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The Island Where Pedophilia Was Legal · The conspiracy

0:00
Speaker 1: I believe that the island that we're talking about today
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Speaker 1: could be one of the new undiscovered Epstein islands. And
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Speaker 1: the crimes that are committed here are so bold, so brazen,
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Speaker 1: so out in the open, that no one's doing a
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Speaker 1: thing about it. This episode is incredibly disturbing, so please
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Speaker 1: viewer and listener discretion is advised. For anyone who's read
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Speaker 1: the novel The Lord of the Flies, the story of
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Speaker 1: Pitcairn Island will be a familiar reminder that even in paradise,
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Speaker 1: humanity can quickly lose its way. For those who are unfamiliar,
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Speaker 1: The Lord of the Flies tells the fictional story of
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Speaker 1: a group of young boys trapped on a remote island
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Speaker 1: where there attempts itself government lead to infighting and disaster.
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Speaker 1: The tale has long been hailed as an example of
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Speaker 1: humanity at its most wild and the fragility of the
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Speaker 1: line between civilization and chaos. The Lord of the Flies
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Speaker 1: has always been read as an extreme metaphor for humanity
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Speaker 1: and its darker tendencies. But remarkably, there's a real life
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Speaker 1: example of a story not too different than the one
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Speaker 1: in the famous book. It's a story that involves mutiny,
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Speaker 1: icel and the things humans are willing to do to
1:02
Speaker 1: get what they want, especially when there's no one around
1:05
Speaker 1: to see what they're doing. This is the twisted tale
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Speaker 1: of pitt Cairn Island, whose history begins with eighteenth century
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Speaker 1: sailors and ends with one of the most shocking cases
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Speaker 1: in recent memory, all set in a place that looks
1:18
Speaker 1: like paradise. As always, all parties are presumed innocent until
1:22
Speaker 1: proven guilty in a court of law. If you want
1:24
Speaker 1: to research this story on your own, I always post
1:27
Speaker 1: a document in the description of this show that you
1:29
Speaker 1: can click on and you can access to see where
1:32
Speaker 1: the information presented in this show was gathered and drawn from.
1:35
Speaker 1: And as always, I don't want to do anything to myself.
1:38
Speaker 1: I'm not planning on doing anything to myself. And if
1:41
Speaker 1: I go anywhere anytime soon, or anything happens to me,
1:43
Speaker 1: at least you know that I didn't do it without
1:45
Speaker 1: further ado. Welcome to the Conspiracy Files. I'm going to
1:56
Speaker 1: be doing some stories over the next few weeks dealing
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Speaker 1: with islands around the world that have been hotbeds of
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Speaker 1: disturbing behavior. You know, I knew Epstein Island. I knew
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Speaker 1: of that for years before the year twenty twenty two,
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Speaker 1: and I had researched Epstein extensively. I had friends that
2:13
Speaker 1: were telling me about him before he was arrested and
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Speaker 1: ostensibly oft and so I knew the islands were places
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Speaker 1: where things can happen. I mean, it's perfect, especially if
2:23
Speaker 1: it's like a privately owned island. There are no authorities around,
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Speaker 1: no prying eyes. Once you're there, it's basically you and
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Speaker 1: whoever owns the place. Slash is out there and if
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Speaker 1: you need help on an island, you could scream the
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Speaker 1: loudest that you can possibly scream and nobody most likely
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Speaker 1: is going to hear you. So then when I'm researching
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Speaker 1: Epstein Island, that's when I first came across North Fox Island,
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Speaker 1: which was the earlier Epstein Island here in Michigan. It
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Speaker 1: was one of my first videos ever here on this channel,
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Speaker 1: and it's a story that I've devoted my life to chasing.
2:52
Speaker 1: You guys are going to see some details about that
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Speaker 1: project that I'm talking about within the year. We're really
2:57
Speaker 1: going at these people that were in that group. But
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Speaker 1: I've had tons of people after putting these videos out
3:01
Speaker 1: that have sent me information about these other islands. That
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Speaker 1: are hotbeds for these sorts of things, and every time
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Speaker 1: I'm just disturbed. But I can't say that I'm shocked,
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Speaker 1: because people have been doing this for hundreds, if not
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Speaker 1: thousands of years, taking and the young and innocent out
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Speaker 1: to places where they can't be seen and doing unholy
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Speaker 1: things to them out of the prying eyes of most
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Speaker 1: members of society. And pit Cairn Island this is one
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Speaker 1: example of something like this going on that is so
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Speaker 1: disturbing that it's hard to believe. It's, for me, one
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Speaker 1: of those stories that was really hard to believe at first,
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Speaker 1: before I sat down and really started researching. But anyways,
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Speaker 1: let's just get right into it. First, we have to
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Speaker 1: talk about the history of Pitcairn and its outward appearances.
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Speaker 1: Pitcairn is just one of four volcanic islands that rest
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Speaker 1: in the South Pacific, and it only measures roughly eighteen
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Speaker 1: square miles. It's a relatively tiny island. It's a spot
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Speaker 1: of stunning greenery and lush plants surrounded by gorgeous blue sea.
