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Wondery. That's Cerebral.com

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slash Wondery for 50% off

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your first month. Hey

0:49

guys, Rachel and I are on a cross-country

0:51

train ride for the Chief Comedy Festival.

0:54

Rachel's one of the comics on the tour and I'm filming

0:56

a documentary on the endeavor. While

0:59

we are away and finishing up our investigation

1:02

on Father Joe, we wanted to give you

1:04

a taste of our other podcast, Seven

1:07

Deadly Sinners, with one of our favorite

1:09

episodes on the King and Queen of Cons,

1:12

Tony and Susan Alamo. This

1:15

is part one of four and if you'd like

1:17

to listen to the rest of the series, search

1:19

for episodes 22 through 25 on

1:22

Seven Deadly Sinners' feed,

1:23

available wherever you get your podcasts.

1:27

Thank you and we will be back next

1:29

week with your regularly scheduled

1:31

Deadly Diocese programming.

1:55

And

2:00

he kept stabbing and smiling.

2:02

410 wounds, scars upon scars.

2:07

You're listening to 7 Deadly

2:09

Sinner. Welcome

2:14

back to another episode of 7 Deadly

2:16

Sinner. Thank you guys so much for

2:19

listening and connecting with us on Instagram

2:21

at 7DeadlySinner podcast. I

2:24

just, I love you guys. I'm

2:26

filled with the holiday spirit and love for you

2:28

guys. All right, so today's

2:30

case, oof.

2:32

Susan and Tony Alamo.

2:35

We will be living with these scumbags

2:37

for several episodes. Admittedly,

2:40

they are equally as fascinating

2:43

as they are disgusting.

2:45

Their narcissism runs so deep,

2:48

I actually don't even know that we've covered a case

2:50

where two people

2:52

love themselves as much as

2:54

Tony and Susan Alamo love

2:57

Tony and Susan Alamo. Hello

3:00

there, we're Tony and Susan Alamo, the

3:03

Tony and Susan Alamo Christian Foundation.

3:06

Stay with us for the next half hour. We

3:08

have our choir, our orchestra, gospel

3:11

testimonies, gospel songs,

3:13

and a message from my sweet little angel wife

3:16

that I'm sure you won't want to miss. You

3:18

know, she's a little thing, but she

3:20

sure got a great big message.

3:22

Are you ready to meet God?

3:24

Fear God, keep His commandments. We're

3:27

living in a war of Armageddon. We're

3:29

living in the last fight

3:31

between God and Satan for the soul

3:33

of man. And God says that He loves

3:36

them who fear Him and keep His commandments.

3:38

I love them who fear

3:41

me and keep my commandments. Why

3:43

do you feel that you and Tony have been so

3:45

effective among the young people? I'll

3:47

tell you why. God caused marijuana

3:50

to grow and God created sex and then

3:52

sends your soul to hell. What does

3:54

God say? Who am I? What

3:57

am I? What is this really?

3:59

It's all about cold, hard, stark

4:02

reality. But the way I see

4:04

it, the way I know it, the

4:07

way I believe it, I believe that

4:09

this telecast will not

4:11

end, let us build

4:14

a monument. Jesus

4:16

Christ is coming back to earth again. Pray

4:19

for the Jewish people. Pray that they'll turn

4:21

back to the Messiah.

4:23

That montage of clips is a bit of

4:25

a moose-boosh, if you will,

4:27

of what you will hear of Susan and Tony

4:29

throughout the series on them.

4:31

And this series is Greed. Greed,

4:35

also known as avarice, cupidity

4:38

or covetousness. It

4:40

is like lust, which Tony

4:42

Alamo would also take to

4:44

the most extreme criminal level. It's

4:47

a sin of desire.

4:48

Greed is a sin of hoarding of materials

4:51

or objects by means of theft

4:53

and robbery, by violence, trickery,

4:55

or manipulation, that

4:58

Tony and Susan are masters

5:00

of. In the church

5:02

definition of Greed, it can include

5:04

simony, where one attempts to

5:07

purchase or sell sacraments, including

5:09

holy orders, and therefore positions

5:12

of authority in the church hierarchy.

5:15

And the Alamos pose

5:17

as false prophets and greedily

5:19

grubbed millions from their followers,

5:22

so they fit that perfectly. But

5:24

their sins wouldn't just stop at the pursuit of

5:26

money. Tony Alamo Foundation

5:29

would descend into the darkest depths

5:32

of sin.

5:33

And children were often at the center

5:36

of their greedy pursuits, as their greed

5:38

extended into child labor.

