The Cult

I met my future husband while working as a typist for a small publication, The Thrifty Nickel, in Albuquerque, NM. He fancied himself a reporter, started his own college newspaper, along with his twin brother, and brought his handwritten articles in for me to type.

After I became his girlfriend, I remained his secretary, taking notes for him as he analyzed the nightly news. It seemed a natural connection. My father had been a newspaper man all of his life, beginning as a reporter at the San Antonio Light and retiring as the owner of a small town newspaper in Southwest Texas. I’d been working for newspapers since the age of 16, in Texas, New Mexico and Illinois. This would be my 4th publication job.

Although we had a few things like this in common, our deepest bond was based on the belief that we could somehow change the world, and we would sit at coffee shops until late hours and discuss politics with passion. We were both right-wingers at the time. I was an anti-all-things-government, more like a clueless anarchist, not that all anarchists are clueless. He was more traditionally conservative.

At some point, John informed me that his younger brother had become a follower of a person claiming to be the Messiah. The leader of this so called cult was Donald Hargrove, alias Cyrus, who had just recently jumped onto Billy Graham’s stage and tried to take the microphone from him.

Cyrus had a message for the world. John, my boyfriend, was a newspaper reporter and followed Cyrus, jumping up on Billy Graham’s stage as well, following behind Cyrus with his camera. They both went to jail. This was just a few weeks before we met.

So I went to this tiny little town of Magdalena with my new boyfriend/employer, for an interview with the curious man.

Magdalena is west of Albuquerque. A higher elevation desert like town, with views of pristine mountains in the distance. The two lane highway that leads from Socorro to Magdalena, features the “very large array” that was used in the movie, “Contact”. On the other side of the array, the highway curves and winds along beautiful forest with some large and stunning rock structures. It is a highway rarely traveled.

The curious man lived right next door to the sheriff, I was informed, as we stood at the front door of his humble home and waited for someone to answer our knock. Suddenly a large pit bull came running from inside of his doghouse that was out in their yard and he lunged at us, only to be stopped short by the large chain that hung off his massive neck. It continued to bark and snap at us, it’s teeth just inches from my legs.

<<<***>>>

When Cyrus opened the door, I jumped through the doorway as quickly as I could, to get away from the snapping teeth of the pit bull, only to fall two feet down into a muddy, wet living room whose floor had been removed, and grabbing onto the only thing available, a fat, greasy, old man, who was wearing nothing but a robe.

I grabbed his arms to keep my body pushed away from him as I fell, only to realize that I was holding onto the gun he was holding in his pocket. This visit would be full of surprises.

He escorted us through the kitchen and into his bedroom. Thankfully, the rest of the house still had flooring. John and I sat in two chairs that were in Cyrus’ bedroom while Cyrus sat on the edge of the bed. He used a lot of “Thee’s and Thou’s” in his sentences. My boyfriend acted impressed, engaged. I saw nothing of worth, heard nothing of value.

After a while his young daughter came in. She was a skinny little rail with long, stringy hair, and I thought she was a little boy at first. I guessed that she must be 10 or eleven as there was no bust line. She sat beside her father for a while and then he suddenly pulled her up onto his lap and they began to make out, with a great deal of passion.

I honestly don’t remember what happened next, except that I was standing up and the room was swaying and Cyrus was laughing at me and daring me to complain about it. “Does this bother you?” he said with great pride and arrogance. He explained to me, repeatedly, that he had brought her body into the world and he was taking her body back to him, that it was his right since he had created her. “I brought her body into the world, and I can take it back to me.” he said to me repeatedly, as I made my way out of the house.

My future husband followed me as I ran out of his house and we got in the car. Cyrus came running behind us, jumped in the car and asked us to drop him off down the street and my boyfriend agreed, to my shock.

There was an older woman walking down the road with a young girl, about age 8. Her name was Rachel, I later learned. The girl’s hair looked like spun gold, a halo of angelic ringlets adorning her head. Cyrus yelled at John to stop the car and he jumped out and joined the woman and the little girl. I would learn later that it was his ex-wife and eight year old daughter, Rachel, who also fell victim to the incestual abuse. When he was arrested, I was told that she was yelling at them that her Daddy was Jesus. I don’t know anything else about her fate because I am completely cut off from that family, oddly treated as if I were the criminal in this story.