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Speaker 1: But for all of its beauty, Pitcairn Island is as
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Speaker 1: far from modern as you can possibly get. The island
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Speaker 1: has no airstrip and no safe harbor. Visitors must disembark
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Speaker 1: from a larger ship and take a small long boat
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Speaker 1: to reach the shore, and if you want to get there,
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Speaker 1: you're in for quite the journey. First, you'll need to
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Speaker 1: catch multiple flights to Tahiti, which can take twenty four
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Speaker 1: hours depending on where you're flying from. From Tahiti, you'll
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Speaker 1: take a five hour flight to the island of Mangareva,
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Speaker 1: a ride you can only get once a week. On Mangareva,
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Speaker 1: you'll then board a boat and sail for three full
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Speaker 1: days before you finally reach Pitcairn Island. The boat that
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Speaker 1: goes to Pitcairn only leaves once every three months, so
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Speaker 1: if you miss it, you'll have a good wait before
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Speaker 1: your next chance, and when you finally arrive at Pitcairn,
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Speaker 1: you'll be there for at least another three months before
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Speaker 1: when the next boat comes to take you away. But
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Speaker 1: despite how remote Pitcairn Island is, it's been known by
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Speaker 1: humans for thousands of years. Ancient glyphs found on the
5:01
Speaker 1: islands suggest that Polynesian travelers were the first to visit
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Speaker 1: the island, sailing their innovative canoes, which were capable of
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Speaker 1: open sea travel, But the people who really put Pitcairn
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Speaker 1: on the map, and whose story would directly contribute to
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Speaker 1: the case uncovered in nineteen ninety nine were a group
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Speaker 1: of sailors from the eighteenth century. In seventeen eighty seven,
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Speaker 1: a ship called the HMS Bounty left port in England
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Speaker 1: and set sail for Tahiti. After a grueling ten month journey,
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Speaker 1: they finally arrived at their destination, where they then lingered
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Speaker 1: for another five months. While the ship remained docked, its
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Speaker 1: crew spent most of their time on land, enjoying the
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Speaker 1: local food, the local drink, and the women from local communities.
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Speaker 1: For a group of men living the incredibly hard and
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Speaker 1: dangerous life of sailing the open sea in the times
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Speaker 1: before engines, in modern navigation, this place was a practical paradise.
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Speaker 1: You had fresh food, you had friendly faces, women to
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Speaker 1: occupy your time with. Back then, this was like coming
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Speaker 1: across a lagoon in the middle of the desert. For
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Speaker 1: these people, it was almost so good, it was like
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Speaker 1: some sort of mirage. And finally, when it came time
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Speaker 1: for the crew to push off the island and return
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Speaker 1: to sea, Captain William Bly found that all of his
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Speaker 1: men were hesitant to leave, despite their complaints, though William
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Speaker 1: Bli eventually got his crew back on board, but it
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Speaker 1: wasn't long before the sailor's attitudes went from bad to worse.
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Speaker 1: When a faction of the crew could no longer deal
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Speaker 1: with life back on the sea, they organized a mutiny,
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Speaker 1: an incredibly serious offense that would have earned them back
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Speaker 1: in England. The crime of mutiny on a ship was
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Speaker 1: so forbidden back then, the captain would have had the
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Speaker 1: power to right there the mutineers without a court martial,
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Speaker 1: a court decision, anything, while they were still at sea.
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Speaker 1: But Captain Bly wasn't able to maintain control of the ship,
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Speaker 1: and at the end of the ordeal, he and his
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Speaker 1: remaining loyal eighteen men were set adrift into the open
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Speaker 1: sea in a small boat, and shockingly, William Bly did
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Speaker 1: manage to survive, and he somehow navigated his way with
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Speaker 1: his crew in that tiny boat thousands of miles back
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Speaker 1: to land. In the meantime, though the HMS bounty was
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Speaker 1: now controlled by the mutineers, including men Fletcher Christian and
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Speaker 1: John Adams. Knowing that they would be in deep trouble
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Speaker 1: back in any English territory, the men then made their
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Speaker 1: way back to Pitcairn Island, where they disembarked and set
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Speaker 1: fire to the HMS Bounty, and in fact, the ship's
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Speaker 1: sunken remains can still be seen today underwater in what
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Speaker 1: is now known as Bounty Bay. On Pitcairn, there were
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Speaker 1: now nine mutineers and women who had traveled with them
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Speaker 1: from Tahiti, all faced with the task of building a
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Speaker 1: community on the remote speck of land in the middle
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Speaker 1: of the ocean, and today nearly all the inhabitants of
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Speaker 1: Pitcairn Island are direct descendants of these men and women.
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Speaker 1: The Mutineers landed in Pitcairn in seventeen ninety and it
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Speaker 1: would be another five years before they even caught a
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Speaker 1: single sight of another ship, and it wouldn't be until
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Speaker 1: eighteen oh eight, nearly twenty years after they settled down
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Speaker 1: on the island, that any other humans would set foot
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Speaker 1: on their paradise when the crew from an American ship
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Speaker 1: visited for just ten hours. While those who occasionally visited
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Speaker 1: the island in those early days reported that the islanders
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Speaker 1: seemed well fed and happy, the gorgeous setting was far
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Speaker 1: from paradise. The community had to start their life from scratch,
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Speaker 1: learning how to survive on the island, and their group
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Speaker 1: was plagued by infighting and gossip. Alcoholism and disease killed
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Speaker 1: many of the inhabitants, and when they were visited in
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Speaker 1: eighteen oh eight, only one man, nine women, and a
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Speaker 1: few children remained. Despite early trials, the community, however, managed
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Speaker 1: to survive, and incredibly Pitcairn Island has remained inhabited since
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Speaker 1: seventeen ninety, with the population reaching a peak of two
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Speaker 1: hundred and thirty three people in nineteen thirty seven. Since then, however,
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Speaker 1: numbers have steadily declined, and today just about fifty people
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Speaker 1: live on Pitcairn. Modern day life on Pitcairn is a
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Speaker 1: unique experience. The islanders have become expert craftsmen, and their
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Speaker 1: knowledge of how to survive and make use of the
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Speaker 1: setting's resources has been passed down from the original settlers,
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Speaker 1: those mutineers who burn their ship right there in the bay.
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Speaker 1: Supplies come just once every three months, and from then
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Speaker 1: until the next boat, Pitcairn is completely cut off from
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Speaker 1: the world, and if you want hot water for a shower,
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Speaker 1: you'll have to chop the wood to feed the boiler.