5:41

Tony needed their little hands to bedazzle

5:44

his airbrushed denim jackets that would

5:46

become so wildly popular that

5:48

celebrities like Michael Jackson wore them. We

5:51

will cover the meteoric success

5:53

of the jackets in a more detailed way in

5:55

a future episode, and as always, today, we need

5:57

to start with the basics.

5:59

are

6:00

Susan and Tony Alamo? How did

6:03

events lead them to their future griffs?

6:06

And

6:06

what happened on that faithful day they

6:09

met and fell in love, completely

6:12

built on lies?

6:14

Gosh, who to start with first? Which

6:17

grifter of God should we learn the backstory

6:20

on first? Well, I think

6:22

we'll go with Edith.

6:24

Yep, threw that in for a tailspin for you because

6:27

Edith is Susan Alamo. Born

6:29

Edith Opal Horn on

6:32

April 25th, 1925.

6:35

She had one older sister and

6:37

her father died seven months before

6:40

she was born. So sadly he

6:42

helped conceive Edith but would never

6:44

actually meet her.

6:46

She was born in the small town of Dyer,

6:48

Arkansas which she would later

6:51

take over and terrorize.

6:53

Dyer had about 500 people in it in 1925 and

6:57

now boasts a population of about 900. But

7:01

Edith, later Susan Alamo, so

7:03

from here on out we're just going to call her Susan. She

7:06

felt she was destined for greatness,

7:08

for stardom and she was gonna snag

7:10

it.

7:11

With a slight stop along the way

7:13

of getting pregnant at 12 and

7:16

giving the child up for adoption.

7:18

Hey, probably the right move

7:20

and I'm sure your daughter that you didn't

7:22

give up will later agree.

7:25

In 1938 at 13, she got married, had the son that

7:30

they gave up for adoption, like I mentioned. And

7:32

this same year she ditched her small

7:34

town life and small town guy and

7:37

headed for the West Coast. At 13,

7:41

normally I'd be like, girl, that entertainment

7:43

industry career is going to work out for you when you

7:46

started that young. But that

7:48

would not be the path of Susan Alamo.

7:50

She kicked around Hollywood for years, well

7:53

into her late 30s trying to make it, but

7:55

found that she was better at the art

7:58

of the con.

8:00

And she got the first taste

8:02

of this art when she worked as

8:04

a tea girl.

8:06

Basically a tea girl would sit

8:08

at a bar. She was hired by the

8:10

restaurant or bar to encourage the men next

8:12

to her to order a drink. And

8:15

then drink after drink, he would order for him

8:17

and for her, but the bartender

8:20

would serve her iced tea instead.

8:22

And at the end of the night, she'd get a cut

8:25

of the high price drinks the man ordered for

8:27

Susan without costing the bar the

8:29

price of liquor.

8:31

Susan would later just drink all her

8:33

drinks at home and become abusive

8:35

towards her daughter. So

8:38

as she tasted the tea, she tasted

8:40

the life of easy money, but

8:43

her and her daughter were still flat broke.

8:46

Her daughter, who came from in

8:48

the 1940s when she linked up with a mobster

8:50

type guy, her daughter

8:52

would later describe that her mom was attracted to flashy

8:55

guys that looked like they had money and power.

8:58

And so

8:58

Solomon Samuel Lipowitz, who

9:01

she had her daughter, Chris Thantheon,

9:04

it's very hard to say, like the

9:06

Pantheon, but it's Chris-Santheon,

9:09

but went by Chris in 1949. And

9:13

then her and Solomon were married.

9:16

Her daughter, Chris, also said that

9:18

her mom could turn ahead. She wasn't

9:20

necessarily traditionally pretty. She

9:23

didn't have that like little button

9:25

nose face of Judy Garland of

9:27

the 1940s fame, but apparently

9:29

in person, she was oddly striking.

9:32

I mean, I can kind of see it. She has this bleached

9:34

peroxide blonde hair that at

9:37

least in later years was perfectly coiffed

9:39

and she dressed well and had olive

9:41

skin that was contrasting to

9:44

her white hair. So she

9:46

was no great beauty, but she apparently

9:48

commanded a room.

9:50

Well, that marriage didn't last forever though. And

9:52

in 1965, Susan and Solomon

9:54

got divorced.

9:56

So Susan needed another grift to survive.

9:59

And this is when she started. started using her daughter

10:01

to work churches. What

10:03

they would do is Susan would dress

10:05

little Chris up all adorably and

10:08

then she herself would wear her finest clothes,

10:11

which kind of doesn't make sense for what happens

10:13

next. If you're going to beg for money,

10:15

but then, well, then again, Kenneth

10:18

Copeland exists and brags about being a billionaire

10:20

and then turns around and asks his financially

10:23

struggling congregation for money. I

10:25

just ate my own words, fine. Have I learned nothing

10:28

from doing this podcast?