Cyrus also raped his grandchildren/children and impregnated some, so I was told, and the court case lays out. I realize now that my ex must have been witness to all of that as well. Aft

No one told me about the trial, because I’m certain my ex never did want me to know about his indiscretion. I had information that would have been helpful during that trial. Cyrus’ only defense used at trial was that he believed she was not his real daughter, so somehow that made it alright.

For some reason it infuriates me that he got away with claiming that in court, when I know otherwise. Not that it matters, he did get 2 consecutive life sentences, and he died not long after he was imprisoned.

Cyrus called me on the phone later in the day, (red flag #2 — my ex gave him my phone number and address) and told me if I tried to do anything about it that he would have me taken care of. I asked him if he was threatening to kill me and he said, no, that he didn’t have to. He said that God protected him and God would see to it that I was silenced. Then he told me how two lawyers who’d brought a case against him had dropped dead of heart attacks.

Then little 12 year old Becky got on the phone and pleaded with me. “I know you think my Daddy is a bad man, but I promise you that he’s not. I know he’s scary, but he’s really not a bad man He’s a good man. He really is Jesus Christ.” ………..

I was speechless, sickened, but I couldn’t cause this little girl any extra pain, so I said very little to her in response. I could hear her agony and her fear and it made me feel like a monster. I tried to reassure her not to worry. I didn’t have the sense to tell the authorities because I didn’t even know there were authorities who would do anything about it.

Just like I hadn’t known there were laws to protect my little sister, Marilyn, or the rest of my siblings.

I told my parents and my bosses at the college and at NASA, repeatedly, about the cult, about Becky and her little sister, Rachel, who also fell victim and suffered even worse psychological damage. My mother was a medical examiner in Albuquerque at the time and my step-father was a New Mexico State Senator. In retrospect, after beating myself up for years for not knowing who to report to, I wonder why none of those who were older and wiser did not take the action to turn this information in to authorities.

I told everyone in my world of authority…. my parents, John’s parents, my bosses at the college library in Socorro at NMIMT, my bosses at NASA in Sunspot, NM, my divorce attorney who soon after became a judge. You would think someone in that group would have know to turn the information in to the proper authorities. None of them did. I did finally turn it in when I moved to Texas and learned from my Montessori school job that there were agencies who could rescue the girls.

So I turned it in to the Texas department of CPS and a most inexplicable thing happened. I spoke with someone and described everything that I knew. The person I spoke with seemed very concerned and said she would call me back.

Someone called me back a few days later and told me that they knew I wouldn’t believe it but they had spoken with authorities in the Magdalena area, and the authorities in Magdalena responded that they were aware of the situation but their hands were tied for some reason.

The person who spoke with me assured me they weren’t going to let it go and planned to continue to pursue and try and get some action taken. I honestly never gave it another thought after that. I was too overwhelmed with my own single parenting challenge, if that’s any excuse.

The agency never got back to me and the abuse went on for seven more years, until my ex found a new woman who turned them all in, who knew the ropes better than I, worked in Washington D.C., for a right wing publication.

My ex-husband’s 3rd wife made sure that he and his brother were granted immunity for their part, although both of them fathered a child by this victim of abuse.

I’ve always felt guilty that I didn’t do enough to help sooner. I was clueless and burdened with my own crippling life. My parents had sent my younger teenage sister to me year after to year, from town to town, throughout my early twenties, devastating my life, because she suffered from schizophrenia and I wasn’t equipped to help her, though I desperately tried.

An older sister took another year of my life away and knocked me off my academic path as I had to serve a sentence for a crime she committed and that I had nothing to do with. I’d spent five years in foster homes during my teens, attending 6 high schools. I wasn’t coming with the strongest foundation for the care-taking of anyone.

By the time my daughter was born my little sister had committed suicide and I was completely devastated and paralyzed with grief. I’m so sorry that Becky was just not on my radar too often back then. Now she is gone. A drug overdose, I heard. Just before she left this earthly existence, she made efforts to share her story with others. She wanted justice. I don’t know any of her story first hand beyond what I’ve shared.