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Speaker 1: Despite the tough living, though Pitcairn is seen as a
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Speaker 1: mystical and unique place to visit. Tourists are drawn to
9:23
Speaker 1: the island by the opportunity to experience island life at
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Speaker 1: its fullest. When visitors arrive, the island rings a bell
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Speaker 1: to let the community know that new folks are on
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Speaker 1: their way, and during their stay, visitors are ingratiated into
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Speaker 1: the community, sharing meals, learning from the locals, and enjoying
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Speaker 1: the freedom of the remote paradise. For many, the island
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Speaker 1: is one of the few places you can live without
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Speaker 1: the hustle of the modern world, all while surrounded by
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Speaker 1: some of the most stunning scenery that the planet has
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Speaker 1: to offer. But why is a paradise like Pitcairn on
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Speaker 1: a show like this? What could have possibly happened there
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Speaker 1: that would make it so bad that we would have
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Speaker 1: to devote an entire hour to discussing it? Well, the
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Speaker 1: sad fact is that even in the place of immense beauty,
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Speaker 1: but especially when hidden away from prying eyes, human beings
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Speaker 1: can be allowed to exist at their darkest. In the
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Speaker 1: late nineties, frightening rumors began to circulate about Pitcairn Island.
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Speaker 1: It seemed that for as long as people could remember,
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Speaker 1: Pitcairn had been harboring a truly terrible secret, one that
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Speaker 1: turned awful crimes into a normal part of island life. So,
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Speaker 1: despite how small it is, Pitcairn does still have a
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Speaker 1: police force, a team of two officers from the United
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Speaker 1: Kingdom who stay roughly six months before leaving and being
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Speaker 1: replaced with new officers. In nineteen ninety nine, Gail Cox
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Speaker 1: from the UK was serving her temporary assignment on Pitcairn Island.
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Speaker 1: Like others who visited the island, Gail saw what was
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Speaker 1: on the surface a tropical haven. She was later quoted
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Speaker 1: as saying, a lot of people are romanced by the place,
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Speaker 1: and I fell for it. I saw the community through
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Speaker 1: rose colored glasses. I thought it was this really idyllic place,
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Speaker 1: and everybody was really nice end quote. But Gail Cox
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Speaker 1: soon learned that behind the seeming paradise of island life,
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Speaker 1: Pitcairn was a cesspool of and behavior, as would be
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Speaker 1: shockingly uncovered over the next coming months, and in nineteen
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Speaker 1: ninety nine, the spark that lit the Pitcairn flame was struck.
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Speaker 1: During that year, Gail Cox learned that two girls had
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Speaker 1: been it's on the island by a man named Ricky Quinn.
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Speaker 1: Ricky was a New Zealander who was visiting Pitcairn Island
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Speaker 1: at the time. The young girls reported that not only
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Speaker 1: had they been by Ricky, but they had also been
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Speaker 1: by Randy Christian, a Pitcairn native, and so Gail Cox
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Speaker 1: called in the situation to her superiors in the United
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Speaker 1: Kingdom right away. When the officer spoke with Leon Salt,
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Speaker 1: the Commissioner of Pitcairn, he replied, quote, if we dig
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Speaker 1: into this, we'll open a right can of worms and
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Speaker 1: we'll have every man on Pitcairn locked up for life
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Speaker 1: end quote. It was a chilling statement, and it showed
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Speaker 1: that at least some British officials had an inkling that
12:00
Speaker 1: things weren't quite right on the island. Well. At first,
12:03
Speaker 1: the islanders seemed outraged with Ricky Quinn, who admitted to
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Speaker 1: Gail Cox the officer, that he had indeed to the girls,
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Speaker 1: but soon that attitude seemed to change. Suddenly, Gail found
12:15
Speaker 1: that the people of the island were rallying against her,
12:18
Speaker 1: with claims that she was interfering with their own private matters.
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Speaker 1: Kathy Marx, one of the few reporters who would later
12:24
Speaker 1: be allowed on the island during the trials, wrote quote Moreover,
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Speaker 1: news had spread that the girls were accusing local men
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Speaker 1: of similar offenses, and who knew where that would lead.
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Speaker 1: It was the start of the community resistance that was
12:36
Speaker 1: to characterize the case for years to come. End quote,
12:41
Speaker 1: less than a week after the initial accusations, one of
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Speaker 1: the young girls reported to Gail Cox that Randy Christian's
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Speaker 1: younger brother Sean had her as well. She reported that
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Speaker 1: the had begun at the age of and that at
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Speaker 1: one point both of the brothers had hit her at
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Speaker 1: the same time. Now Gail Cox, who had never dealt
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Speaker 1: with the case in the past, was shocked by these reports.
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Speaker 1: She did her best to take all the notes she
13:04
Speaker 1: could and assured the girl and her family that all
13:07
Speaker 1: would be well and everything would work itself out. And
13:10
Speaker 1: with her reports made back to the officials in the
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Speaker 1: United Kingdom, Gail Cox's time on the island drew to
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Speaker 1: a close. In the days leading up to her departure,
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Speaker 1: she felt open hostility from the people on the island.
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Speaker 1: They were enraged that she had reported the actions of
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Speaker 1: the Christian brothers to officials. To them, she was airing
13:27
Speaker 1: private business to outsiders. This was a community that wanted
13:30
Speaker 1: to handle things on its own and they didn't take
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Speaker 1: kindly to Cox interfering with their way of life. When
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Speaker 1: she left, Gail's once idyllic view of Pitcairn Island was
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Speaker 1: completely shattered. She was quoted as saying I felt dead inside,
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Speaker 1: emotionally numb. I really loved that community and I cared
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Speaker 1: about them. I felt so disappointed, so deeply betrayed. End quote. Meanwhile,
13:52
Speaker 1: officials in Wellington, New Zealand and London, England were coming
13:55
Speaker 1: to terms with the problem that they were experiencing on Pitcairn.
13:59
Speaker 1: So far, there were only the two making claims, but
14:02
Speaker 1: after two centuries of being out of sight and out
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Speaker 1: of mind, the police immediately began to worry that the
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Speaker 1: island had developed a dark habit of girls and teenagers.