10:29

So

10:30

all dressed to the nines, they would attend

10:32

a service. And when the pastor

10:35

asked the congregants if they had any testimony

10:38

to what Jesus had shown in their lives,

10:41

Susan would hit them with her two-part

10:43

scam. First, she would tell

10:45

her own story of being down on her luck,

10:48

abusing drugs and booze,

10:50

all true, but then would say she

10:53

was clean and saved after she accepted

10:55

the Lord into her heart.

10:57

Then Chris, who had a beautiful

10:59

voice, would sing a gospel song.

11:02

And then after, Susan would ask

11:04

for money to fund their new traveling

11:07

ministry in life.

11:08

This whole song and dance was a bold face

11:11

lie. And Susan spent most

11:13

of the money they stole on cigarettes

11:15

and booze. She wasn't interested

11:18

in saving people and she'd never

11:20

saved herself, but her scam

11:22

was working. She got them hook,

11:24

line and sinker.

11:26

She forced her young daughter into

11:28

the con just to put a meal

11:30

on the table. She'd say to Chris, we're

11:33

doing a church tonight.

11:34

Mama needs some Virginia Slims and spiced

11:36

rum. Okay, I don't know

11:39

if that's exactly what she said, but

11:41

that's what I like to picture it like. And

11:43

they did this almost every day of the

11:45

week. But that wasn't enough to give

11:48

Susan the life she felt she deserved. She

11:50

was on the right track, but needed to

11:52

expand. So the duo

11:54

began street preaching and even showing

11:57

up at a few tent revivals to

11:59

share her false.

11:59

testimony, even making

12:02

a bit of a name for herself.

12:04

While she was preaching her salvation

12:06

by day, by night, and behind

12:08

closed doors, she was still a bitter

12:11

and frankly drunk mom

12:13

most of the time. And in her daughter's words,

12:16

quote,

12:17

my mother knew how to beat the hell

12:19

out of you. Chris is quoted in the Ministry

12:22

of Evil documentary by the Sundance channel,

12:24

brilliant by the way, as saying this.

12:27

You know, my mother knew how to beat the

12:29

hell out of you. Seriously,

12:32

when I was a kid, I would come home from school

12:36

and she'd be drinking

12:39

earlier in the day, running an

12:41

iron over something. She always had

12:44

long, bright red nails. And

12:47

she'd have a beer and a cigarette

12:49

and I'd come in the door and I'd say, hi, mom. And

12:51

she'd go, hi, mama. Don't

12:57

you

12:57

know, God shows me everything

12:59

you do. She

13:03

said, why do you make me do this

13:05

to you?

13:08

That's where she learned to treat those kids

13:10

like that. The kids

13:13

Chris is referring to are the kids that the

13:15

Alamos would later be in their

13:17

cult. Susan

13:19

knew how to con with the best

13:21

of them, but she needed a front

13:23

man. It was the 1960s and then the

13:25

70s, 80s. And

13:28

the evangelical movement was still largely

13:31

run by men.

13:33

And she would find her

13:35

conning cohort in the phoniest

13:38

of places,

13:40

a bar off of Hollywood Boulevard.

13:43

It was 1964 and

13:45

Susan being the picture perfect

13:47

mother that she was, was sitting at

13:50

a bar in Hollywood with her 13 year old daughter

13:53

smoking and drinking. Susan

13:55

herself was 38 and when 30 year

13:57

old Tony walked in. Then

14:00

both of their lives would change forever.

14:04

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slash sinners.

16:05

Now before I tell you the grift

16:07

they cooked up and how the two master

16:09

manipulators would come together, let's get

16:11

to know Tony's backstory as well.

16:15

Tony Alamo had been spinning

16:17

yarn since he was young. Creating

16:20

such fantastical stories, it

16:22

was hard to distinguish the blurred lines

16:25

between fact and fiction.

16:27

Truth be told, Tony Alamo

16:29

wasn't even his given name, or

16:32

even his second or third alias.

16:34

He was born Bernie Lazar

16:37

Hoffman on September 20, 1934, to Jewish parents in Joplin,

16:39

Missouri, the

16:43

home of depression-era gangsters,

16:45

including for a short time, the infamous

16:48

Bonnie and Clyde.

16:50

Perhaps stories of the crime

16:52

duo were to blame for

16:54

turning the cogs in Alamo's young brain

16:57

and steering him toward a life

16:59

of lies and deceit,

17:01

but we'll never know for sure. Not

17:04

much is known about Alamo's childhood, and

17:06

what is known can't be trusted

17:09

as the God's honest truth because, well,

17:11

Alamo was the king of

17:14

conniving.

