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“Cult Like” Amish Retreat Leader Charged With Manslaughter, Sexual Abuse · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Imagine living entirely off the grid, like completely off the.
• 0:05
  Speaker 2: Grid, right, no modern conveniences at all, exactly.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: You reject electricity, you reject cell phones, you reject modern medicine.
• 0:13
  And it's all in the name of this utter, uncompromising
• 0:16
  spiritual purity.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: It's a massive commitment.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it really is. But now imagine taking that exact reputation,
• 0:23
  that extreme religious purity and using it as.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: A shield, a literal shield.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Right, using it to run an illicit, highly profitable forced
• 0:33
  labor camp in plain sight, and doing it for over a.
• 0:36
  Speaker 2: Decade, which is just I mean, it's a staggering contradiction.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: It is the absolute paradox of Sam Scheller, yeh. And
• 0:42
  figuring out how he pulled it off, you know, how
• 0:44
  he built this trap. That is our mission today on
• 0:46
  this deep dive, and it's.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: A mission we really have to unpack carefully because it
• 0:50
  resulted in severe abuse, human trafficking, and ultimately the tragic
• 0:55
  loss of an infant's life.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the details are heavy. We have a mountain of
• 0:58
  source materials sitting between us right.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: Now, so many documents.
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: Right we're looking at recent court documents, law enforcement affidavits,
• 1:05
  specifically from the Cooper County Sheriff's Office, and these really
• 1:09
  extensive investigative reports.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: And they outline this multi year, essentially cult like operation,
• 1:15
  right exactly.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: It's all centered around this place called the Mercy and
• 1:18
  Truth Omishon Mennonite Retreat, which is in Missouri. So for
• 1:22
  you listening, whether you're fascinated by true crime or sociology
• 1:27
  or even just the dark psychology of charismatic leaders, this
• 1:31
  deep dive is for you.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: We're going to show you the exact mechanics.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly how a supposed sanctuary slowly, methodically transforms into
• 1:41
  a prison.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: And importantly, how that happens without anyone on the outside noticing,
• 1:45
  like not until it is way too late.
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: Right, Which is the scariest part.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: It really is to truly grasp the architecture of this trap.
• 1:52
  We can't just look at the crimes themselves. We have
• 1:54
  to look at the man who built it, Sam Schutler, Yeah,
• 1:56
  and the very specific cultural backdrop that he exploits to
• 2:00
  get away with it.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, so let's unpack this. Who is Sam Scheler? According
• 2:06
  to the files, he's a forty two year old member
• 2:09
  of the Schwartz and trouber Amish sect right, and he
• 2:12
  sets up this retreat, Mercy and Truth. It's in the
• 2:16
  Rolling Hills near Booneville.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Missouri, specifically on a property on Hidden Valley Court.
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Hidden Valley Court, and it's kitted out with all
• 2:24
  these barns, workshops, living.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Quarters, standard farm set up on the outside, right exactly.
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Now. I know the Amish generally live separate from modern society,
• 2:32
  but the sources really emphasized that the Schwartz and Trouber
• 2:35
  sect is ultra conservative.
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Very ultra conservative.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: So what does that actually mean in practice like day.
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: To day, Well, it means they are at the absolute
• 2:45
  furthest end of the spectrum. Yeah, we're regarding separation from
• 2:48
  the outside world. To understand the Swarts and Troubers, you
• 2:51
  really have to realize they split from the wider Amish
• 2:54
  community over a century ago.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: Oh wow, I didn't know it was that long ago.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and specifically because they felt the other we're becoming
• 3:00
  too progressive.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: Too progressive. Wow.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: Right, So they wear the plainest, darkest clothing. They strictly
• 3:07
  forbid indoor plumbing. They won't even use those reflective safety
• 3:12
  triangles on their buggies.
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: Wait, really, not even for safety.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Not even for safety and they adhere rigidly to the Ordnung.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: The ord Nung that's the unwritten rules of the church, right.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: But honestly calling it a rule book just doesn't do
• 3:24
  it justice.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: It's more than that way more.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: The ord Nung is the very fabric of their reality.
• 3:30
  I mean, it dictates everything from the exact width of
• 3:34
  a hat brim to how you interact with neighbors. That
• 3:38
  is intense, and a core tenet of this belief system,
• 3:41
  which is huge for this case, is a profound, deeply
• 3:45
  ingrained distrust of the English.
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: And the English that's their term for non homage.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: People, right, No, exactly, non homage people, the government, modern
• 3:53
  institution's modern medicine. It's all the English.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to this massive contradiction in Schuler's behavior
• 3:59
  that I noticed in the files.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: The library speech.
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, if his sect is defined by completely shutting out
• 4:07
  the outside world, why on earth is there a record
• 4:10
  of him giving a public lecture at a public library.
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: It's wild, isn't it?
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: It really is. In August twenty nineteen, Schettler actually goes
• 4:18
  to the Monito County Library in California, Missouri, and he
• 4:21
  gives a talk as part of this series on diverse lifestyles.
