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  • At six twenty in the morning on a Tuesday in December two thousand eleven

    At six twenty in the morning on a Tuesday in December two thousand eleven
    2026/10/31
    At six twenty in the morning on a Tuesday in December two thousand eleven

    Imagine a lone red child's chair sitting upright on a desert trail with no footprints around it and a strange word painted on its back in an unknown language. That chair was the first crack in a wall sealed for years and it would lead investigators to ledger books buried in a creekbed and a spiral notebook tracking what each member most needed to believe. What did one man build with invented words and why did people give him their savings and their lives on the outside?

    In this episode, we follow Teresa Zimmerman, a Flagstaff teacher's aide who joined the Sorvic Language Collective and later walked away, and investigate Carl Williams, the man who invented a language called Sorvic and used it to create a closed community on the Maren Campus. We trace the group's formation, the financial funneling to Meridian Language Services, and the buried evidence that revealed a pattern across three prior operations.

    Person: Carl Williams
    Person: Teresa Zimmerman
    Location: Maren Campus, Graden County Nevada
    Organization: Sorvic Language Collective
    Event: Discovery of a red child's chair on Meritt Flats trail

    - Philip Carlson found a dry red child's chair alone on the Meritt Flats trail on October 9, 2019 with no footprints around it.
    - Teresa Zimmerman signed over power of attorney for her savings of eleven thousand dollars when Sorvic incorporated in 2015.
    - The Maren Campus occupied forty-two acres leased from Doug Fenner and housed eighteen founding members at its peak.
    - Meridian Language Services, registered to a Las Vegas PO box under Carl Williams, received thirty-eight thousand dollars of the nonprofit’s forty-three thousand dollar revenue in 2016-2017.
    - Investigators recovered a waterproof case containing ledger books and a spiral notebook that listed members' financial contributions alongside notes on their psychological vulnerabilities.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    27 分
  • Eleven laminated fishing licenses, fanned across a bunkhouse floor

    Eleven laminated fishing licenses, fanned across a bunkhouse floor
    2026/10/30
    Eleven laminated fishing licenses, fanned across a bunkhouse floor

    Imagine a cast-iron caldron still warm to the touch on an ostensibly abandoned property, its sealed lid hiding a mixture that a lab would later identify as a controlled sedative. That single, impossible object set off an investigation that exposed a pattern of relocation, identity erasure, and financial opacity inside a group calling itself the Meridian Players. What else did the caldron and the burned fragments in the barrel reveal about how the group operated?

    In this episode, we trace how Jeffrey Andrews assembled the Meridian Players as a purported immersive theater ensemble, how intake forms and role names replaced personal identities, and how evidence from a warm caldron to letters kept a decade earlier linked Andrews to long-running methods of control without revealing every detail of what he knew.

    Person: Jeffrey Andrews
    Organization: Meridian Players Ensemble, Inc.
    Location: Whitmore Road property, Fenn County Oregon
    Event: Discovery of heated caldron and burned casting records
    Period: 2018-2021

    - A Fenn County meter reader named Laura Simpson found a cast-iron caldron radiating heat on a Tuesday morning in September 2021.
    - State crime lab analysis found chloral hydrate in the caldron alongside lanolin and theatrical grease.
    - The nonprofit raised $214,000 in fiscal year 2019 while documenting under $30,000 in theatrical production costs.
    - Handwritten casting records recovered from a partially burned barrel listed member names with dosage notations in Andrews's handwriting.
    - Erin Harrison, listed in surviving records as "The Keeper," walked to a county road and flagged down a gravel truck to escape while Andrews was away.

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    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    27 分
  • He had run it every weekday since spring

    He had run it every weekday since spring
    2026/10/29
    He had run it every weekday since spring

    The storage unit smelled like cardboard and old coffee and contained forty-one green binders, each spine-labeled with three letters and a date range and every page countersigned by the same hand. Beverly Hall had gone looking for folding chairs and instead found a paper architecture that mapped five years of life inside a closed community. How did a misfiled propane invoice and a storage unit lead investigators from a small Oregon fellowship to a buried identity and a reopened missing-persons case?

    In this episode, we trace how Gary Moore’s life inside the Pallister Renewal Fellowship was documented, controlled, and in some moments fabricated by a leader who used a false name. We follow the discovery of the binders, the propane invoice that revealed Steven R. Corwell’s link to a Drewsey property, and the forensic threads that reclassified Irene Packard’s disappearance.