17:15

He claimed his father, a Jewish

17:17

immigrant from Romania, was a dance

17:19

instructor for a very famous

17:22

Italian silent film actor at the time, Rudolf

17:25

Valentino.

17:27

Not much was known about his mother, however, we

17:29

do know for certain that Alamo had two brothers,

17:32

Richard and Daniel. Daniel became

17:34

a well-known successful radio DJ

17:36

for decades. The family moved

17:39

to Montana when Alamo was

17:41

a child and he briefly was employed

17:43

as a delivery boy for Helena's

17:45

independent record newspaper.

17:47

One of the few truths that can actually

17:50

be proven.

17:51

In the early 1960s, then-Bernie

17:53

Hoffman moved to Los Angeles claiming

17:56

he was a music promoter.

17:58

Okay, you're probably going to think that's a lie.

17:59

going to need to make a flow chart to keep

18:02

up with the various names

18:04

Tony would go by over the years. So

18:06

he briefly called himself Mark Hoffman

18:09

before landing on the name Marcus Abad

18:12

in And that

18:14

was when he married Helen Hagen and

18:16

in 1964 the couple had a son,

18:19

Mark Anthony Hoffman.

18:21

Now, known as Marcus Abad, he

18:24

didn't want to settle for being a family man.

18:27

He had bigger visions of grandeur for

18:29

his mediocre life set in his

18:31

sights. He achieved a

18:34

modicum of success, and I use that term

18:36

very lightly in the music industry. And

18:38

Marcus Abad was responsible

18:41

for this banger hit.

18:45

Little Yankee

18:47

girl over there, little

18:50

Yankee girl.

18:56

Ew, ew, ew. The way

18:58

he says girl. Spoiler

19:01

alert, this dude eventually gets convicted

19:04

of child sexual abuse. So the fact that

19:06

he sang this song dripping

19:08

with a lurky sexual slur

19:11

that girl makes

19:12

me want to take a shower and never

19:14

hear his voice again. But then he

19:17

gets worse in the song. Little

19:20

Yankee girl over

19:23

there, little Yankee girl.

19:26

Would you care if I should kiss

19:28

you or hold you

19:30

tonight? Little

19:33

Yankee girl, you're

19:36

soft as a dove. Yankee

19:39

girls were made to love.

19:43

Very creepy, Tony. Additionally,

19:46

you're not from so I think he pretends

19:48

he's like from like an English

19:50

man coming in to find a Yankee girl.

19:53

You're

19:54

you're you were born in Missouri.

19:57

Additionally, your family's

19:59

Romanian. Let it go dude and also

20:01

Tony choose the genre of music.

20:04

I mean this tasty little musical snack

20:06

had it all. Hawaiian luau

20:09

vibes and a sad attempt at a buddy

20:11

Holly jingle that doesn't lend

20:13

itself at all to your voice. Frankly,

20:17

you were better at least pretending

20:19

to fake George Jones on

20:21

the B side of this album with this

20:23

poor man's attempt at country blues.

20:29

Big old man down in

20:31

the hole called us gonna

20:34

hurt your soul. Swing that

20:36

pick, rip out the land. Nobody

20:40

crashed for the big old man.

20:42

God, the staccato in his voice is so

20:45

soothing. And if you can't hear

20:47

that talent then you are basically

20:49

slapping God in the face.

20:52

Remember people, the more syllables

20:55

you can put into the word God, the closer

20:57

you are to heaven. It's

21:00

basically the theory of relativity. I

21:02

mean God's salvation is clearly

21:05

in the extra vowels you

21:07

put into God's name.

21:09

It's science similar to E equals

21:12

MC squared. I also love

21:14

the Greek sounding man in the background basically saying up

21:17

on the down B or they're going up

21:19

whatever. But how did people

21:22

not get slapped in the face with his

21:24

musical prowess? How did the

21:26

music industry not follow his feet? Where

21:29

are the hordes of screaming women and

21:31

the sold out arena shows?

21:33

This is a great American tragedy

21:36

that this man did not get the

21:38

recognition he deserved.

21:41

But in Tony's spit on it, he

21:43

gave it all up for G.O.D.

21:46

himself. But he didn't

21:48

just claim to turn his back on

21:51

his lucrative music career. Oh no, the

21:53

man behind the music was apparently

21:55

the best at everything he

21:57

did.

21:59

wouldn't just stop at music though. Apparently,

22:03

he was a great basketball player. He

22:05

was a weightlifting prodigy, claiming

22:09

he could have easily won Mr. Universe but

22:11

didn't want to parade around the tiny shorts.