• 4:25
  He's literally standing there educating the English public about Amish history.
• 4:30
  He's talking about their roots in Switzerland, the Netherlands, Germany.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: He's playing the historian.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's even talking about how just ten years prior,
• 4:37
  in two thousand and nine, they only use phones for
• 4:40
  absolute emergencies. So why would an ultra stric Amish Man
• 4:45
  go give what is essentially a ted talk to the English? Like,
• 4:48
  what's the angle?
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is the psychological brilliance of that move.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: You think it was calculated, Oh.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: Highly calculated. It is a brilliant maneuver. By stepping slightly
• 4:59
  outsid those typical sworts and trooper boundaries to educate the English,
• 5:03
  he wasn't violating his culture.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: He was weaponizing it exactly.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: He was weaponizing it. He built this unique bridge of credibility.
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, how so, like, who is he trying to convince?
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: Think about the audience. He is positioning himself to the
• 5:17
  outside world as this ambassador of pastoral purity.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: Right, like, look at me, the authentic Amish Man.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: But more importantly, think about how this plays to his
• 5:26
  own community.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Oh interesting, he.
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Is demonstrating that he is so spiritually fortified, right, so
• 5:32
  steadfast in his faith that he can safely engage with
• 5:35
  the modern.
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: World and not be corrupted by it.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Exactly. It elevates him above just a regular church member.
• 5:42
  He becomes this worldly authority who still possesses unquestionable spiritual purity.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Wow, I see it's like a wolf not just wearing
• 5:50
  sheep's clothing, but literally putting on the shepherd's hat.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: That's a great way to put it, and then giving.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: A seminar on predator safety. He's using the extreme strictness
• 5:59
  of his set as a marketing tool, and.
• 6:01
  Speaker 2: Looking at the documents we see exactly who he was
• 6:03
  marketing this to.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about the target demographic for the Mercy
• 6:07
  and Truth Retreat, because it wasn't just average Amish folks
• 6:10
  looking for a vacation. Families were sending him their most
• 6:13
  vulnerable relatives. We're talking about individuals with severe mental health.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Challenges, people struggling with addictions.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Right, individuals with physical or developmental disabilities, or even folks
• 6:24
  who had committed what the community deemed moral failings.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: And this really gets to the heart of why families
• 6:31
  handed over their loved ones to him.
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Is desperation.
• 6:34
  Speaker 2: Isn't it total desperation? If you are deeply embedded in
• 6:38
  a closed community that inherently distrusts mainstream medicine.
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: Or state run mental health services.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Exactly, your options are incredibly limited. You are desperate for help,
• 6:49
  but you can't go to the English. Right then this
• 6:52
  man from the strictest, most orthodox branch of your own
• 6:55
  faith steps forward and says, I have a holistic sanctuary.
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: I can heal them the right way, our way.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Right. Of course, you're going to trust him over a modern.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: Hospital because he offers a culturally compatible alternative. It's brilliant
• 7:09
  in a terrifying, deeply manipulative.
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: Way, it really is.
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: He essentially establishes himself as a holistic doctor and an
• 7:17
  informal therapist. But he completely bypasses modern medical ethics.
• 7:21
  Speaker 2: No medical licensing, no state oversight, nothing, And.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: He could do it entirely out in the open, because
• 7:28
  his community's default setting is to reject the institutions that
• 7:32
  would normally provide that oversight.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: Precisely and establishing himself as this unquestionable, culturally sanctioned authority
• 7:40
  that was merely step one.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: Right, Because once he gets these vulnerable people isolated on
• 7:45
  his property in Boonville. The illusion of the holistic sanctuary
• 7:48
  just completely vanishes.
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: It becomes a nightmare.
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you have a dozen people isolated on a farm,
• 7:54
  fear and a locked door will only hold him for
• 7:56
  so long.
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: People naturally want to escape.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Right, Eventually, human instinct can to keep them there. Shetler
• 8:02
  needed something way stronger than a locked door.
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: He needed to control their minds.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: Let's look at the probable cause affidavit from Detective Sergeant
• 8:09
  Jordan Schickels of the Cooper County Sheriff's Office, because the
• 8:13
  tactics described here are straight out of occult leader's playbook.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: The affidavit is chilling. It really details exactly how Sutler
• 8:21
  fused religious terror with medical quackery to break down their psychology.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: And central to this architecture of control were his fabricated exorcisms.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: Yes, the exorcisms are a huge part.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: Of this, and the sources show he specifically targeted young
• 8:37
  women and girls for these rituals.
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: Very specifically.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: There's a case outlined in the files of three sisters
• 8:45
  who arrived at the retreat when they were around fifteen
• 8:47
  years old. This kids, right, Shetler isolated them he convinced
• 8:52
  them that they were demon possessed, and he claimed he
• 8:54
  was the only one with a spiritual authority to expel
• 8:57
  these entities.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: It's all about creating that tency.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: He would hold these private counseling sessions where he rubbed
• 9:02
  oils all over their bodies, and the terrifying part is
• 9:06
  it worked.