    Person: Gary Moore
    Person: Steven Christensen / Steven R. Corwell
    Location: Dunbar Tract, Pallister Oregon
    Event: Discovery of forty-one green binders in storage unit 34
    Period: 2006-2011

    - Beverly Hall opened storage unit 34 on August 14, 2011 looking for folding chairs and found forty-one green binders instead.
    - The binders documented member routines including a 5:15 a.m. bell, six and a half hours of permitted sleep, and eight-minute phone calls.
    - Gary Moore joined the Fellowship in September 2006 and escaped in June 2010 calling his mother from a payphone.
    - A propane invoice misfiled in August 2009 named Steven R. Corwell and led investigators to a Drewsey property purchased in 2001.
    - DNA from the Drewsey annex matched a sample from 2000 tied to missing person Irene Packard and her case was reclassified.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    26 分
  • She pressed her palm flat against the iron and held it there

    She pressed her palm flat against the iron and held it there
    2026/10/28
    She pressed her palm flat against the iron and held it there

    Imagine walking a trail and finding a fireproof box the size of a dictionary with a forced latch and, inside, a sealed plastic liner containing a layer of dried red rose petals pressed into a spiral notebook. Those petals came from flowers left at a grave two years earlier and survived thirty-seven days in a North Carolina July sealed without oxygen. Why would someone hide a man’s personal effects and the last physical trace of his wife in the woods?

    In this episode, we examine how Keith Novak used a forged grief to recruit recently bereaved people into the Fenwick Continuance Group and a four-acre farmhouse scheme. We follow Troy Gallagher’s path from caregiver to group member, the investigative reporting that unraveled Novak Restorative LLC, and the evidence that exposed a long con built on fabricated loss.

    Person: Troy Gallagher
    Person: Keith Novak
    Event: Discovery of sealed fireproof box
    Location: Curtis Sheridan Trail, Brackett State Forest North Carolina
    Period: 2008-2011

    - On July 9, 2011 Diane Purcell found a forced fire-resistant box about two hundred yards past the creek crossing on the Curtis Sheridan Trail.
    - Inside the box investigators found Troy Gallagher’s laminated ID, house keys, a spiral notebook, and a vacuum-sealed layer of red rose petals.
    - Troy had given approximately $22,000 to the group’s “continuance fund” and moved from his apartment to live at the Orchard Basin Road farmhouse.
    - Keith Novak used a forged death certificate and a false story of losing a wife named Ellen to present himself as a continuance facilitator.
    - A member named Paul Gentry heat-sealed Troy’s pressed rose petals and hid the box in the woods thirty-seven days before Troy left the farm.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    25 分
  • Inside, sitting on top of a stack of papers, was a sealed plastic liner

    Inside, sitting on top of a stack of papers, was a sealed plastic liner
    2026/10/27
    Inside, sitting on top of a stack of papers, was a sealed plastic liner

    Imagine finding a red binder wedged in the fork of a sycamore root above the Kessler River, its cover stamped THE ACCOUNTING. FINAL CYCLE. CLOSE JUNE 3 and its pages inexplicably dry sixteen days after that date. The ledger pointed to money moved, a failed prophecy, and a leader who had prepared an exit long before the ceremony he promised would change everything. Who built the system that turned spiritual language into financial extraction?

    In this episode, we follow Beverly Nelson into the Seventh Seal Assembly and trace Marvin Sharp’s construction of a spiritual and agricultural cooperative that culminated in a June 3 ceremony and the disappearance of $94,218. We examine how records, a reporter’s investigation, and a binder pulled from a river revealed methodical preparation and an orchestrated liquidation.

    Person: Marvin Sharp
    Person: Beverly Nelson
    Location: Tremaine orchard, Brackett County
    Event: June 3 ceremony / "final cycle"
    Amount: $94,218

    - Sharon Farrell found a red binder labeled THE ACCOUNTING wedged four inches above the waterline of the Kessler River on June 19 2011.
    - Nineteen people moved into the Tremaine orchard and surrendered money framed as a "release of material attachment."
    - Beverly Nelson transferred $412, her entire checking account balance, to the cooperative within one week of moving in.
    - Marvin Sharp moved $12,000 in April 2011 into a storage unit under another name two months before the June 3 ceremony.
    - After June 3 ninety four thousand two hundred and eighteen dollars moved through three transfers into an account registered solely in Sharp's name.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    25 分
  • At four fifteen in the morning on June nineteenth

    At four fifteen in the morning on June nineteenth
    2026/10/26
    At four fifteen in the morning on June nineteenth

    Imagine a county surveyor crouching by a concrete boundary marker and finding a fogged Kansas driver's license set into the wet cement like a message that could not be censored. The card bore the name Karen Jensen and it pointed back to a twelve-acre farm run as the Meridian Compact, where rules, confiscated IDs, and a controlled vocabulary kept people from leaving. What did one pressed license reveal about the system that held a family for years?

    In this episode, we trace how Dennis and Karen Jensen were drawn into Brian Stewart's Harwick Meridian Holdings scheme, how Karen lived inside the Compact for three years, and how a single act of pressing her license into concrete began the unraveling without immediately resolving who exposed Stewart's prior identity.