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Speaker 1: Martin Williams, who was the governor of Pitcairn at one time,
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Speaker 1: wrote quote, I have no doubt that these are not
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Speaker 1: unique cases. It is far more likely that they are
14:21
Speaker 1: a continuation of a pattern that has been going on
14:23
Speaker 1: for two hundred years end quote. Any complacency that UK
14:27
Speaker 1: officials had about monitoring Pitcairn was now replaced with an
14:31
Speaker 1: urgency to investigate, despite the difficulties that would come from
14:34
Speaker 1: working in such an isolated setting with no significant system
14:37
Speaker 1: of laws, The Foreign Office began in funded Operation Unique,
14:42
Speaker 1: which was tasked with learning about the vices and the
14:44
Speaker 1: crimes that occurred on the island. Detectives Peter George and
14:47
Speaker 1: Robert Vincent were immediately assigned to the case, and they
14:50
Speaker 1: began by speaking with Randy and Shawn Christian, who had
14:53
Speaker 1: left Pitcairn Island at that point and were then living
14:56
Speaker 1: in Australia. When George and Vincent, the investigators interviewed those brothers,
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Speaker 1: they both denied the allegations that had been made about them,
15:03
Speaker 1: although they did admit to having with an underaged girl
15:06
Speaker 1: named Katherine who had moved from Pitcairn to New Zealand.
15:09
Speaker 1: When the detectives visited Katherine and asked her about the incidents,
15:13
Speaker 1: she was completely frank in a way that they hadn't anticipated.
15:16
Speaker 1: Catherine named several men besides Randy and Sean Christian, who
15:21
Speaker 1: had ripped her while she was underage, and she didn't
15:23
Speaker 1: seem particularly bothered by recounting the grizzly details. To her,
15:28
Speaker 1: all this was completely normal, She talked about it blase blase,
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Speaker 1: as if this was, you know, a trip to the
15:33
Speaker 1: grocery store or cooking dinner at home. It was completely
15:36
Speaker 1: normal to her, and that, to the investigators was a
15:39
Speaker 1: massive red flag. It was one thing to have a
15:41
Speaker 1: few offenders who had one or two vos on an island,
15:44
Speaker 1: but what could life have been like on Pitcairn if
15:47
Speaker 1: had been so normalized. I mean, keep in mind, there
15:50
Speaker 1: was only a few dozen people living on the island
15:52
Speaker 1: at this time, and this girl's blaming practically half the island,
15:55
Speaker 1: saying that they had waked her while she was a kid. Catherine,
15:58
Speaker 1: the victim, also told the investigators George and Vincent that
16:01
Speaker 1: on Pitcairn, quote, you won't get a girl reaching the
16:04
Speaker 1: age of that's still of end quote. She told the
16:07
Speaker 1: shot detectives that it was an accepted part of life
16:10
Speaker 1: on the island that everyone knew about, but no one minded.
16:13
Speaker 1: To the people bored and raised on the island, you
16:16
Speaker 1: were supposed to lose your word by the age of.
16:19
Speaker 1: It was mandatory. That was just what people did. And
16:22
Speaker 1: so when George and Vincent reported their findings to their superiors,
16:25
Speaker 1: they immediately drew some concerns. Britain was worried that the
16:28
Speaker 1: case would reflect poorly on them for having so mismanaged
16:32
Speaker 1: the island. Knowing that so many people were interested in
16:35
Speaker 1: the story in Mythos of Pitcairn, they also worried about
16:38
Speaker 1: the negative publicity, but Catherine's statement was too huge to ignore,
16:42
Speaker 1: so the detectives soon got new orders. George and Vincent
16:45
Speaker 1: were to trace and speak with every woman who had
16:47
Speaker 1: been born and raised on Pitcairn since nineteen eighty to
16:50
Speaker 1: see how deep the sun had been running. They started
16:53
Speaker 1: by tracking women down who had since moved away from
16:56
Speaker 1: the island, about twenty in total, and they asked them
16:58
Speaker 1: about their experiences. They weren't prepared, though, for what they
17:02
Speaker 1: were about to learn. George, one of the investigators, later
17:05
Speaker 1: recalled that at every house the investigators visited, quote, we
17:09
Speaker 1: got the same response. Every pitcair And girl, and I
17:12
Speaker 1: mean every single one, a one hundred percent hit had
17:15
Speaker 1: been a victim of to varying degrees end quote. Vincent said,
17:19
Speaker 1: quote we got disclosure after disclosure. It was staggering. It
17:23
Speaker 1: was like opening the floodgates for some of these women.
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Speaker 1: End quote. The victims that the detectives spoke with reported
17:28
Speaker 1: a wide swath of different from indecent exposures to full
17:32
Speaker 1: on Most of the victims named more than one man
17:36
Speaker 1: as their and several reported that the had started when
17:40
Speaker 1: they were between years old, and that was just what
17:44
Speaker 1: they were learning from women who had left Pitcairn. What
17:47
Speaker 1: would the women and children still living on the island
17:49
Speaker 1: tell them. Seeing how deep the case was going to go,
17:52
Speaker 1: George and Vincent began speaking with women beyond the nineteen
17:56
Speaker 1: eighties cutoff, and by the time they were done, they
17:58
Speaker 1: had identified a total of thirty one including two men,
18:03
Speaker 1: and identified a group of about thirty different offenders, twenty
18:07
Speaker 1: seven of whom were native to Pitcairn. A few of them, though,
18:10
Speaker 1: were visitors to the island. Roughly a dozen women had
18:14
Speaker 1: made reports against their own brothers, uncles, and fathers, saying
18:17
Speaker 1: that they were from the age of The small size
18:21
Speaker 1: of the population and their interconnectedness only complicated matters as well. Quote.
18:26
Speaker 1: With everybody who was tracked down, the connections between those
18:29
Speaker 1: involved grew ever more excruciatingly tangled end quote. Said Marx.