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: The psychological breakdown was total.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: The documents say they were so psychologically broken down that
• 9:11
  they followed his every move.
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture of Charlatanism,
• 9:15
  what Schutler is doing is a very old, very dark psychological.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Trick that's suck.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Well. When someone is in spiritual or mental distress, their
• 9:24
  pain is invisible, right, it's abstract.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you can't point to it exactly.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: By creating a highly theatrical ritual, an abuser provides a
• 9:32
  tangible focal point for that distress.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: And Schutler's theater involved actual props, which just blows my mind.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Physical proof.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. During this search warrant executed on March four, twenty
• 9:44
  twenty six, investigators actually found the physical proof of this
• 9:48
  manipulation hidden right inside.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: His Bible of all places.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: Right, They found toy stars, little plastic bears and pacifiers just.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Cheap plastic toys.
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the victims reported that during these Czar rituals,
• 10:01
  Schutler would pretend to physically pull these objects out of
• 10:04
  their bodies.
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: Yes, the extraction technique.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Is that a common thing?
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately? Yes, it's a classic hallmark of fraudulent faith healers
• 10:12
  or psychic surgeons. You see it historically in places like
• 10:14
  the Philippines or Brazil.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Wow. Okay.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: The abuser palms a small object like a piece of
• 10:19
  animal tissue or, in Schuttler's bizarre case, a plastic pacifier, right,
• 10:24
  and they use sleight of hand to make it appear
• 10:26
  as though they've literally reached into the body and pulled
• 10:29
  out the sickness or the demon.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I read that part of the affidavit and my brain
• 10:34
  just hit a wall.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: It's hard to process on paper.
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: It sounds almost absurd, Like, how does a fifteen year
• 10:39
  old girl believe a plastic pacifier was just pulled out
• 10:43
  of her abdomen?
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: You really have to view it through the lens of
• 10:45
  their reality.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, unpack that for me.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: In an environment where the belief in literal, active spiritual
• 10:52
  warfare is absolute.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: Where demons are seen as real everyday.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: Threats exactly, And you have been cistomatically isolated by a
• 11:01
  man universally revered as a holy healer. Your critical faculties
• 11:05
  are suspended.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: You just stop questioning it.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: It's a placebo effect weaponized in reverse. He produces a
• 11:11
  physical object, even a cheap plastic toy, as tangible proof
• 11:15
  of an invisible.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: Threat, right like look what was inside you?
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: And more importantly, it serves as tangible proof of his
• 11:21
  own immense power to cure it. It creates a bond
• 11:25
  of absolute, terrifying dependence.
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: But he wasn't just relying on psychological sleight of hand.
• 11:30
  He was actively altering their biology. The pills, Yes, let's
• 11:34
  talk about the medication abuse, because this part of the
• 11:37
  affidavit is just insane. The sources state that residents were
• 11:41
  forced to consume between seventy to one hundred pills every
• 11:44
  single day.
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: It's a massive, completely unregulated cocktail.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Seventy to one hundred pills.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, vitamins, minerals, and these homemade concoctions that Sheller prepared.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: Himself, that he makes up in a barn somewhere.
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: Essentially, Yes, And to add insult to injury, he aggressively
• 12:00
  build the families for these so called treatments.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: Wait, hold on seventy to one hundred pills a day.
• 12:06
  That is not a holistic supplement routine.
• 12:08
  Speaker 2: No, not at all.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine what that does to a human stomach,
• 12:12
  let alone a nervous system. How does that function as
• 12:14
  a tool of control?
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: It functions as a brutal chemical straight.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: Jacket, A chemical straight jacket.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Wow, when you force a human body to process that
• 12:23
  volume of unregulated substances, you are inducing a state of
• 12:27
  constant physiological crisis because.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: The body is just fighting to break it all down.
• 12:30
  Speaker 2: Right, You are putting an enormous metabolic load on the
• 12:33
  liver and kidneys. Megadosing certain vitamins like vitamin A or
• 12:38
  various minerals can be toxic, highly toxic. It can cause
• 12:41
  severe neurological confusion, lethargy, blurred vision, and intense gastro intestinal distress.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: So it's not just that they're tired. Their bodies are
• 12:51
  literally malfunctioning exactly.
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: They're in a constant state of chemical exhaustion and brain fog.
• 12:57
  It completely strips away their cognitive ability to assess their situation.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Let alone formulate a plan to escape or resist.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: You chemically render them completely docile, and.
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Once they are chemically docile and spiritually terrified, the grooming
• 13:13
  behavior just escalates.
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: It always does.
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: The search warrant uncovered handwritten letters from the residents. They
• 13:19
  were forced to address Shutler as Daddy in these noes.
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: It's deeply disturbing.
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: And he referred to himself that way as well.
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: It's a highly calculated infantilization.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Infantilization, yeah, right, making them like children exactly.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: He is systematically stripping away their adult autonomy. By forcing
• 13:36
  them to use that language, He rewrites the social dynamic.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Placing them in a position of total reliance.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: Total reliance on him as this paternalistic, authoritarian figure who
• 13:47
  controls every aspect of their reality.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: The specific accounts in the report are just gut wrenching.