    Person: Karen Jensen
    Person: Brian Stewart (formerly Brian Stewart Stowers)
    Location: Opal County, Kansas
    Organization: Harwick Meridian Holdings / Meridian Compact
    Period: 2007-2011

    - Dennis Jensen wired $60,000 to Brian Stewart in June 2007 and had invested $120,000 by October 2007.
    - Harwick Meridian Holdings was formed in 2004 and purchased the twelve-acre farm in Opal County in 2006 for $304,000.
    - Karen hid her Kansas driver's license in her sock then pressed it face-down into freshly poured concrete on the farm's western border in summer 2009.
    - County surveyor Judith Fleming discovered the license in the concrete in May 2011 and photographed it before notifying the sheriff.
    - Brian Stewart was sentenced to fourteen years in September 2011 after investigators found an annotated Illinois civil complaint showing a repeated, decades-long scheme

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    26 分
  • At seven forty-five on the morning of April fourteenth

    At seven forty-five on the morning of April fourteenth
    2026/10/25
    At seven forty-five on the morning of April fourteenth

    Imagine a single warm meal tray left on a picnic table beside a dark lodge a gravel drive and a car caked in pollen - a scene that prompted a septic contractor to call nine-one-one and unraveled a decade of carefully constructed lies. That tray led investigators to a retreat where private journals were read aloud and a forged professional identity was the cornerstone of control. How did a woman with no doctorate convince grieving people they could not - or should not - leave?

    In this episode, we follow the story of Beverly Whitfield and Clearwater Restorative Haven, a nonprofit wellness retreat on Harrow Creek where residents arrived for grief support but found their phones narrowed their schedules contracted and their journals used against them. We trace the path from a 2009 seminar tactic to a 2019 welfare check that exposed fabricated credentials and financial exploitation without conventional physical violence.

    Person: Beverly Whitfield
    Location: Harrow Creek property, Tilden County Oregon
    Period: 2009-2019
    Event: Welfare check and entry on April 14, 2019
    Charges: Fraud unlawful financial exploitation practicing psychology without a license

    - At 7:45 a.m. on April 14, 2019 septic contractor Holly Henderson found a fresh meal tray on a picnic table outside the lodge and called 9-1-1.
    - Beverly claimed a doctorate and fifteen years of clinical practice though Vermont's university and Oregon licensing records showed no such credentials.
    - Susan Zeller arrived at Clearwater on September 2, 2018 and contributed $22,000 across three payments while her outside contacts were restricted.
    - A notarized power of attorney dated 2016 showed Stuart Mace signing authority over to Beverly while his wife Lori Mace was isolated on the property.
    - Beverly was convicted in 2020 sentenced to seven years and in 2024 admitted she fabricated credentials and deliberately used residents' journal contents to prevent them from leaving

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    24 分
  • A yellow lunchbox, zip-tied to a fence post in thirty-one-degree air

    A yellow lunchbox, zip-tied to a fence post in thirty-one-degree air
    2026/10/24
    A yellow lunchbox, zip-tied to a fence post in thirty-one-degree air

    Imagine finding a yellow lunchbox fastened to a fence post at dawn containing a fifteen-year-old denial letter and seven human teeth. That small, deliberate object sat at the gate of a rural property outside Enfield Crossing, Missouri and became the only record of an exit from a closed farming community called the Remnant. What did that lunchbox reveal about the man who called himself Jason Mason and the lives he asked thirty-two people to give over?

    In this episode, we trace how Leon Lewis, recruited at a VFW dinner, moved to Haller Creek and gradually discovered that the Morning Light Land Trust held $412,000 routed through shell entities and a denied church registration from 2004. We follow Leon’s midnight retrieval of his mother’s teeth and a denial letter and the dispersal and prosecution that followed without resolving every survivor’s experience.

    Person: Leon Lewis
    Organization: The Remnant / Morning Light Land Trust
    Person: James Norman Kettrick (aka Jason Mason)
    Location: Haller Creek, near Enfield Crossing, Missouri
    Date: March 14, 2019

    - Birdwatcher Kathleen Padgett found a yellow lunchbox zip-tied to a gate post at 7:00 a.m. on March 14, 2019.
    - The lunchbox contained a two-thousand-and-four denial letter from the Missouri Secretary of State and seven human teeth.
    - Thirty-two people had moved to the Haller Creek farm in February 2018 and followed a morning accountability routine at 5:15 a.m.
    - Investigators traced $412,000 routed through three shell entities administered from a UPS Store mailbox in Warrensburg.
    - James Norman Kettrick was arrested in summer 2019 and later cooperated revealing three document caches including one buried under the barn floor.

    To listen to this podcast ad-free and access premium episodes, try our subscription with a 14-day free trial at obomedia.com.

    © 2026 OBOMEDIA. All rights reserved.
    This episode and its content (audio, text, and related materials) are the exclusive property of OBOMEDIA and are protected by applicable copyright laws. Reproduction, distribution, editing, or commercial use, in whole or in part, without prior written permission from OBOMEDIA is prohibited. For permissions, licensing, and business inquiries: business@obomedia.com.
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    26 分