Religious fanaticism is all too common in our world. Humans have, for millenniums, believed in a higher power- something better than them. Many psychologists have theorized that humans created religion in order to encourage cooperation between various groups of our early relatives- and that religion gave people a common goal, or rather, belief, for people to relate to. However, this theory has never, and will never be tested. The true bottom line of religion is simply, people believe in what they believe in- be it God or Heaven or Hell, be it Irregulation, or simply nothing at all- people are allowed to, believe in what they believe. Who is to say that one religion is correct and the other one isn’t? I certainly am not here to change beliefs.
What I am here to discuss, however, is when fanaticism with higher powers goes too far, and becomes harmful to all those involved. In this series, I will be documenting various cults that have ended in, will end in, or are continuing to cause tragedies. This week we will end our discussion on the cult known as the Ant Hill Kids, and how Thériault’s actions led to his own downfall. Just as a reminder, for the topics discussed from this point forward, this was one of the most violent cults in North America- so discretion is advised.
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Thériault had already had a wife, who was Francine Greneir. Greneir had divorced him due to his poor health and even poorer behavior, which was considered bizarre and disgusting by every standard. She left him before he moved to Eternal Mountain, and had taken their two sons, Roch Jr. and Francois, with her. She married Thériault when she was 17 and he was 21. As stated before, Thériault was incredibly controlling over the way she dressed- both forcing modesty and sexualization upon her. Her parents did not enjoy her marriage to Thériault, as they had apparently felt like he was a strange man who was a bona fide hypocrite. There are even reports from her parents that before he joined the TSDA, he had apparently asked them if he could start a “nudist colony” on their property. They said no, because they found what Thériault was proposing to be disgusting, and him a disgusting man.
The point is, Greneir was long gone by the time the following events would occur. A woman he had been having an affair with during his marriage (for literal years), named Gisèle, would become his new, legal, wife in January of 1978- a little over a year before the supposed apocalypse. She was described as one of his “true believers”
As stated in the previous article, Thériault was shaken. He had nearly lost control of his cult, and now he needed a way to solidify his position as “God’s Messiah”- and he needed new members in order to do that. But if he were to get members from the neighboring towns and cities, that opened up the opportunity that he might lose control again. That’s when he had an idea- what if the new members were born into the religion?
Again, this is a very powerful tactic that many cults use. When you raise a child within the cult, they don’t know anything else but the cult. They grow up believing that there is nothing better for them, that everybody else outside the cult are poor, doomed souls who will face damnation for their sinful ways- they believe that they are a part of the saved who will be spared from the wrath of whatever God they were raised to believe in. They won’t question it- because they don’t know how to question it. If something doesn’t make sense to them, then they are considered a heretic undeserving of their God’s glory- and they must find a way to atone for that. They’re raised to be die-hard believers, who won’t question whatever it is that they are being told to do.
Thériault knew this, and took advantage of it.
Thériault “married” 9 of the women who were in his cult, despite many of them already being legally married. He had told his followers that all the women he had slept with were now, exclusively, his wives. He impregnated them. When the children were born, there were many accounts of Thériault abusing them, even going as far to “beat the devil” out of many of the children. Furthermore, there were detailed descriptions of carnal abuse enacted upon the children as well.
Thériault was completely unraveling, by all accounts. He became more violent- beating the members with hammers and blunt objects if they were to “disobey” him in any way. For instance, if a member was to question a lesson Thériault had taught, they could be beaten with a hammer until their bones broke, or “suspended” from the ceiling. If after a day of selling baked goods in town and the member is to miss their monetary quota, then the punishment was incredibly severe and demeaning. Furthermore, Thériault’s obsession with the human anatomy proved to be useful to him- and he would perform “surgeries” upon the members if he felt it was necessary. These surgeries would leave members missing limbs, teeth, eyes, and whatever else could be removed with ease. The surgeries would also leave some “patients” completely brain dead or clinically dead. Furthermore, these surgeries contained no numbing or sedatives, so the members would be awake during the entire procedure.
During this time, a new member- an outsider- joined the cult. His name was Guy Veer, and after joining, he was told to care for young children- children who were not related to Thériault. Now, Veer had come to The Ant Hill Kids after seeing Thériault on the television, and had just gotten out of the hospital after being treated for depression. The Ant Hill Kids were wary of him- he was the first “new” member since 1977, and also displayed erratic behavior. The Ant Hill Kids refused to allow Veer to live in their main living quarters, and instead stuck him in a shed on the outskirts of the commune.
Veer would go on to make a deadly mistake the night of March 3, 1980. Thériault was celebrating with the other members of the cult, as he had managed to get his two first borns, Francois (aged 10) and Roch Jr. (aged 12) to join him in the commune (against Greineirs wishes). It was Thériault’s plan that the two children would move into the commune permanently.
Veer was already in a bad mood. He was an outsider in the cult who was now being forced to watch over other “outsiders”- who were simply children. He would watch the kids, and then go to bed during his watch. A child named Samuel, who was 2 years old, would begin crying, keeping Veer from sleeping. Veer snapped- he screamed at Samuel to “stop crying”, and picked him up during the process, getting in his face. Samuel would, of course, keep crying. Veer, completely enraged, would go on to beat Samuel nearly to death. It was so bad that one of Thériault’s wives, Gabrielle, would state that Samuel had difficulty urinating and a “floppy head” as a result.