• 13:53
  There's a deeply disturbing narrative from a sixteen year old
• 13:56
  girl who visited the retreat.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: The one who visited in June and July of twenty
• 14:00
  twenty four.
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Right, she was just thirteen and fourteen years old at
• 14:04
  the time. She went there, initially to see her sister
• 14:06
  and to seek help for menstrual issues. Schuttler didn't have
• 14:09
  any parental permission to counsel this girl, but he conducted
• 14:13
  these late night private sessions anyway.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: The escalation of sexual abuse disguised as spiritual healing here
• 14:19
  is unfortunately a textbook.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: It really is. He told her she had been sexually
• 14:23
  abused in the past because she hadn't right, He just
• 14:26
  invented that trauma, and he claimed she needed healing in
• 14:29
  her private area.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: Under the guise of a medical spiritual intervention.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: Exactly, he lifted her dress, tucked a blanket into her underwear,
• 14:36
  and rubbed oil on her pubic and vagonal areas.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: It's pure predation.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: He claimed he was extracting an evil spirit, and he
• 14:43
  told her it left a five pointed star mark on
• 14:45
  her arm.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: The delusion he forced on her is just horrific.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: And in another session, the affidavit states he lay on
• 14:51
  top of her on a bed, whispering quote, You're so lucky.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: To be here, sinkoning.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: It's pure predatory behavior. And then we see the chemical
• 15:01
  control intersect directly with the sexual abuse.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: But the drugging incident, yes, she.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: Was given a substance that made her intensely drowsy. She
• 15:10
  woke up being physically held down by her legs and
• 15:13
  hands in a dark.
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: Room, completely helpless.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: And when she tried to confront him about it later,
• 15:19
  the gas lighting was immediate. He completely dismissed it.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: He told her it was the demons, right, Yeah, he told.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: Her it was just the evil spirits he'd warned her about.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: Notice the cycle there, It's a closed loop.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: What do you mean.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: He creates the terror, the fear of demons, the physical
• 15:35
  vulnerable body, and then positions himself as the only available
• 15:39
  sanctuary from that exact terror.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Wow, he's the poison in the cure.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: It's a closed loop of abuse. You can't escape because
• 15:46
  the only person who can save you is the one
• 15:47
  hurting you.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: The psychological dominance and the sexual exploitation are horrific enough
• 15:53
  to warrant shutting the place down ten times over.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: Absolutely.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: But here's where the story takes another dark structural turn.
• 16:03
  If we zoom out and look at the actual operational
• 16:06
  structure of the Mercy and Truth Retreat, it.
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: Wasn't just a playground for a predator.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: No, it was a brutally efficient economic engine.
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: It was a labor camp disguised as a therapy center,
• 16:17
  a labor camp while young women were targeted for sexual
• 16:20
  and spiritual abuse. Teenage boys and young men sent there
• 16:24
  for counseling were fed straight into a system of forced labor.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: The sources list an extensive network of economic enterprises operating
• 16:31
  right there on Hidden Valley Court.
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: It was a massive operation.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Schettler had a wood palette shop, he had working sawmill,
• 16:37
  farming fields, and horse training operations.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: And those are highly labor intensive businesses, backbreaking work. In
• 16:44
  the intersection of agrarian and industrial Amish economies, things like
• 16:47
  palette shops and sawmills are incredibly common, but they usually
• 16:51
  have high overhead because of the intense physical labor required, unless.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: Of course, your labor force is completely free. Exact, he
• 16:59
  wasn't just using them on his own property either. The
• 17:02
  documents show he literally leased out his residence to non
• 17:06
  Amish employers in the surrounding area.
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: He rented out human beings.
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, and Schetler pocketed every single dime of their earnings himself.
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: The audacity of the economic control is just staggering. This
• 17:19
  was a highly profitable corporate enterprise operating entirely under the
• 17:24
  guise of a religious charity.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: It's so twisted.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: The cruelty is multi layered here. Think about the families.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Paying for the treatment exactly.
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: On one hand, Schutler is aggressively billing them for these expensive,
• 17:36
  fake pill regimens and imaginary holistic therapies, and on the
• 17:40
  other hand, he is extracting hundreds of hours of unpaid, backbreaking,
• 17:45
  hard labor from the very victims those families are paying
• 17:47
  him to help.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: It's an economy of total exploitation, it really is. It
• 17:51
  turns the entire concept of community support upside down. But again,
• 17:54
  you have teenage boys and young men working in a sawmill.
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: Strong young men, right, how do.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: You keep them compliant? You can't just rely on brain
• 18:02
  fog from the pills when they are operating heavy machinery.
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: Now, they need to be somewhat awake to work, right.
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: So maintaining that level of force labor requires enforcement. It
• 18:11
  requires absolute terror.