18:33
Speaker 1: That interconnectedness also meant that by the time the detectives
18:36
Speaker 1: had spoken with everyone who had moved away from the island,
18:39
Speaker 1: those back on Pitcairn knew that they would soon be
18:42
Speaker 1: visited by the investigators too. In September of two thousand,
18:46
Speaker 1: George and Vincent made the long journey to Pitcairn Island
18:49
Speaker 1: and arrived at the community, where they were surprised by
18:52
Speaker 1: the warm welcome. George later said, quote, we were greeted
18:55
Speaker 1: with open arms, even by the accused. Residents were even
18:58
Speaker 1: bringing us fish and freshly baked cakes. It was surreal
19:01
Speaker 1: end quote. Once on the island, the detectives began interviewing
19:05
Speaker 1: nearly all the inhabitants, and it became clear that not
19:08
Speaker 1: only was rampant and underage happening on the island, but
19:12
Speaker 1: that the community and all the adults in it had
19:14
Speaker 1: almost no problem with it. If Pitcaren was a paradise
19:17
Speaker 1: for anyone in particular, it was a paradise for who
19:21
Speaker 1: wanted to visit the island to and fulfill absolutely any
19:25
Speaker 1: of their wishes. These crimes against were seen as just
19:29
Speaker 1: another part of life on Pitcaren, and many of the
19:31
Speaker 1: community members didn't understand what the police were getting so
19:35
Speaker 1: worked up about. They had been so isolated and brought
19:38
Speaker 1: up like this, taught to behave like this, that this
19:40
Speaker 1: was completely normal to the adults on the island, and
19:43
Speaker 1: they had no idea that this was looked at wrong
19:45
Speaker 1: in other parts of the world. Evil Learner, a social
19:48
Speaker 1: worker who went to the island with the detectives, wrote
19:51
Speaker 1: that the community didn't understand quote why the matters being
19:54
Speaker 1: investigated were of concern, or how they might be damaging
19:58
Speaker 1: to young women and children. End quote. You see, every
20:01
Speaker 1: single person on the island of Pitcairn seemed to know
20:05
Speaker 1: and accept that girls were being well. They were underage,
20:10
Speaker 1: starting at the age of just and it wasn't just
20:13
Speaker 1: one or two men responsible for these but it was
20:17
Speaker 1: nearly every single young man on the island. But despite
20:20
Speaker 1: the seeming normalization of the some visitors to Pitcairn had
20:24
Speaker 1: noticed something was wrong and had even tried to right
20:27
Speaker 1: the ship before the revelation of nineteen ninety nine. One
20:30
Speaker 1: of those visitors was Pastor Neville Tosen, who had stayed
20:33
Speaker 1: on the island with his wife Ronda. Right away, Neville
20:36
Speaker 1: thought the children's conduct seemed off quote. I noticed worrying signs,
20:41
Speaker 1: such as inexplicable mood swings. It took me three months
20:44
Speaker 1: to realize they were being end quote. When Neville finally
20:48
Speaker 1: learned the staggering depth of the crimes, he struggled to
20:51
Speaker 1: come to terms with how those on the island could
20:53
Speaker 1: let this continue for so long. He and his wife
20:56
Speaker 1: also began to feel more and more uncomfortable while they
20:58
Speaker 1: were there on Pitcairn, but they weren't able to wrangle help,
21:01
Speaker 1: and they weren't able to leave. Remember that ship only
21:04
Speaker 1: comes every few months. It seemed that every time Neville
21:06
Speaker 1: needed to use the communal satellite telephone to contact someone
21:10
Speaker 1: who didn't live on the island, it happened to not
21:13
Speaker 1: be working. Quote. We couldn't get a message out of Pitcairn,
21:16
Speaker 1: he said. We couldn't even contact our kids. I also
21:18
Speaker 1: wrote letters to the church administration, saying I was concerned
21:21
Speaker 1: about the things on the island. They never arrived end quote.
21:25
Speaker 1: In desperation, Neville and his wife Ronda spoke to the
21:27
Speaker 1: Pitcairen matriarchs, the mothers of the island, saying, quote, we
21:31
Speaker 1: said to them, where were you when this was going on.
21:33
Speaker 1: You're the elders of the island. Surely you must be unhappy.
21:35
Speaker 1: And they replied that nothing had changed. One of the
21:38
Speaker 1: grandmothers said, we all went through it. That's part of
21:40
Speaker 1: life on Pitcairen. She said she couldn't understand what all
21:43
Speaker 1: the fuss was about. End quote. So while the presence
21:45
Speaker 1: of the police in two thousand made the islanders a
21:48
Speaker 1: little nervous, they didn't seem overly concerned. Some thought that
21:51
Speaker 1: with the difficulty of trying crimes on Pitcairn, the matter
21:54
Speaker 1: would just go away on its own. Police officer Karen
21:57
Speaker 1: Vaughn said, quote. They thought we'd go there once and
21:59
Speaker 1: then realize how difficult logistically it was to pursue. The
22:03
Speaker 1: men just thought they could get away with it. But
22:05
Speaker 1: any lax policy the UK head towards Pitcairn had now disappeared,
22:09
Speaker 1: and they seemed committed to pursuing the case and bringing
22:12
Speaker 1: these people to justice. By mid two thousand and one,
22:15
Speaker 1: the detectives and police had conducted countless interviews and built
22:19
Speaker 1: up their evidence, but now came the hard part, finding
22:21
Speaker 1: a way to set up a court and put away
22:23
Speaker 1: the criminals amidst a growing local outrage on an island
22:26
Speaker 1: that had never even had a jail before. The pitcaren
22:29
Speaker 1: case centered around a final number of seven defendants, all
22:32
Speaker 1: accused of a litany of crimes against grown women and children.
22:36
Speaker 1: The charges included twenty one counts of forty one counts
22:39
Speaker 1: of indecent and two counts of gross indecency with the
22:44
Speaker 1: One of the accused was Steve Christian, who served as
22:47
Speaker 1: the island's dentist, engineer and mayor. Steve was the leader
22:50
Speaker 1: of the community and a charming, intelligent man who got
22:53
Speaker 1: what he wanted most of the time from his home.