Becky thought of my ex-husband as the love of her life and I never knew it until a few months before her untimely death. Here is what she posted on my daughter’s page:

About that Brother-In-Law …

I was room-mates for a while back then, in the days of the cult, with the girlfriend of John’s little brother, the cult member. Her name was Dori. She came home one day quite shaken and described a scene that chilled me to the bone.

Daniel took Dori, my room-mate, to Cyrus’ home and asked her to have sex with Cyrus so that he could have sex with 12 year old Becky. Dori refused and ran out the door and down a long dirt road … Magdalena was a small town with a lot of long, dirt roads. Daniel followed her in his car, shining his lights on her, while she ran on foot. She was a strong woman, thank God, and never allowed Cyrus to touch her, despite that she stayed with Daniel for several months after the episode.

An interesting girl. She was Jewish, with long, thick black hair and a regal profile. She began her business by standing on the side of that very lonesome highway and selling her hand made turquoise jewelry. She got very popular because people thought she was Native American. She frequented the Albuquerque flea markets and then began to fly to New York, learning the jewelry circuit. The next thing I heard is that she’d finally left him and moved there. I was glad to hear that she had escaped.

John himself confirmed to me that Cyrus shared his young daughter with strangers passing through.

This information I also shared with everyone I knew. I’ve never stopped talking about the cult and a curious thing I’ve noticed is that a lot of people don’t seem too concerned about it while others are quite shocked and almost disbelieving.

I never dreamed that my ex participated, in fact produced a child with her, and she fell in love with him. Then he apparently left her for another woman, never claiming his second child, his son. All of this we learned, just last year, when she posted a message on my daughter’s facebook page, telling her that DNA proved she had a brother, but he didn’t want to meet her or anyone from his father’s family.

The poor woman, just a couple of months before her death from overdose, also put a message on my former brother-in-law’s page, saying that he had been a monster to her. What happened after that is another wild story that requires a separate chapter. The ex brother-in-law turned his back on Becky and now lives as an ex-pat https://www.facebook.com/daniel.angelus.9

When people would suggest to me that my ex would have anything to do with the incest, I would shake my head in dismay. I was certain he would never be that kind of man, and I would tell them so. I was under the illusion that he was merely a foolish follower of a fraudulent messiah and I lived with that illusion for over 40 years before the truth came out. And I’m still trying to digest it.

So, I feel compelled to try and get this story out, once and for all.

In the end, my ex showed a bit of respect for me in some very strange ways. After all of the above, he asked me to come back to him, said he would leave his third wife in a heartbeat if I would take him back. I call her his 3rd wife, because in truth, after learning what I’ve learned, Becky was his 2nd wife.

It hurts me to think he would abandon Becky, knowing she was under the illusion that she’d been the love of his life, despite that he went off and married someone else. That means he used her. That means he was there at that house, all those years, if not participating, at least witnessing, the incest, with his own brother participating, as I raised our daughter alone. Somehow I convinced myself that John was witness to, or part of, any of that.

Whenever there was difficulty with our daughter, I would talk to him in my head, thinking that he would set her straight if he were here. Now I realize I didn’t fully know who he was, and suddenly feel as if I’d been tricked for the past forty years.

Such a strange situation to realize a betrayal that happened decades earlier. At this point I feel sorriest for Becky. She was the only real victim in this. She and Rachel and all of their children, that is.

Here is a link to the actual court documents:

https://law.justia.com/cases/new-mexico/supreme-court/1989/17559-0.html

He was working on a right wing publication in Washington D.C., his dream job at last, when interrupted by the cancer.

I, on the other hand, try to steer as far to the left as possible on this pathway through existence, after all that I have learned.

Update on the brother-in-law who raped young Becky for a decade, and never paid any consequences, never made amends, brushed her off when she finally complained. After the trial that exposed the bogus religion he helped to invent, he still has the nerve to advertise himself as a ‘visionary’.

If not for immunity, thanks to the efforts of my ex-husband’s 3rd ex-wife, who panders to his pathetic ego on facebook regularly, he would be spending life in prison. This is his current instagram.