lot of questions.
40:18
Speaker 9: You know, was this all a trick? Was a trick
40:20
Speaker 9: on Greg instead of killing himself, you know, he needed
40:24
Speaker 9: some glorified way of doing it to sensationalize himself. And
40:28
Speaker 9: guess who has to pay for it is a young
40:29
Speaker 9: twenty four year old guy that really believed him. You know,
40:33
Speaker 9: I think it's sad, it's cowardly.
40:39
Speaker 2: Mark Foster's plan is that his soul will move into
40:42
Speaker 2: Greg Freesing's body. As far as we can tell, it
40:44
Speaker 2: doesn't work. Greg Friser does not become Mark Foster. He
40:48
Speaker 2: becomes a criminal, a murderer, and thanks to his name
40:51
Speaker 2: on that insurance policy, in the eyes of the law,
40:53
Speaker 2: he's the worst guy, a killer for profit.
40:59
Speaker 3: When Great can back to the car, we were both
41:03
Speaker 3: pretty devastated. He had told me that my uncle had said.
41:09
Speaker 3: His last words were, no, it's not me, this isn't me,
41:14
Speaker 3: it's not happening.
41:16
Speaker 6: I'm crying.
41:17
Speaker 3: And then he realizes what he had done, and then
41:19
Speaker 3: he starts crying, and it took a little while for
41:26
Speaker 3: us to stop. And from there we went and disposed
41:32
Speaker 3: of any would be evidence. When we got back to
41:37
Speaker 3: my uncle's house, reported him as a missing person, which
41:42
Speaker 3: was per his instruction.
41:46
Speaker 2: A Methodist minister finds Mark's body and says a prayer for.
41:51
Speaker 4: He was found and he was dead, and he was shocked,
41:55
Speaker 4: and we were just in shock.
41:59
Speaker 5: We we just broke down.
42:03
Speaker 7: I was sad that the inevitable had happened. I thought
42:09
Speaker 7: Mark was really going to crash in some way. He
42:16
Speaker 7: was on this roller coaster ride and it had to
42:19
Speaker 7: come off the tracks at some point.
42:24
Speaker 2: Foster has one last trick, one final manipulation.
42:29
Speaker 10: During the autopsy, they found a note in his shoe
42:35
Speaker 10: that had the names of two men on there.
42:40
Speaker 2: One of the names is that of Sarah's X, the
42:43
Speaker 2: one fighting for custody of his kid.
42:46
Speaker 1: It's an attempt to frame him as a murder.
42:51
Speaker 10: It definitely turned into a wild goose chase. Within days,
42:55
Speaker 10: they discovered there was something more bizarre involved here.
43:03
Speaker 2: Forster, the trickster, planted all kinds of false clues to
43:07
Speaker 2: hoodwink the cops. Their confusion doesn't last long. Investigators discover
43:13
Speaker 2: Forster's farewell video and the insurance policy. Police suspect something
43:19
Speaker 2: odd's going on, and Angela, Mark Foster's daughter, is sure
43:22
Speaker 2: of it. She and her cult member cousin are close.
43:26
Speaker 2: Angela offers to wear a Wii. The cops take.
43:29
Speaker 1: Her up on it.
43:32
Speaker 4: My cousin did say stuff that implicated himself, like they'll
43:36
Speaker 4: never find the gun and stuff like that, and said
43:40
Speaker 4: that my dad's death was like a party and like
43:44
Speaker 4: it was a celebration.
43:47
Speaker 2: It takes Frank quite a while to realize what he's done.
43:52
Speaker 3: About a year and a half after my uncle's death,
43:56
Speaker 3: that's when it dawned on me that I was involved
44:02
Speaker 3: with the actual murder of my uncle. I could have
44:07
Speaker 3: done something to stop it, but I didn't, and that's
44:15
Speaker 3: something I deal with every day.
44:20
Speaker 2: Police are sure was Greg who killed Foster, but they
44:24
Speaker 2: can't prove it, not until Frank confesses.
44:29
Speaker 3: I wanted to clear my conscience, and I felt that
44:35
Speaker 3: the only way to have a fresh start in life
44:40
Speaker 3: was to tell the truth, and I did. It was
44:46
Speaker 3: just time for everything to come out.
44:50
Speaker 2: Greg Freesna pleads guilty to second degree homicide. He gets
44:54
Speaker 2: twenty years. Frank admits to being his accessory. He spends
44:59
Speaker 2: three years in the slam.
45:02
Speaker 9: Rag said, you know, I knew it was a matter
45:03
Speaker 9: of time, but this is part of my paths, part
45:06
Speaker 9: of my journey and I'm ready to face it and
45:09
Speaker 9: that he stands by what he did. He believes it
45:12
Speaker 9: was right. He believes that.
45:13
Speaker 5: It was part of the journey.
45:16
Speaker 9: To this day, he speaks how very very highly of him.
45:18
Speaker 9: He truly believes that Mark Foster was an amazing man.
45:24
Speaker 8: I have said to Greg, what the hell were you thinking?
45:28
Speaker 5: Wait?
45:29
Speaker 8: Why would you do something like that? And he did
45:33
Speaker 8: not answer me. I do know that he took another
45:38
Speaker 8: human being's life, and that's very wrong, but I love it.
45:46
Speaker 5: He's my son.
45:49
Speaker 7: I think there were a lot of different facets to
45:51
Speaker 7: Mark Foster, and I never can say that I knew
45:54
Speaker 7: who the real Mark was. I can say that I
45:59
Speaker 7: think he felt dropped in the end.
46:08
Speaker 3: Eventually, when I came to grips with reality, I felt
46:14
Speaker 3: that I had been taken advantage of by someone that
46:19
Speaker 3: I looked at like a father figure. But even bearing
46:24
Speaker 3: that in mind, I still have love for the man
46:29
Speaker 3: and I hope he found peace.
46:33
Speaker 2: It speaks Valuas about Mark Force's power and charm that
46:37
Speaker 2: the two people his spirituality quests messed up most still
46:42
Speaker 2: love him. Foster really believed his black magic had power
46:47
Speaker 2: over death itself. He thought he had become as powerful
46:50
Speaker 2: as the spirits he worshiped. Crazy maybe egomaniac, oh, that's
46:55
Speaker 2: for sure. And his ultimate manipulation was his most self
46:58
Speaker 2: sentate his children, a fatherless, his two closest followers went
47:03
Speaker 2: to jail. Mark Foster's god, Ashu, is known for leading
47:07
Speaker 2: his followers down the wrong path, but Asue's not to blame.
47:11
Speaker 1: He's also the god of free will.
47:13
Speaker 2: Mark Foster made his own choices, and he dug his
47:16
Speaker 2: own grave.
47:20
Speaker 4: I forget my cousin because I knew of my dad's
47:24
Speaker 4: involvement into his own death, and I knew that my
47:29
Speaker 4: cousin loved my dad and would do anything for my dad.
47:37
Speaker 3: When I look back on the time spent with my uncle,
47:42
Speaker 3: it was simply and purely a path of madness.
47:47
Speaker 5: And I got.
47:48
Speaker 3: Crazier and crazier and crazier until the madness finally ended,
47:57
Speaker 3: at least for some of us.
48:06
Speaker 6: Stup