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: And the punishments Shutler utilized for disobedience or simply for
• 18:17
  refusing to take those seventy to one hundred pills a
• 18:19
  day were practically medieval.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: The documents describe victims being locked in an attic in
• 18:24
  the dead of winter, freezing temperatures freezing. Others were thrown
• 18:28
  into what witnesses literally called an ice house.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: An ice house just horrific.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: They were chained, tied up, verbally berated, and subjected to
• 18:38
  physical beatings and spankings.
• 18:40
  Speaker 2: What is crucial to understand here is the psychological mechanism
• 18:43
  of witnessed violence.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: Witnessed violence.
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Okay, explain that the affidavit includes an account from a
• 18:48
  teen resident who lived at the retreat from the summer
• 18:51
  of twenty twenty three to the spring of twenty twenty five. Okay,
• 18:54
  This teenager witnessed a disabled Amish man being viciously kicked
• 18:58
  in the genitals. This same disabled man was locked in
• 19:02
  a safe room for weeks at a time, tied up,
• 19:05
  and had pepper rubbed directly into his eyes.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: I can't even fathom the cruelty of rubbing pepper into
• 19:11
  a disabled man's eyes. It's just evil, it is.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: And another resident, a seventeen year old who was there
• 19:16
  more recently from November twenty twenty four to January twenty twenty.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Six, right I write his account.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: He described the relentless physical toll. He talked about having
• 19:25
  his blood inexplicably drawn in a barn. Right followed by
• 19:30
  these customized forced protocols of pills and then being ordered
• 19:33
  to work midnight shifts in the shops.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Midnight shifts after having your blood drawn.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: No therapy, no counseling, just sheer exhaustion, physical terror, and
• 19:42
  bizarre blood draws.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: So back to the witness violence, Yeah, how does that
• 19:46
  control the group.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: When you create a climate where extreme violence is not
• 19:50
  just experienced by individuals, but witnessed by the group, you
• 19:53
  paralyze the entire collective.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Everyone sees what happens if they step out.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Of line exactly, Every single residence sees exactly what happens
• 19:59
  to those who resist. The fear becomes ambient.
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: It's just in the air.
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: It's in the air they breathe. You don't have to
• 20:06
  beat everyone every single day. You just have to make
• 20:08
  a horrific example of a vulnerable person and.
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: The rest will fall in line, just to survive.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Just to survive.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: So you have this relentless environment of ambient fear, total isolation,
• 20:19
  chemical strait jackets, and medical quackery.
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: It's a powder keg.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: It is pushing human physical and mental limits to the
• 20:27
  absolute brink. And inevitably, when you play god with people's
• 20:31
  health in a closed off compound, it culminates in tragedy.
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: It was only a matter of time.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about the breaking point of this entire operation. Yeah,
• 20:40
  the death of a six month old baby.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: This is the event that forms the basis of the
• 20:45
  first degree involuntary manslaughter charge against Shuler.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: According to the investigative reports, on or around March seven
• 20:52
  to twenty twenty five, a six month old boy was
• 20:55
  suffering from a severe polyviral respiratory infection.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: He was incredibly sick.
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: Specific the infant had contracted both RSV and COVID nineteen.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: For anyone listening who has had a child with RSV,
• 21:05
  you know how terrifying it.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: This is incredibly scary.
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: The airways are tiny, they fill with mikus, and the
• 21:10
  child physically cannot pull in enough oxygen.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: They literally can't breathe.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: Right. The parents noticed their baby was turning blue, he
• 21:18
  was struggling to breathe. Now, normally that is an immediate
• 21:21
  nine to one one call.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: You go straight to the emergency room exactly.
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: But because of their cultural conditioning, these parents have been
• 21:27
  led to believe that English doctors and modern hospitals.
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: Were corrupt, or unreliable, or even spiritually dangerous.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Right, unnecessary, so, trusting Sam Schttler as their community's renowned
• 21:40
  holistic doctor, they brought their dying infant to him.
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: The timeline here is critical. On March sixth, they bring
• 21:46
  the baby to Shutler. He assesses the child and administers
• 21:50
  what he called a lavender breathing treatment, which, to.
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: Be clear, the document state, was literally just a standard,
• 21:56
  commercially available central oil diffuser.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Exactly like you'd buy at a mall. Lavender oil does
• 22:02
  absolutely nothing to open and flamed viracly infected bronchi old tubes.
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: It's useless for RSV.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Completely useless. He then gives the parents instructions to continue
• 22:12
  this treatment at home and sends them.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Away with a baby turning blue.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: And he assures them he will check on the baby
• 22:18
  later to monitor his.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: Progress, but he doesn't. He never checks on the infant.
• 22:23
  In fact, the record show he later claimed he was
• 22:25
  quote too busy with the girls and the horses, too dizzy. Meanwhile,
• 22:29
  staff members at the retreat actually saw the baby's condition
• 22:32
  rapidly declining, but nothing was done.
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: It's devastating.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Finally, the parents found their infant completely unresponsive and blue
• 22:40
  during a nap. They tried to reach Schetler.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: But couldn't because he was busy, right, So.
