The Cult From Hell: Roch Theriault And The Ant Hill Kids

Cults are groups that revolve around a charismatic leader and promote a set of beliefs or practices that are typically unconventional or extreme. These groups often exhibit manipulative tactics to control and influence their members. Cult leaders can use psychological, emotional, and sometimes physical coercion to maintain their power. Members may become isolated from friends and family, as cults typically emphasize strict loyalty to the group. Cults often employ various techniques, such as mind control, indoctrination, and thought reform, to shape the beliefs and behaviors of their followers. The consequences of involvement in a cult can be profound, ranging from psychological harm to even physical danger in some cases. 

      I’m sure you will have heard of the famous cults such as the Manson family or heavens gate, but have you heard of Roch Theriault and the ant hill kids? Well the story that comes with this cult will show you the true depths of human depravity and the unbelievable control a person can have.

Hi everyone and welcome back to the dark history podcast where we explore the darkest parts of human history. hope everyone is well I’m Rob your host as always.Welcome to the new episode, I’ve been meaning to do an episode on a cult for a while so I’m excited to bring this story to you all. The story of Roch Theriault and the ant hill kids, is a dark tale,  As most cult stories  are but this one is a special kind of darkness, I would go as far as to say that it’s worse than drinking the Kool-aid, just for the personal nature of the crimes committed by the cult, well mostly Theriault but you get my drift.  Quick warning this does get very dark and the thing that went on in this cult are as bad as you can think. So without further ado please sit back and relax next to the fire for more dark history.

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Transcript

      Cults are groups that revolve around a charismatic leader and promote a set of beliefs or practices that are typically unconventional or extreme. These groups often exhibit manipulative tactics to control and influence their members. Cult leaders can use psychological, emotional, and sometimes physical coercion to maintain their power. Members may become isolated from friends and family, as cults typically emphasize strict loyalty to the group. Cults often employ various techniques, such as mind control, indoctrination, and thought reform, to shape the beliefs and behaviors of their followers. The consequences of involvement in a cult can be profound, ranging from psychological harm to even physical danger in some cases. 

      I’m sure you will have heard of the famous cults such as the Manson family or heavens gate, but have you heard of Roch Theriauld and the ant hill kids? Well the story that comes with this cult will show you the true depths of human depravity and the unbelievable control a person can have.

Hi everyone and welcome back to the dark history podcast where we explore the darkest parts of human history. hope everyone is well I’m Rob your host as always.Welcome to the new episode, I’ve been meaning to do an episode on a cult for a while so I’m excited to bring this story to you all. The story of Roch Theriauld and the ant hill kids, is a dark tale,  As most cult stories  are but this one is a special kind of darkness, I would go as far as to say that it’s worse than drinking the Kool-aid, just for the personal nature of the crimes committed by the cult, well mostly Theriauld but you get my drift.  Quick warning this does get very dark and the thing that went on in this cult are as bad as you can think. So without further ado please sit back and relax next to the fire for more dark history.

 Roch Thériault, was born on May 16, 1947, in Saguenay, Quebec, Canada to parent Hyacinthe and Pierrette Thériault who raised him in Thetford Mines. His early life was marked by a troubled upbringing and personal struggles. Growing up in a poor family, Thériault faced challenges from a young age. He had a difficult relationship with his parents and experienced a tumultuous childhood. According to Thériault, his father would be abusive towards him throughout his childhood. However, the elder Thériault would staunchly deny these claims.

Thériault's early life was characterized by a search for meaning and a desire for spiritual fulfillment. As a child Thériault was considered to be very intelligent, but dropped out of school in the seventh grade and began to teach himself the Old Testament of the Bible. Thériault believed that the end of the worldwas near, and would be brought on by the war between good and evil. Thériault converted from Catholicism to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and began practising the denomination's regular holistic beliefs which encouraged a healthy lifestyle free of unhealthy foods and tobacco. These experiences, combined with his charismatic personality, laid the groundwork for his future role as a cult leader.

