It was like I was kept underground for so long and then just spit out.

At twenty three, I call it when I entered.

The real world.

It was a whole other world than what it had been, and so many things had happened.

Lindsay was thirteen years old when she was sent away to live with the Maidens, and for a long time, all she wanted was to go home.

Now, at twenty three, she was home back at her family's house in Pennsylvania, but her family felt like strangers, especially her siblings who are so much older.

Now.

Everything felt strange.

People were teaching me about the Internet, and I remember learning about Craigslist because I needed a car.

I looked up the Backstreet Boys because when I had left in ninety eight they were like what I was listening to.

I loved them.

My parents had a TV and I remember watching Dancing with the Stars.

When September of old around, that was the first time I saw images for nine to eleven.

I didn't really know what happened in nine to eleven until then.

I remember I made a Facebook and my mom telling me that I shouldn't have it, and I deleted it because I got really scared again.

Scared because Lindsay knew that her mom still talked with leaders in River Road Fellowship.

Lindsay may have left the Maidens, but she was still supposed to follow Victor's rules.

Her parents still held Fellowship meetings and centered their lives around their profit.

They even had a picture of Victor displayed.

It was like Victor had followed her there.

She was pretty sure her parents still sent Victor money to funding his lifestyle and his frequent location changes, even though her parents were followers.

The longer Lindsay was away from Victor, the easier it was for her to pull away from the group.

I think I talked to Victor once.

He asked me if I was being like mindful of the hope and the return of Jesus Christ, and of course I said yes to all those things.

And after a while, like the letter stopped, no more phone calls.

I kind of went crazy after a while, Like not crazy, but I just was like full force, like I was ready to experience everything.

Victor had emphasized that Lindsay always had a choice, even if his influence warmed its way inside how she thought about everything.

Now, Lindsay would make a flurry of decisions some big, some small, and one of those choices would not only change her life, it would change the future of River Road Fellowship and everyone inside.

From her Cocoa Punch and iHeart podcasts, this is the Turning River Road, I America Lance and I'm ailn Lance Lesser Heart six the choice.

Lindsay needed a job, so her parents landlord founder, won in the cafeteria of a local gym, and she took other jobs as they came away, nanny server people too.

They would be like living under a rock.

You don't know these cultural references because I was so naive about everything and I was so gullible.

Still am a little to this day, but back then it was so bad.

I was a waitress at this Irish pub.

The restaurant manager at one point told me to go to the basement and look for the left hand did skillet pans that were down there, And I was down there for like thirty minutes searching for them.

I thought he was being serious and came back up, and obviously he wasn't.

I mean, that's like just a silly example.

I believed anything anybody told me, literally had no sense of why would they lie to me?

I just thought everyone would be telling the truth.

In River Road Fellowship.

If you lied, you got in trouble.

And Lindsay always trusted anything Victor told her completely.

Everything was so foreign, and everything I knew was life on a farm planting gardens and slaughtering chickens and raising lambs and sewing clothes.

And I mean nobody did that stuff where I now lived.

It was I would just tell people, Oh, you know, I just lived a very sheltered life and I was homeschooled.

Everything Lindsay was learning about the outside world felt so outlandish.

The things that actually were outlandish were impossible to identify.

Everything felt equally wild to her.

Pretty soon, Lindsay stopped going to the fellowships her parents held in their home.

She started spending more time meeting friends, going on dates, having fun.

I started playing Ultimate Frisbee.

I was in three Ultimate Frisbee leagues.

At one point, I know, I tell you, I went crazy.

I just was like, couldn't get enough of life.

I remember I went to my first bar it was probably that winter, and my mom did not want me to go.

She was like standing at the counter at the island telling me I shouldn't go, and my dad was like Heggy, like just let her go, like she's gonna be fine.

What do you think's going to happen?

I drank six tequila Sunrises in thirty minutes because I was just so happy to be there and they were going down really well, and I ended up throwing up everywhere.

It was so awful.

The girl I was with was really kind and I worked with her.

She took care of me.

I stayed at her house that night.

But basically all of twenty eleven, if anyone invited me to go out to the bars, like I was in and I still held down a job and I started nannying full time.

I don't know how I did it all, but any night of the week that somebody wanted to go out, I would be out partying.

I did a lot of reckless things I.

Because I was like so gullible.

I still remember the first time when I was at a bar and some guy looked at me and he told me you were the most beautiful girl in the room, like and I can't wait to show you all over Westchester and you like show you all these places.

And I genuinely believed him, like I thought he was being so serious and of course he wasn't.

He just wanted to sleep with me.

That happened a lot.

I ended up in some very terrible situations, and I was still in that mindset the only way to make men happy was to have sex with them.