22:56
Speaker 1: Steve and his small gang of right hand men ran
22:58
Speaker 1: the island, cutting out anyone who had new ideas or
23:01
Speaker 1: thought things should change. They liked having the income from tourism,
23:05
Speaker 1: but anyone who wanted to shake things up on the
23:07
Speaker 1: island was unwelcome. A former Pitcairn teacher said, quote, it's
23:10
Speaker 1: their rock and they don't want anyone else on it
23:13
Speaker 1: end quote. And Steve and his men were running the
23:15
Speaker 1: rock the way they wanted it to run, and that
23:17
Speaker 1: included maintaining a habit of underage and proclivities. Leslie Jacques,
23:22
Speaker 1: who acted as Pitcairn's commissioner at one time, said, quote
23:26
Speaker 1: Pitcairn was an oligarchy. Steve ruled and everyone else did
23:29
Speaker 1: what they were told. The way the community was run
23:32
Speaker 1: was medieval end quote. Other accused men included Steve's son, Randy,
23:36
Speaker 1: who was in charge of Pitcairn's influential internal committee which
23:40
Speaker 1: handed out jobs, and Jay Warren, a former magistrate of
23:43
Speaker 1: the island. At this point, the detectives had amassed lots
23:46
Speaker 1: of evidentiary statements from victims and islanders frankly confirmed that
23:52
Speaker 1: we're being on the island, But there were still lots
23:54
Speaker 1: of challenges to trying the accused. For one, officials weren't
23:58
Speaker 1: sure how many of the victims would be willing to testify,
24:01
Speaker 1: especially after facing pressure from their family and community, who
24:04
Speaker 1: felt the whole ordeal was overblown. Many of the locals
24:07
Speaker 1: were against the proceedings and worried that the trial would
24:10
Speaker 1: cripple the island with a population of just fifty Taking
24:13
Speaker 1: away seven of the able bodied men for an indefinite
24:16
Speaker 1: amount of time would also have certainly affected the functioning
24:19
Speaker 1: of Pitcairn and perhaps lead to its decline. Some even
24:22
Speaker 1: began to believe that the charges were being trumped up
24:25
Speaker 1: simply so the government had an excuse to shut down
24:28
Speaker 1: the island. They argued that by charging the men, officials
24:31
Speaker 1: had ensured that Pitcairn would no longer be able to
24:33
Speaker 1: carry on the way that it had for hundreds of years.
24:36
Speaker 1: Quote they've picked on all the viable young men, the
24:39
Speaker 1: ones who are the backbone of this place end quote,
24:41
Speaker 1: said one resident. Residents thought that they were essentially being
24:44
Speaker 1: bullied and that if the trial went on and the
24:46
Speaker 1: men were jailed, the island would fall apart from the inside.
24:49
Speaker 1: And aside from the logistical issues, the Pitcairn community wasn't
24:53
Speaker 1: convinced that anything needed to be done in the first place.
24:56
Speaker 1: They didn't want outsiders judging their way of life and fathers, brothers, husbands,
25:00
Speaker 1: and having been absent from the wider world for so long,
25:03
Speaker 1: they weren't convinced that the United Kingdom had any right
25:06
Speaker 1: to hold them to their laws. Vocal Islanders slowed the
25:09
Speaker 1: process down with legal challenges, calling for the United Kingdom
25:13
Speaker 1: to halt the proceedings altogether. Defense lawyers argued that when
25:16
Speaker 1: the mutineers who had come to the island burned the
25:19
Speaker 1: HMS Bounty, they had renounced their citizenship, giving Britain no
25:23
Speaker 1: authority over them. They also argued that the island's isolation
25:26
Speaker 1: meant it wasn't practical that they should be held to
25:28
Speaker 1: the same legal standards, and that Pitcairn residents had never
25:32
Speaker 1: been officially notified that the law applied to them. None
25:35
Speaker 1: of the arguments paid off, though, and the courts pointed
25:37
Speaker 1: out that while the Islanders didn't want to follow UK law,
25:40
Speaker 1: they'd had no problem accepting the UK tax money and
25:44
Speaker 1: government support necessary for the island to survive. The court
25:47
Speaker 1: felt that not only was Pitcairn part of the United Kingdom,
25:50
Speaker 1: but Islanders were more than well aware of what was
25:53
Speaker 1: and was not legal, so despite outrage from the small community,
25:57
Speaker 1: the case proceeded, though unique plans were to ensure the
26:01
Speaker 1: trial wouldn't destroy life on the island. Instead of bringing
26:03
Speaker 1: the seven defendants to a court on the mainland, the
26:06
Speaker 1: trial came to Pitcairn itself. Lawyers, court officials, three judges
26:10
Speaker 1: and six journalists came from New Zealand to Pitcairn, and
26:13
Speaker 1: their presence alone doubled the population of the island. In
26:16
Speaker 1: the lead up to the proceedings, the women of the
26:18
Speaker 1: island attended a meeting at Big Fence, the home of
26:21
Speaker 1: Alive Christian Steve's wife. She and other Pitcairn women organized
26:25
Speaker 1: the gathering and invited the visiting media members to hear
26:29
Speaker 1: more about their side of the story, and again, disturbingly,
26:32
Speaker 1: all the women who had been since they were babies.
26:35
Speaker 1: Essentially insisted that there was no crime happening on Pitcairn
26:39
Speaker 1: and that their men had been misjudged by the outside world.
26:42
Speaker 1: Every woman present was related to one of the defendants
26:45
Speaker 1: in some shape or form, whether as a mother, wife, sister,
26:48
Speaker 1: or aunt. Kathy Marx was one of the invited journalists,
26:51
Speaker 1: and she recalls well what the Pitcairn women had to
26:54
Speaker 1: say about their men. Quote they were decent, hard working
26:57
Speaker 1: family types. No Islander would tolerate children being interfered with,
27:01
Speaker 1: and no one on Pitcairn had ever been were girls
27:04
Speaker 1: who had known exactly what they were doing. It was
27:06
Speaker 1: they who had thrown themselves at the men. To the
27:09
Speaker 1: Pitcairn women, having at an early age was no issue.
27:12
Speaker 1: Many of them spoke up and recounted their attitudes to it.