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: They actually had to break their cultural norms and contact
• 22:49
  a non Amish neighbor just to use a phone to
• 22:51
  call nine one one.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: A desperate last resort, but.
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: By the time the paramedics arrived it was too late.
• 22:58
  The baby was pronounced dead.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: And the AUTA results were definitive. The cause of death
• 23:02
  was pneumonia, complicating the polyviral infection.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: It was entirely physical.
• 23:07
  Speaker 2: And the medical examiner explicitly noted in the report that
• 23:10
  conventional medicine, basic oxygen support, steroids, anti virals likely would
• 23:15
  have saved this child's life.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting and just deeply fundamentally tragic.
• 23:22
  I was reading this timeline and my brain just rebelled.
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: It's hard to wrap your head around the.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Baby is turning glue. Yeah, paramedics are a phone call away,
• 23:31
  but the parents take him to a guy with a
• 23:33
  lavender oil diffuser.
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: I know we talked about isolation, but how does cultural
• 23:38
  conditioning completely override the primal biological instinct to save your
• 23:43
  dying child.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: It is the ultimate fatal consequence of an absolute echo
• 23:48
  chamber and echo chamber when you are taught from birth
• 23:52
  that the outside world is dangerous, sinful, and spiritually corrupting.
• 23:56
  You turn inward during a crisis.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: You don't even consider the out as an option.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: Exactly, You defer to your spiritual leaders. The parents didn't
• 24:04
  think they were harming their child.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: So they thought they were saving him.
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: They believed, based on the reality constructed for them by
• 24:10
  their community and by Shutler, that they were taking the safest,
• 24:14
  holiest route. Schetler exploited that trust.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: This raises an important question about the legal charges. The
• 24:21
  prosecution charged him with first degree involuntary manslaughter. What is
• 24:25
  the legal threshold there? Because a defense attorney might argue, hey,
• 24:29
  it's a terrible medical accident. He tried his best with
• 24:31
  natural remedies.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: They probably will argue.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: That right, So what elevates this to a major felony?
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: There is a vast legal difference between a tragic medical
• 24:40
  accident and criminal negligence.
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: Okay, break that down for me.
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: The prosecution's case here rests on the fact that Schutler
• 24:47
  actively and fraudulently misrepresented his medical expertise.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: He lied about being able to treat it right.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: He essentially took on the duty of care for a
• 24:55
  critically ill infant, provided a completely useless, unauthorized treat, and
• 25:00
  then neglected the child out of sheer.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Arrogance, prioritizing his horses and his.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Abuse of other victims over a dying baby. He created
• 25:09
  a deadly delay.
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: The power differentially, exactly, the.
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: Power differential between him and those parents made them doubt
• 25:14
  their own instincts to seek real emergency help until it
• 25:17
  was too late, so a baby dies.
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: In March twenty twenty five, dozens of people have been abused, starved,
• 25:24
  chained in ice houses, and drugged out.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Of their minds, horrific abuse.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: And yet, looking at the timeline of the investigation, this
• 25:31
  operation had been running since at least twenty fourteen, over
• 25:34
  ten years, that is over a decade. How did an
• 25:38
  operation this massive and this abusive stayed completely off the
• 25:42
  radar of law enforcement for over ten years.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: To understand that, we have to deeply examine the wall
• 25:49
  of silence that surrounds closed religious communities.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: It's a very thick wall, it really is.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: It's not that absolutely no one noticed. The files indicate
• 25:58
  that scattered complaints actually did reach the Cooper County Sheriff's
• 26:02
  office back in twenty twenty two.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Wait, really, back in twenty twenty two.
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but getting actionable, legally sound evidence was nearly impossible.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Because of the cultural barriers.
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: The homage have a profound structural preference for resolving issues internally.
• 26:17
  If there is a dispute or a transgression, you go
• 26:19
  to your bishop.
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: You do not go to the secular police.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Never. And the mechanism enforcing that silence is the theological
• 26:25
  terror of midem or shunning.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: Shunning is the ultimate threat.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: We hear that word shunning a lot in pop culture,
• 26:31
  and I think people assume it just means your neighbors
• 26:33
  ignore you at the grocery store, like the silent treatment, right,
• 26:36
  But it's much more severe than that, right.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, it is a total social and economic death sentence,
• 26:41
  that death sentence. Absolutely, if you go against the church leadership,
• 26:45
  for instance, by bringing secular police onto Amish Land to
• 26:49
  arrest a prominent leader, you risk midom.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: And if you are shunned.
• 26:55
  Speaker 2: If you are shunned, you lose your family. Your own
• 26:59
  spouse is off and forbidden from eating at the same table.
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: As you, wow your own spouse, You lose your.
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: Community, You lose your livelihood because no one will do
• 27:07
  business with you, and in their belief system, you potentially
• 27:11
  lose your eternal salvation.