The next morning, after Thériault heard what happened, he would perform a surgery upon Samuel. Again, these surgeries had no anesthesia or any kind of sedative. Thériault would go on to cut Samuels extremities in order for Samuel to be able to urinate. On one account, a member detailed Thériault injecting the boy’s stomach full of isopropyl alcohol, for seemingly no reason. Samuel would be dead by the next morning, due to blunt trauma and bleeding out. His Mother did not care after being informed, as she was so far gone into the cult’s ideology that she had reportedly just continued with her chores for the morning. The night of Samuel’s death, his body would be “cremated” (i,e, burnt to a crisp over a campfire and not ashes) under Thériault’s orders, and the remains would be buried by another member, Claude Oullette.
Thériault had flown into a rage. He blamed Veer for the death of Samuel- which wasn’t far from the truth- and wanted “justice” (conveniently ignoring his part in the boy’s murder). He hunted down Veer, and put him on trial.
This was unusual, by all standards. There are no other records of this having happened before during the cult’s existence, and this was also just completely bizarre. Thériault had named Samuels father as the judge, Gisèle as the prosecutor, and Claude Oullette as Veer’s lawyer. His remaining wives were to serve as the jury. Although this trial was in no way fair, Veer managed to get himself off the charge by reason of insanity, due to his medical history.
Thériault flew into another rage. He was unsatisfied with the result of the trial, and he decided to overrule the trial’s validity. He created a new jury of ten people, one of which was Roch Jr., and held a new vote. This time, the majority found Veer guilty and decided that castration would be an appropriate punishment. Veer, despite not having said anything during this trial, protested. He was, unsurprisingly, upset by the punishment and refused to go along with it.
But what was surprising was that Thériault, instead of forcing him to go along with it, convinced him to allow it to happen. Thériault made up a hierarchy for the cult, and had apparently told Veer that Veer was a “slave”, the lowest in the hierarchy, because he was not castrated, and if he agreed to it, then Veer would truly become a member of The Ant Hill Kids. Veer thought it over for a second, and then fully agreed to it.
Again, there was no sedative and this “surgery” was sloppy. Despite his proclaimed “medical knowledge”, Thériault absolutely botched this surgery. While I will not go into specifics, I will tell you about the surgery equipment. It involved a kitchen-table-turned-operating-table, a razor blade, an elastic rubber band, a pair of tweezers, and a magnifying glass. Veer lived, and did not say anything about the surgery to the members of The Ant Hill Kids.
Veer lived, but he did not move up in the theoretical hierarchy. Instead, things became way worse for him. Thériault absolutely detested Veer’s existence- he bullied, beat and attempted to kill him on a number of occasions. He even forced other members of The Ant Hill Kids to get involved, having several members stab Veer in the chest. Veer, for obvious reasons, did not like this. He would go on to escape the commune in November of 1980, go to a nearby town, and tell residents of a dead baby (conveniently leaving out the fact that he helped kill said baby, and instead blamed it on a horse) on the compound.
This caught the attention of the Canadian government, who sent the police to raid the compound. They discovered the charred remains of Samuel, and immediately arrested Thériault and Samuels biological parents, and took seven children from the compound and placed them in foster care. The government gave the parents of the seized children a choice: they can have their children back if they leave the commune, or they can surrender their children to the foster care system. All seven children were surrendered to the foster care system.
After examining the body of Samuel, his death was ruled not-accidental, due to the bruising and mutilation. Many members of the cult would be charged with either murder, obstruction of justice, or criminal negligence- although several, including Veer, would be released before the trial began if they agreed to never return to Eternal Mountain. Thériault would be denied bail.
A nine-month trial would occur, and it ended with about 6 cult members, including Thériault, being found guilty but punished lightly. Veer would be found guilty as well, but he was acquitted as he was deemed mentally incompetent, and would be placed in a mental hospital. Thériault would be given two years in prison and three years of probation, the most extensive of any of the cult members.
Any remaining members of the cult wanted to be close to Thériault while he was incarcerated. They managed to find apartments and housing close to the prison Thériault was placed in, and Eternal Mountain was abandoned. The police would go on to set fire to the cult’s former compound, completely erasing it from existence. In the public’s eyes, the cult no longer existed. It had imploded due to the murder of Samuel, and was no longer a threat.
Unfortunately it wasn’t. Thériault was simply in prison, not dead. Not yet. He still had his followers, and he was still smart. He knew what he needed to do to keep his cult alive- and all that meant was finding a new location. He realized that he had made the same mistake as before- he got sloppy. He made a single misstep by allowing Veer to stand trial instead of simply killing him. By not killing him, he had allowed for someone to escape and draw attention to the cult- and he would not make that same mistake again.
In February of 1984- roughly 5 years after the world was supposed to end, Thériault would be released. And when he was released, he crafted a new world for his cult- a new world that would soon come to a startling end.