27:15
Speaker 1: Quote it's been this way for generations and we've seen
27:18
Speaker 1: nothing wrong in it. Everyone has young that's our lifestyle,
27:21
Speaker 1: end quote, said all of Daryl Griffiths, the daughter of
27:24
Speaker 1: one of the defendants, said she had for the first time,
27:28
Speaker 1: I felt shit hot about it too. I felt like
27:31
Speaker 1: a big lady, she said. The reporters were taken aback,
27:34
Speaker 1: which surprised the Pitcairn women they asked the media members
27:38
Speaker 1: at what age they had first had Marx recalls their
27:41
Speaker 1: reaction to the news that those from the rest of
27:43
Speaker 1: the world were not having said such a young age quote.
27:46
Speaker 1: The women of Pitcairn did not believe that anyone could
27:49
Speaker 1: have lost their at the idea of being that old
27:52
Speaker 1: was simply preposterous end quote. While the meeting at Big
27:56
Speaker 1: Fence emphasized how deeply many of the women believed that
28:00
Speaker 1: was normal and consensual, it also seemed to show the
28:02
Speaker 1: incongruities in the women's thinking. One woman named Carol, who
28:06
Speaker 1: insisted that no girl had ever been done Pitcairn, also
28:10
Speaker 1: said that she did have a negative experience as a child,
28:12
Speaker 1: but that quote it didn't affect me. I was probably
28:15
Speaker 1: luckier than some I've read about. It was tried, but
28:17
Speaker 1: nothing happened. I was at the time, but even I
28:20
Speaker 1: knew it was wrong. It's a bad thing. I screamed
28:22
Speaker 1: like hell. The reporters ultimately left the meeting shocked and confused.
28:27
Speaker 1: The women of Pitcairn seemed frank about the happening, but
28:31
Speaker 1: also totally opened to it and okay with it, despite
28:33
Speaker 1: having negative experiences themselves. Girls and women from Pitcairn had
28:37
Speaker 1: openly admitted that as children they had avoided doing chores
28:41
Speaker 1: alone so as not to be cornered by a man,
28:43
Speaker 1: and needed to learn who was and wasn't safe to
28:46
Speaker 1: be around, and yet they were incredibly quick to defend
28:49
Speaker 1: the men and their actions. In the end, though, the
28:51
Speaker 1: opinions of the community didn't stop the trial from taking place,
28:54
Speaker 1: and after seven weeks of legal proceedings, the verdicts were
28:57
Speaker 1: handed down on October twenty fourth, two thousand, thousand and four.
29:00
Speaker 1: Six of the seven men accused were found guilty on
29:03
Speaker 1: thirty five of the fifty five charges. Only one man
29:06
Speaker 1: was acquitted of all charges. Though many Islanders had been
29:09
Speaker 1: convinced the trial would be used to shut down the island,
29:12
Speaker 1: the judges considered the community's unique situation for the sentence.
29:16
Speaker 1: Two of the defendants were only given three hundred hours
29:18
Speaker 1: of community service and the rest were sentenced to jail
29:21
Speaker 1: time ranging from two to five years. For the Islanders,
29:24
Speaker 1: the punishment seemed unfair, but to the outside world it
29:28
Speaker 1: obviously seemed way too little. How could these men who
29:31
Speaker 1: had just been convicted of perpetrated against children starting at
29:37
Speaker 1: the age of get off with such a slap on
29:40
Speaker 1: the wrist, I mean community service. What a junk. Though
29:43
Speaker 1: the sentences were short, the men were imprisoned in a
29:45
Speaker 1: brand new jail they had helped build on the island
29:48
Speaker 1: shortly before the trial, and eventually they were each released
29:52
Speaker 1: and after that life on Pitcairn Island seemed to just
29:55
Speaker 1: go on. Now, twenty years after the verdict, little has changed.
29:58
Speaker 1: The population continued used to hover at around fifty and
30:01
Speaker 1: many of the men convicted of still live there on
30:05
Speaker 1: the island. Tourism to pit Cairn continues. In fact, if
30:08
Speaker 1: you want to book a room with the convicted and
30:10
Speaker 1: former mayor, you can even stay at the home of
30:13
Speaker 1: Steve and Olive Christian pit Cairen's dirty secrets seem to
30:16
Speaker 1: have been forgotten by many, and one can't help but
30:19
Speaker 1: wonder have things changed for the better on the island.
30:21
Speaker 1: Were the men convicted of those crimes reformed or have
30:25
Speaker 1: they been allowed to remain in power away from the
30:27
Speaker 1: eyes of the wider world. What do they get up
30:29
Speaker 1: to when they aren't showing the island off to tourists
30:32
Speaker 1: And are there tourists that come with the intention to
30:34
Speaker 1: take part in pitt Kirn's legacy of well to this day,
30:39
Speaker 1: no charges have ever been brought against visitors of the
30:42
Speaker 1: island since the nineties. But it's frightening to think about
30:45
Speaker 1: what may happen on pit Cairn Island when no one's
30:48
Speaker 1: around to see it. I mean, you had multiple people
30:51
Speaker 1: talking about visitors to the island that were taking part
30:53
Speaker 1: in and I'm sure that there was so many more
30:57
Speaker 1: that were never talked about even in that initial group.
31:00
Speaker 1: What did they accuse thirty or so men of taking
31:02
Speaker 1: part in this? And they only really charged seven of them,
31:06
Speaker 1: and multiple of these women and these kids were talking
31:09
Speaker 1: about visitors to the island that joined in in all this.