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: So speaking out means losing literally everything everything.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: The threat of shunning is often perceived by the victims
• 27:19
  as a fate far worse than the physical abuse itself.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: It effectively gags them. And that explains the timeline, which
• 27:25
  is just astounding. You'd think an infant's death in March
• 27:29
  twenty twenty five would instantly shut the place down, you
• 27:31
  would hope. So you think a dead baby would be
• 27:33
  the catalyst that finally breaks the silence, But it wasn't.
• 27:37
  The retreat kept.
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: Operating for almost another year.
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: It took almost another full year. It wasn't until January
• 27:43
  twenty twenty six that a brave former teen resident finally
• 27:47
  managed to escape and come forward to law.
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: Enforcements, sparking the sweeping probe.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: Right yeah, that shows you how thick, how genuinely impenetrable,
• 27:56
  that wall of silence really is.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: It also highlights the immense patience tactical care the Cooper
• 28:01
  County Sheriff's Office needed to deploy. They couldn't just rush
• 28:04
  in exactly. This wasn't a standard investigation where you can
• 28:07
  just knock on doors and interview witnesses.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Right, they wouldn't talk.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: They had to painsakingly build trust with victims who are
• 28:14
  culturally programmed from birth to view law enforcement as the enemy.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: That takes so much time, it really does.
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: When that teenager finally came forward in January twenty twenty six,
• 28:24
  it provided the crucial thread they needed to pull to
• 28:27
  unravel the entire operation.
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: And once they started pulling, the dam didn't just leak,
• 28:32
  it completely broke.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: It all came crashing down.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Let's trace the momentum of this takedown for over ten years.
• 28:38
  It's a total black box. Then after that initial interview
• 28:42
  in January, investigators quietly build their case, very quietly. On
• 28:46
  March four, twenty twenty six, they execute the search warrant.
• 28:51
  That's when they find the fake crystals, the pacifiers in
• 28:54
  the Bible, the letters calling him Daddy, the mats of
• 28:56
  stockpiles of.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Pills, all the physical evidence.
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: The very next day, March twenty five, they move in
• 29:02
  and make the initial arrest.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: And the arrest itself is a catalyst. How do you mean, Well,
• 29:07
  once the predator is removed and the immediate thread of
• 29:09
  his physical presence is gone, the psychological hold begins to crack.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Oh, because they realize he's not untouchable exactly.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: More victims felt safe enough to come forward.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Right because on April twenty and twenty one, additional heavier
• 29:22
  charges drop, and then the culmination. On May two, twenty
• 29:27
  twenty six, a Cooper County grand jury hands down a
• 29:30
  massive ten count indictment.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Now that the wall of silence has been breached, the
• 29:34
  Swartz and Trouber community, the victims, and the American justice
• 29:38
  system are barreling toward a historic legal showdown.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Let's break down the sheer weight of that May two,
• 29:43
  twenty twenty six indictment. We're looking at two counts of
• 29:46
  trafficking for forced labor involving aggravating.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Factors specifically death, kidnapping, or sexual abuse.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: One count of first degree sadomy, one standard trafficking count,
• 29:57
  four counts of first degree kidnapping. It's a massive one
• 30:00
  count of first degree sexual abuse, and one count of
• 30:04
  first degree in voluntary manslaughter for the six month old.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Each of those trafficking and kidnapping counts carries severe penalties.
• 30:12
  When you tie trafficking to aggravating factors like death or
• 30:15
  sexual abuse, you are moving into the highest tiers of
• 30:18
  the penal code.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: So what is he looking at?
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: If convicted on the most serious charges. Schetler is facing
• 30:24
  life in prison.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Wow, life in prison.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Currently, he has pleaded not guilty to all charges. He
• 30:30
  is being held without bond, with an arraignment scheduled for
• 30:33
  May eleventh, twenty twenty six.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: There is a detail from his March thirty one court
• 30:37
  appearance that really stuck out to me reading through the
• 30:39
  transcripts which part while standing before the judge facing these
• 30:43
  horrific charges, including the death of a baby and the
• 30:46
  sexual abuse of teenagers, Schetler actually asked the judge for
• 30:50
  permission to have contact with his family.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: It's a jarring moment, it really is, but it highlights
• 30:55
  the deeply personal stakes involved. Even as this massive legal
• 31:00
  mechanism grinds forward, there are families, wives, children, and an
• 31:06
  entire religious community trying to grapple with the catastrophic fallout
• 31:10
  of this deception.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: Their whole world is shattered.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: They are waking up to the fact that their trusted
• 31:15
  healer was a predator.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean for the defense? How
• 31:19
  do you possibly defend this in front of a jury.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: It's going to be a tough battle.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: Looking at similar cases, they are likely going to try
• 31:26
  to balance religious freedom and First Amendment protections against the
• 31:29
  allegations of criminal coercion and medical malpractice.
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: That's the standard playbook.
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: But how do you argue in a court of law
• 31:36
  that chaining someone in an ice house or conducting fake
• 31:40
  exorcisms with plastic pacifiers while sexually assaulting a teenager falls
• 31:45
  under protected religious practice.