I think it had been ingrained in me for so long, even with Victor when he said that he was going to take away sex from me for not being thin enough.

I just was a very willing participant because I thought that the way to get them to like me, to want to hang out with me was to sleep with them.

I'm surprised, like I never did.

I just could have ended up in a really bad you know, being drugged, or ended up with an STD here, ended up dead, you know, Like it's just a miracle that I didn't.

It's like you didn't have a sense of safety practices.

Yeah, not at all.

Some like crazy things that I did.

I went on this date and the next day, so I'm in the parking lot and like we said hello and gave each other hug, and I'm walking away and I'm like, I love you, Like I just.

Bored it now.

And I had no.

Idea like what love was.

I was just people probably thought it was crazy because I had no idea how to act, and he never talked to me again.

I don't blame him.

This other guy I met on a dating website and it was around Valentine's Day, and I asked for his address and I mailed him a hundred dollars bouquet of flowers to his house because I thought like I was being nice, because it was almost all I knew how to please people, which is ironic, because that's what I got reproved on the most was people pleasing.

Victor used to get mad when he thought Lindsay was trying to please other people, especially if he thought she was giving other men or boys attention.

But the no people pleasing role did not apply when it came to Victor.

Lindsay had become an expert at pleasing him and doing anything she could to avoid his anger.

Maybe that's where she got these over the top gestures of affection she used in her dating life, now the same sort of intense attention Victor loved.

As Lindsay interacted more with the outside world, she started to look at her past life from a new angle, and one day it all hid her.

It was about a year and a half after she'd left the Maidens.

She went to a house party with her cousin Kathy.

A bunch of Kathy's friends from high school and colleg were there.

They were talking about, you know, all those years together, growing up and singing in the choir, playing sports and traveling, and for some crazy reason, in that moment, and I still have a picture in that night and I look haggard.

It might have been taken after I was crying.

I don't know, but I remember thinking at some point during that night, oh my gosh, my childhood was stolen from me.

I don't have any of these kinds of memories.

And I remember Kathy and her friend Rosie.

We went into this room and we were sitting on the floor, and I started to tell them a little bit about what happened.

I don't even think I got into like details with them.

And Kathy looked at me and she's like, Lindsey, you were right.

You had been raped at thirteen years old.

Almost at first it was like, wait, what does that mean again?

What does rape even mean?

What does it look like?

Because I never thought that what Victor had done to me was rape.

In my mind, it was all God's love and he loved me and it was okay.

And I remember her and Rosie being like so serious and intense, and things were slowly hitting me that had never crossed my mind before.

I never thought of that word, never realized that that's what had happened to me.

I that moment I'll never forget with those two girls.

Lindsay's cousin Kathy said, if you're comfortable, you should tell my dad and stepmom.

So the next day they all sat down in the family room.

Lindsay started to talk.

She felt embarrassed, scared, she didn't know what would happen.

Her aunt and uncle listened to it all, and then they encouraged her to call the police, and Lindsay wanted to.

It was like the truth had broken open.

I think even in that moment, the heaviness of it and the severity of it didn't even quite hit me yet.

I remember talking to the cop in Pine County in my bedroom at my parents' house, and I just started telling them like kind of who I was and.

Kind of what happened.

So here's this Pine County Sheriff's Office document, basically like a report suspect Victor Arden Bernard on one three twenty twelve, Blank called the Pine County Sheriff's office and made a report of sexual abuse that occurred to her from the age of thirteen until the age of twenty two.

She reported that the perpetrator was Victor Bernard, who was in charge of the River Road Fellowship.

She advised me that if parents find out that she is making this report, they will contact Bernard and he will flee the country.

I remember thinking that I didn't know if they believed me or not, you know, and if they thought I was making it up.

Blank stated that she was a member of Maiden's group.

There were ten young females in the group and they lived together.

Blank reports the following she was sexual and physically abused from the age of thirteen to the age of twenty two by Victor Bernard while she was a member of his maidens group.

Bernard then told them in the time of King Solomon, he had many concubines and that it was okay for him, Bernard, to have sexual contact with them, the maidens, because he was a man of the cloth and they would remain virgins.

And I think he asked me if there was anyone else that could come forward.

There was only one person Lindsay could think of one person who would know exactly what she'd gone through, who had a story like hers.

It was almost like a no brainer.

The girl with red hair, a tough attitude, and a giant smile Jess short for Jessana.

She lived in Wisconsin now.

Lindsay sent her a Facebook message without hesitation, Jess said she was in She called the police too, just told them what had happened to her, and she gave them every document she could think of, all of her old papers, notes, diaries, She kept old calendars whereas a kid, she had drawn x's on the day's victor had raped her.

It's almost like she knew she might need a record of it someday.