        The early life of Roch Thériault provides insight into the personal experiences and circumstances that shaped him as a cult leader. It highlights the complexities of his upbringing, the search for spiritual meaning, and the eventual transformation into a manipulative figure who would go on to perpetrate numerous acts of abuse and violence.

     In the 1970s, Thériault established his own group, initially known as the “Ant Hill Kids,” which later became the “Order of the Solar Temple.” He presented himself as a prophet and claimed to have received messages from God. Thériault’s cult started with a small number of followers but eventually grew, attracting individuals who were seeking guidance, purpose, and a sense of belonging.

While Thériault was removed from the church, he had already managed to secure himself a number of followers. By the mid-1970s, Thériault had convinced himself that he was the people’s saviour. He strongly believed that he was put on earth by God to save the world from evil and the upcoming apocalypse. Thériault now had a new goal: to create a free-thinking commune where his accolades could listen to his teachings and live as equals. He forced his followers to abandon their homes and abandon their families after convincing them that the world – and their loved ones – were corrupt. Thériault formed the cult in 1977 in Sainte-Marie, Quebec with the goal to form a commune where people could freely listen to his motivational speeches, live in unity and equality, and be free of sin. In 1978, in preparation, Thériault moved his commune by hiking to a mountainside he called "Eternal Mountain" in Saint-Jogues, in the sparsely populated Gaspé Peninsula, where he claimed they could all be saved. There the four men, nine women and four children, build their town while he relaxed, comparing them to ants working in an ant hill, naming the group the Ant Hill Kids. Thériault and his followers lived accordingly to his personal representation of the bible and they accepted him as their God. By 1978, Thériault’s delusions had grown exponentially and he predicated that the world would end in February of 1979. Of course we all know the world in fact didn’t end in February 1979, so what did Theriault do? Well as people started questioning Thériault's wisdom, he defended himself by saying that time on Earth and in God's world were not parallel, and that therefore it was a miscalculation. Blaming the differences in the Israelite calendar and the Roman Catholic calendar. . Soon enough, life in the commune had become bizarre… Thériault had wanted to increase his followers and did so by “marrying” all of the females within the commune and impregnating them. He fathered 20 children by nine different women. by the 1980s there were nearly 40 members. Followers were made to wear identical tunics to represent equality and their devotion to the commune.

In 1984, the group relocated from Quebec to a new site near Burnt River, a hamlet in Central Ontarionow part of the city of Kawartha Lakes.

Following the cult's formation, Thériault began to move away from being a motivational leader as his drinking problem worsened, becoming increasingly totalitarian over the lives of his followers and irrational in his beliefs. Members were not allowed to speak to each other when he was not present, nor were they allowed to have sex with each other without his permission. Thériault used his charisma to cover for his increasingly abusive and erratic behaviour, and none of the other members questioned his judgement or openly blamed him for any physical, mental or emotional damage. Thériault began to inflict punishments on followers that he considered to be straying, by spying on them and claiming that God told him what they did. If a person wished to leave the commune, Thériault would hit them with either a belt or hammer, suspend them from the ceiling, pluck each of their body hairs individually, or even defecate on them. The Ant Hill Kids raised money for living by selling baked goods, and members who did not bring in enough money were also punished.

Thériault had a maniacal streak that triggered brutal punishments. In 1981, he sliced open the penis of 2-year-old Samuel Gilguere after the young boy had difficulty urinating. When Samuel wouldn’t stop crying after the so-called surgery, Thériault ordered one of his followers, Guy Veer, to beat the young boy who subsequently died from his injuries. In a bid to conceal the death, the commune then set the boy’s body on fire. As punishment, Thériault castrated Veer and ordered his followers to say that Veer had been trampled by a horse. Nevertheless, the truth came out and police raided the commune and discovered the charred body of Samuel. Thériault and eight others were arrested and charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm. They were all subsequently released.

       the children in the commune weren’t exempt from violence or sexual abuse. They would be stripped naked and whipped and if one allegedly misbehaved, Thériault would nail them to a tree and force the other children to throw rocks at them.