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: That is precisely the crux of the legal battle to come.
• 31:49
  The defense will undoubtedly try to attack witness credibility.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: They'll blame the victims exactly.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: They will point to the insular nature of the community,
• 31:57
  the long time frame, and perhaps argue that memory are flawed,
• 32:00
  or that treatments were consensual religious rituals consensual. Wow, but
• 32:05
  the kidnapping charges are particularly telling and legally innovative.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Here also because he didn't necessarily have them all locked
• 32:12
  in cages twenty four to seven.
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: Right, Kidnapping doesn't always mean throwing someone in the trunk
• 32:18
  of a car or chaining them to a radiator. Okay,
• 32:21
  legally isolating residents against their will through systemic fraud, intense
• 32:25
  psychological coercion, and chemical restraint via one hundred pills a
• 32:29
  day meets the legal threshold of kidnapping.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: Because they can't leave.
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: You are depriving them of their liberty.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: It's the architecture of control we talked about earlier. You
• 32:38
  don't need a locked door if the victim's mind is
• 32:40
  completely trapped.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and this case sits within a much broader, deeply
• 32:45
  troubling context Tauso, Amish and Mennonite settlements, and frankly, many
• 32:50
  closed religious communities worldwide are facing increasing external scrutiny over
• 32:55
  unreported sexual abuse, domestic violence, and massive power imbalances.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: It's not just an isolated incident, not at all.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Experts who study high control groups and religious cults look
• 33:06
  at Sam Schuttler and see all the classic patterns.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: The charismatic leader.
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: The charismatic leader exploiting vulnerability, ensuring total isolation from external
• 33:15
  support networks, enforcing absolute economic control, and using pseudo spiritual
• 33:21
  justifications for horrific physical abuse.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: And today the Mercy and Truth retreat stands totally empty.
• 33:28
  The investigative reports note that the barns, the palette shop,
• 33:32
  the sawmill, they're all silent, just abandoned, just a stark
• 33:37
  physical monument to weaponize trust.
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: For the families who sent their loved ones there seeking affordable,
• 33:42
  culturally compatible care. The betrayal runs so deep it is
• 33:46
  almost unfathomable.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: They thought they were helping them.
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: They trusted his self reclaimed expertise, They trusted his religious authority,
• 33:53
  and it cost them everything.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: We've covered a tremendous amount of ground today. We started
• 33:57
  with Sam Schuttler's carefully crafted charismatic.
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: Facade, the library speeches right.
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: Designed to build a bridge of credibility with the outside
• 34:05
  world while cementing his status as an untouchable holy man internally.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: And then the reality underneath.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: We peeled back that layer to reveal the brutal reality.
• 34:17
  The bizarre, theatrical fake exorcisms using plastic toys to manipulate
• 34:24
  the vulnerable.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: The chemical control, the chemical.
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: Strait jackets of seventy to one hundred unregulated pills a
• 34:29
  day that destroyed his victim's biology and will to resist.
• 34:34
  The ruthless economic exploitation of an unpaid, terrified labor force,
• 34:38
  and the tragic climax and the ultimate tragic medical arrogance
• 34:41
  that cost a six month old baby his life. When
• 34:44
  you look at this story, it's very easy to distance yourself.
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: People think that can never be me.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Right. It's easy to say, well, this happened in an
• 34:50
  ultra conservative, off the grid Swartzendruber armor sect in rural Missouri.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: That could never happen, But the mechanics are universal.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: Mechanics of how charismatic leaders isolate and exploit vulnerable people
• 35:00
  are completely universal. The use of ambient fear, the extraction
• 35:04
  of labor and resources, the demand for absolute, unquestioning loyalty,
• 35:08
  the gas lighting.
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: You see it everywhere.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: These tactics appear in corporate cults, in emotionally abusive relationships,
• 35:14
  and infringe online wellness communities all around us. It is
• 35:18
  a stark neon flashing lesson in the absolute necessity of
• 35:22
  critical thinking and the profound danger of environments that lack
• 35:26
  any external oversight.
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: And as we close, there is a broader lingering question
• 35:31
  that this case forces us to confront. These tight knit,
• 35:34
  closed communities build walls to protect themselves from the perceived
• 35:38
  moral decay of the outside world. They want to preserve
• 35:40
  their faith, their traditions, and their way of life, which
• 35:43
  is understandable, right, But if the very structures meant to
• 35:46
  protect a community, the unquestioning respect for leaders, the reliance
• 35:51
  on internal discipline, the deep fear of the outside world.
• 35:54
  If those structures become the walls that trap victims inside
• 35:57
  with a predator, yeah, at what point does broader society
• 36:01
  have a moral and legal obligation to tear those walls down,
• 36:04
  even at the cost of religious autonomy.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: It's a question that doesn't have an easy answer, but
• 36:09
  it's one we can no longer afford to ignore. Thank
• 36:13
  you for exploring this complex, heavy reality with us on
• 36:15
  the deep Dive. Keep questioning the things that seem unquestionable.