They're all part of a file, a set of cardboard boxes full of these pieces of evidence.

This is a photocopy of something of a card that's handwritten, and then there's a note on the top.

It says, this is a card Victor sent me the morning after the first night I slept with him, Jasana.

It's a little card.

Yeah, that's just really upsetting to my beloved Jasana.

I thank God for you as I remember your tears and love and believing I have you in my heart, and I'm so glad to be waiting and watching and longing together for our beloved Lord Jesus Christ, kept by his love together with you.

Victor God.

That makes me sick.

I thank God for you as I remember your tears.

I mean, even with that, it's him acknowledging there were tears, you know.

Yeah, somehow actually seeing his handwriting, he does these little squiggles with his gees that make me feel like he cares about how his handwriting looks.

And then he signs it'd been kind of this cursive.

She kept that card for so long, and I wonder she just felt like it was a piece of evidence.

And she must have been very young men when he first raped her.

It sounds like she was a little girl, a little middle schooler when he wrote her this.

I mean, it's all reinforcing, stick with the program, stick with what I told you, I don't tell anyone.

Yeah, it does feel like love bombing.

I bet he strategically used love bombing at various times.

Yeah, and it basically sounds like NonStop grooming.

Yeah, continued of the whole cult.

After Lindsay and Jess talked to the police.

They thought something would happen.

This had to be a turning point.

Now that Lindsay's eyes had been opened, she wanted action.

She wanted Victor held accountable, but that didn't seem to happen.

She says, it was more like a smattering of phone calls spread over a year.

It just felt like whenever they did call, or maybe I called, it was just me saying the same thing over and over and over again.

Hey, we just want to ask you some more questions, maybe to get like clarification on stuff, any other details.

And I was checking in a lot, like any updates, do you guys need anything?

It felt like we were getting nowhere.

Lindsay thought Victor could be in Brazil.

She told police they'd been there together and gave a few specific locations.

After phone calls, letters, interviews, she felt like a broken record.

Why aren't we getting his picture out or like maybe getting the news involved.

I was determined to make my story heard, make our voices heard, and get Victor arrested.

And I was trying to get anyone who like in a position of power to help us.

I wrote letters to the president.

I wrote a letter to Katy Perry because she had grown up religiously.

I wrote a letter of the FBI.

This is specially Agent Jackie dor the FBI, Baltimore Division.

It is ten oh four am on Wednesday, March twenty seven, twenty thirteen.

This is Ky Pickens, US Postal Inspector, Washington Division.

And we're here with Lindsay Tornanbe.

They sent to people a lot to meet with me.

I know this is incredibly difficult for you.

Just take your time, okay, and then you know, we'll go back and ask you some questions afterwards.

Okay.

Lindsay started at the beginning.

She told them how her family joined the group, how Victor exposed himself to her in the camper, why she was so afraid of him, the years of abuse.

She drew them a map of the camp, with boxes and labels for all the locations.

Alamoth, the big chapel where the whole church would meet, the dining hall where they prepared meals, the barn where they made their own clothes, the lotch.

Okay, yeah, so this started when you were about thirteen, okay, So how long did it.

Go on until I left when I was twenty three?

Okay, that's a long time.

So I mean I guess like at times of like I blamed myself for not speaking out more, but like I was.

Only fifteen, I didn't like want to I didn't know what.

I didn't want to go to hell or something.

I didn't know, and I didn't have my parents or anybody supporting me, so I just stayed and losing.

No one at this table or anyone where else is going to tell you that you did anything wrong because you didn't.

Okay, I mean, you're a kid, and you're in an unusual situation where you're part of a religious experience, let's call it, where you're being psychologically manipulated to believe in what he wants you to believe in, because his other agenda is basically too you know, based on what you're saying less kids, and he's looking to the Bible to justify whatever he does.

And because your parents and all the other parents are so into this guy and believe everything he says, they don't think there's anything wrong with it, even though.

They know better.

You're thirteen, fourteen, fifteen when this happened.

It's not your fault.

Lindsay thought with the FBI involved, things might finally gain traction.

They said, because the abuse never crossed state lines, they couldn't do anything.

I think I was worried about the statute of limitations running out.

I was feeling really desperate that somehow nothing like all of this and nothing would happen.

It almost felt like nobody was believing me.

They almost seemed to have no interest in wanting to help or to find Victor.

I remember being so frustrated and just also in a lot of internal pain.

Not only was she disheartened that she wasn't getting justice for herself, she worried about the maiden she left behind.

They were still under Victor's control.

Scores of other people were still being abused by him more if he recruited new followers, found new girls.

She moved around a lot during this time, different states, different roommates.

She didn't have a lot of stuff to move.

Sometimes she couchsurfed, sometimes went back to her parents' place.