31:11
Speaker 1: Like I said, who knows what sick disturbing tourists you know,
31:15
Speaker 1: visited the island had went back to his home country,
31:19
Speaker 1: talked about it with all of his friends, and then
31:21
Speaker 1: brought his friends over for a fun little bit of
31:23
Speaker 1: tourism with it. It's an island exactly like Epstein and
31:27
Speaker 1: North Fox, except this one is objectively, you know, in
31:30
Speaker 1: its own way worse because these children were being from
31:33
Speaker 1: an incredibly young age to be these almost you know,
31:36
Speaker 1: incredibly open machines that were to be used by the
31:40
Speaker 1: older men on the island and it's disturbing. I mean,
31:43
Speaker 1: there are reports of the visitors coming, and I would
31:45
Speaker 1: love to know who those visitors were, because think about it,
31:48
Speaker 1: those are people who once again escaped justice. So seven
31:52
Speaker 1: out of thirty they didn't even get a third of
31:54
Speaker 1: the men that were accused of in this case, and
31:58
Speaker 1: they got none of the tourists. There's probably a guy
32:00
Speaker 1: from the United States, probably someone from Australia, probably someone
32:04
Speaker 1: from New Zealand, I don't know, someone from Europe, probably
32:06
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom. Not gonna lie. They probably made their
32:09
Speaker 1: way over to the island a bunch of after a
32:12
Speaker 1: three month vacation, took the boat back to their country,
32:16
Speaker 1: and no one ever, you know, knew about it or
32:18
Speaker 1: learned about it. I mean, think about it. Once they
32:19
Speaker 1: were there, they could have said their name was anything,
32:22
Speaker 1: you know. I'm sure that they didn't have stringent ID
32:24
Speaker 1: checks when they arrived at the island. I could have
32:26
Speaker 1: gone there and said, my name is Robert Johnson, and
32:28
Speaker 1: then when I left, everyone would just, you know, tell people, yeah,
32:31
Speaker 1: it was this white guy named Robert Johnson. I mean,
32:33
Speaker 1: there's there'd be a million of those people they could
32:35
Speaker 1: look at and have no evidence to prosecute, but there
32:38
Speaker 1: were confirmed to be visitors that engaged in this stuff
32:41
Speaker 1: to the island. So it's just bizarre thinking that these
32:43
Speaker 1: people went there, did that, they went back to their
32:46
Speaker 1: home countries, and they're still sitting there to this very
32:49
Speaker 1: day with no repercussions, none at all. One of those
32:52
Speaker 1: people could be watching this video. I'm sure they might
32:54
Speaker 1: seeing pitt Caren Island because it's a pretty niche topic.
32:57
Speaker 1: And yeah, they just completely got away with it. And
32:59
Speaker 1: as the The Lord of the Flies struggle to survive
33:02
Speaker 1: on the island and bring order to the chaos, they
33:04
Speaker 1: live in fear of an imaginary beast they believe is
33:07
Speaker 1: hiding in the jungle. The beast haunts their dreams, and
33:10
Speaker 1: as they descend into deeper darkness, they grow to believe
33:13
Speaker 1: in this beast more and more. As the book The
33:15
Speaker 1: Lord of the Flies draws to a close, one boy
33:18
Speaker 1: realizes there might not be anything evil lurking in the
33:21
Speaker 1: jungle besides themselves. Maybe there is a beast, he says,
33:24
Speaker 1: Maybe it's only us, And in the end that boy
33:27
Speaker 1: was right. The only beast truly terrorizing the boys in
33:30
Speaker 1: that novel is their inner wildness and fear which drives
33:34
Speaker 1: them to fight amongst themselves and even kill each other.
33:36
Speaker 1: It's hard not to see the connections here to pitcare
33:39
Speaker 1: There's no evil, no Lost style monster that lives on
33:43
Speaker 1: the island lurking in the mist, just humans far away
33:45
Speaker 1: from the world, from larger civilization, from authorities and prying eyes.
33:50
Speaker 1: And though humans are capable of incredible feats, they can
33:53
Speaker 1: also sink deep into the darkness, especially when there's no
33:56
Speaker 1: one around to see. A community that was born from
33:59
Speaker 1: mutants and fugitives, Pitcairn was managed by men who grew
34:03
Speaker 1: accustomed to taking what they wanted, so much so that
34:06
Speaker 1: women on the island couldn't see the crimes for what
34:08
Speaker 1: they were. They had been completely since they were born
34:12
Speaker 1: to believe in these completely warped world views, and to
34:15
Speaker 1: just go along with all of these and even encourage it.
34:18
Speaker 1: For centuries, the island lived with its own twisted form
34:21
Speaker 1: of normalcy, and perhaps still does to this very day.
34:25
Speaker 1: And if it does, who exactly is going to stop it?
34:28
Speaker 1: Those are our closing thoughts for today, and a deeply
34:30
Speaker 1: disturbing case here. I don't know the current situation on
34:33
Speaker 1: pit Cairn Island. I don't know if these kids are
34:36
Speaker 1: still being on there and what's exactly happening. Even if
34:40
Speaker 1: they're not outwardly on the surface, I guarantee that it's
34:43
Speaker 1: obviously still happening. And you can't rehabilitate people like that.
34:47
Speaker 1: People that grew up doing that and were raised doing that.
34:51
Speaker 1: There's no way that you can just stop them from
34:53
Speaker 1: doing that. They're going to continue doing it until they're
34:55
Speaker 1: either put down or die naturally. But anyways, y'all, I
34:59
Speaker 1: want to thank Amelia GP for researching the story and
35:03
Speaker 1: writing this script and helping to make this thing possible.
35:06
Speaker 1: I want to thank everybody out there for listening this week,
35:08
Speaker 1: for watching the show. Please, if you're watching the show
35:11
Speaker 1: on YouTube, please leave me a comment like the video
35:14
Speaker 1: share this stuff out. I depend on you guys to
35:16
Speaker 1: help spread the word about this channel because they definitely
35:19
Speaker 1: aren't videos that YouTube or these platforms really want to
35:22
Speaker 1: get out there. So it really depends on you guys
35:25
Speaker 1: showing people that this is what we want to see
35:27
Speaker 1: and this should be supported and shown to more people. Also,
35:31
Speaker 1: if you're listening to the show on Spotify or Apple Podcasts,
35:34
Speaker 1: you can listen to the show completely uncensored by the
35:36
Speaker 1: way on there, please leave me a five star review,
35:39
Speaker 1: let me know what you think of it, and yeah,
35:41
Speaker 1: as always, guys, will be back next week. We're covering
35:43
Speaker 1: some islands of the next few weeks, so get ready.
35:46
Speaker 1: There some even more disturbing ones that we're going to
35:48
Speaker 1: dive into. But as always, thanks for tuning in, keep
35:51
Speaker 1: that tinfoil hat on, always stay suspicious, and I'll catch
35:54
Speaker 1: you all next week.