    Over time, Thériault's punishments became increasingly extreme and violent, including making members break their own legs with sledgehammers, sit on lit stoves, shoot each other in the shoulders, and eat dead mice and feces. A follower would sometimes be asked to cut off another follower's toes with wire cutters to prove loyalty.

   Thériault claimed to be a holy being, and started performing unnecessary amateur surgical operations on sick members to demonstrate his healing powers. These "surgeries" included injecting a 94% ethanol solution into stomachs, or performing circumcisions on the children and adults of the group. In 1987, social workers removed 17 of the children from the commune. However, Thériault faced no repercussions for his abusive acts.

   In 1989, when follower Solange Boilard complained of an upset stomach, Thériault performed another amateur surgery without anaesthesia. He laid her naked on a table, and punched her in the stomach, then forced a plastic tube into her rectum to perform a crude enema with molasses and olive oil. He cut open her abdomen with a knife and ripped out part of her intestines with his bare hands. Thériault made another member, Gabrielle Lavallée, stitch her up using needle and thread, and had the other women shove a tube down her throat and blow through it. Boilard died the next day from the damage inflicted by the procedures. Claiming to have the power of resurrection, Thériault bored a hole into Boilard's skull with a drill and then had other male members, along with himself, ejaculate into the cavity. When Boilard did not return to life, her corpse was buried a short distance from the Ant Hill Kids' commune.

        in November of 1988,  the very same, Gabrielle Lavallee, complained that she had a toothache. Thériault responded by ripping out a number of her teeth with pliers. Later that night, he chased her with a knife and cut the tendon of one of her hands. Then in July of 1989, Thériault impaled Lavallee’s hand on the kitchen table after she complained of stiffness in the hand. He then decided he needed to amputate Lavallee’s arm. He grabbed a meat cleaver and hacked her arm off. She lay in agony on the kitchen floor until the stump was stitched up the following morning. Lavallée underwent harsh treatment at the Ontario commune during the late 1980s, suffering welding torch burns to her genitals, a hypodermic needle breaking off in her back

 On the 16th of August, Lavallee managed to escape from the commune. She hitchhiked to a hospital north of Toronto and the disturbing truth of the commune was finally laid bare. Thériault pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated assault and one count of unlawfully causing bodily harm. He received 12 years in prison. The vast majority of the cult's followers abandoned Thériault after his arrest, but during his imprisonment he fathered another four children with remaining female members during conjugal visits. Lavallée's report allowed further investigation into Thériault's actions, exposing the wider abuses at the communes and Solange Boilard's murder. In 1993, Thériault pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the death of Solange Boilard, and was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 2000, Thériault was transferred to Dorchester Penitentiary, a medium-security prison in Dorchester, New Brunswick. In 2002, Thériault was rejected for parole as he was considered too high a risk to re-offend, and he never applied again. On February 26, 2011, at age 63, Thériault was found dead near his cell at Dorchester Penitentiary. His death is believed to be the result of an altercation with his cellmate, Matthew Gerrard MacDonald, a 60-year-old convicted murderer from Port au Port, Newfoundland and Labrador, who was charged with the killing. MacDonald pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison, having already been serving a life sentence for a previous murder charge. MacDonald had stabbed Thériault in the neck with a shiv, walked to the guards' station, handed them the weapon, and proclaimed "That piece of shit is down on the range. Here's the knife, I've sliced him up."

Thank you everyone for taking the time out of your day to listen to this very dark episode. Well the dark and twisted tale of the Roch Theriault and the ant hill kids. It always baffles me that people could be so easily willing to blindly follow people like Theriault, how do you become so manipulated that you’d cut off somebodies limbs to show loyalty i honestly can not wrap my brain around it. Why do most cults have a religious aspect to it? Why do these individuals believe they are sent by god? I really can’t comprehend it, I understand religion takes faith but not that much.

      As for Theriault well he was just a lunatic who believed his own hype. His demise was far to quick and easy in my opinion, he deserved to suffer just like those poor women and children did, he should have been castrated with out anaesthetic or have  his teeth ripped out.   

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