She changed her name for a while because it reminds her too much of Victor.

Even though Victor had changed her name to Lira, he still sometimes called her Lindsay or Lindsay Lira.

When he was upset with her, He associated the name Lindsay was sin He would tell her he hated Lindsay, that Lindsay needed to die.

I picked the name Katerinax.

I thought it was a really pretty Italian name, and then I went by Cat.

She thought about joining the military.

She started making friends who were in the military too.

She liked the camaraderie and something about having someone else be in control actually appealed to her.

She had been told what to do her whole life, so that felt safe familiar.

At the time.

I was making a lot of friends who were in the military, and a lot of wounded warriors amputees, and I felt like, in some way it was really easy for me to hang around them because they had been through so much loss.

Some of their outward.

Pain you could see, you know, like limbs being lost in the therapy they would have to go through, and you couldn't see physically any of my pain.

But I was hurting so much internally that I was gravitating towards hanging around them because they would constantly, you know, like tell each other jokes.

I know that they definitely had bad times, but they still carried that like brotherhood when they were together and lifting each other up.

I feel like I really needed that at that time.

Did they know what you were going through?

No, not many people did.

I shared with some, but not not everybody.

And then there were some friends.

I met some military friends who needed a roommate, so I moved in with them in Manassas, Virginia, and it was great.

You know the show New Girl Jess.

Yeah, they always said I reminded them of her because I was always like singing, singing my sentences and we didn't think we had our TV hooked up, like the first day or whatever, and they're like, that's okay, we have Kat here.

Chelantanas, it sounds like your old self was coming back a little bit like your real self.

Yeah, there were definitely periods.

I mean there was also times there where I was cutting my wrists, you know, so it.

It was some days were really, really hard.

She says.

She wasn't trying to kill herself, she was doing it to cope.

I felt like my internal pain was so there was so much.

I don't know, I just felt like I needed my body to feel physical pain.

I almost felt like I was numb.

I just need to feel something.

During those years, especially in the beginning and then even years following, I mean a small trigger could just set me off.

It could ruin my day, it could ruin my week.

And it could be a smell Victor used to wear Spikenard and then Frankenson's and mirror.

It could be seeing a mother and daughter walk down the street hand in hand.

It could be like a memory that came up.

And sometimes I didn't even know what the trigger was.

It was really high highs, really low lows.

No thanks to any drugs.

It was just my emotions trying to process all of this stuff.

She decided to tell her parents, tell them about it, all about what had really happened to her for years as a maiden in River Road.

There leader Victor had really done.

We were in the driveway.

And I just started telling them and I probably was just word vomiting.

This is what really happened, and this is what he did to me, and you know, I'm going to the cops and just helping.

My dad was like very sad.

He just said he would help wherever he could.

I remember my sister yelling at me that I was making this up and none of that happened.

And I remember walking through the garage into the kitchen where my mother was and I think I was saying something like, don't you believe me, Like, this is what really happened to me.

I was raped by him all those years, since I was thirteen.

She looked at me and she was like, a lot of bad things happen, but Victor is a man of God, and I'm going to follow him.

Here.

I am crying and bearing my soul to her that Victor had raped me repeatedly for all those years, and she was so cold hearted, so cold to me.

It was immediately just defending the person who had hurt me all those years, and I left no other word.

I don't think I said anything to her, just walked out the door.

At the time, I felt like nobody could answer these questions like why did my parents do that?

How could they leave me there and be raped for all those years.

Nobody came to rescue me.

And then on top of it, I was trying to get help and tell my story, and like nobody was believing me, and it just felt like justice would never happen.

When did the pattern of just you calling and them calling you actually turn.

It was January of twenty fourteen that I got an email from Tom Lyden.

So Far trying to tell her parents, or the police, or the FBI or the president or Katy Perry.

None of it seemed to work.

But then Lindsay heard from an investigative journalist, a reporter for the local TV.

News, and he said somehow he heard about our story and he wanted to know if we'd be willing to talk with him, you know, to get the media involved.

And jess and I, I think both of us immediately were like, yes, it's been two years of nothing, and that's when everything started changing.

The Turning is a production of Rococo Punch and iHeart Podcasts.

It's written and produced by Erica Lance and me.

Our story editor is Emily Foreman.

Mixing and sound designed by James Trout.

Grace Doe is our production assistant.

Fact checking by Andrea Lopez Cruzado.

Our executive producers are John Parratti and Jessica Albert at Rococo Punch and Katrina Norvell and Nikki e Tour at iHeart Podcasts.

You can follow us on Instagram at Rococo Punch, and you can reach out via email The Turning at Rococo punch dot com.

I'm Alan Lance Lesser.

Thanks for listening.

E