22:14

And he was even the

22:16

best at eating.

22:18

Yes, you heard me right.

22:20

Tony, a llamo is so good at eating,

22:23

you'll be transfixed and want

22:26

to eat too. Listen

22:28

to this clip. Because

22:30

they got so hyped under my promotion. Because

22:35

I pumped my ideas

22:37

into their heads to the point to where they

22:40

wanted it. When

22:42

I eat food, people want to eat the same kind

22:44

of food I eat because I make it look delicious.

22:48

Isn't that a fact? Yes.

22:51

Listen, Bernie, Marcus,

22:54

Mark, Tony.

22:55

Eating is my passion. If

22:58

you were still alive, I'd challenge

23:00

you to an eat-off. And by the

23:02

way, Tony, no one wants to see

23:04

your mechanical pencil lead-sized lips

23:07

consume anything.

23:09

Marcus Abad was a great pretender.

23:12

And maybe he was really disillusioned

23:15

to believing the words that came out of his mouth.

23:18

He thought he would make it big in

23:20

the music industry, but he didn't. Eventually,

23:23

he claimed he went to own

23:25

a health club before going back to

23:27

the music industry. Would you believe

23:30

he was asked to manage the Beatles, the

23:33

Doors, and the Rolling Stones?

23:36

Yeah, me either.

23:38

This man of many aliases

23:40

made such an effort in later

23:42

years to obliterate his past.

23:45

It's hard to validate many, most

23:48

of his claims.

23:49

The bottom line is he

23:51

was a nobody.

23:53

He wasn't making it as a singer

23:55

or a promoter or a health club

23:58

owner or a band manager.

24:01

But he sure had a way of lying

24:03

about it. A true story

24:06

spinner. So what happened

24:09

on the fateful day in that Hollywood bar?

24:11

It is perhaps best described by

24:14

Susan's daughter, Chris, in

24:16

an interview she does decades later

24:18

in 2008.

24:20

Chris was smart,

24:21

much smarter than her mom, at least about men.

24:24

Chris could smell Tony's bullshit,

24:27

emanating over the smell of the greasy

24:29

burgers and fries coming out of the restaurant's

24:31

kitchen.

24:32

And she knew that Tony was

24:35

just the type of man her mom was

24:37

looking for. Chris

24:39

was already used to her mom peddling her musical

24:42

talent and then taking any money she received

24:44

from background vocal gigs.

24:47

Susan would then disappear for days, dating

24:49

a steady stream of men, using

24:52

her daughter's money to fund it.

24:54

But that all changed when Tony Alamo,

24:57

Marcus Abad, whatever you get it, walked

24:59

into the bar. Chris said in that 2008

25:01

interview, quote,

25:04

I knew who Tony Alamo was. I

25:06

had seen him around the Boulevard. He

25:09

was supposed to be this big, great promoter

25:11

who had promoted the Beatles, but

25:13

I knew he was a bald-faced liar.

25:15

I knew that he was living with a girl

25:17

who was pregnant with his child.

25:20

He wasn't living with her, he was living

25:22

off of her. So I see this

25:25

creep coming in with a producer I've worked with

25:27

and he's coming right toward the table

25:29

and my mother's sitting there. I'm thinking to myself,

25:32

quote, oh crap, not this clown.

25:35

She usually picked out men who had a

25:37

little style and a lot of money. So

25:39

he sits down at the table and he's bullshitting

25:42

until his face is about to fall off. Quote,

25:45

I promoted the Beatles and I promoted this guy

25:47

and that guy and Sonny and Cher. Is

25:49

he kidding with this? And my

25:51

mother's doing the, quote, well, I'm

25:53

an actress, been around the studio for years

25:56

and my daughter is a singer and he's

25:58

like, I just heard her tape, she's famous.

25:59

I can make her a big

26:02

star. And I'm watching

26:04

them and it's like a tennis match

26:07

of horse crap. They

26:09

both think the others got money. He

26:12

gets up to go to the bathroom and I turned to my mother

26:14

and I said, quote, listen to me. This

26:16

guy is an absolute bum.

26:19

He's living with that little pregnant girl.

26:21

And then

26:22

she puts her finger in my face, which

26:24

she did often and said, you mind

26:27

your fucking business. And he

26:29

gets back. You wait a few minutes

26:31

and politely excuse yourself from the table

26:34

and don't come home tonight. She

26:37

told her 13 year old daughter to not

26:40

come home in what wanted to the streets alone. Okay.

26:44

Back to Chris's recounting of the events. So

26:47

he comes back, sits down. She

26:49

looks at him and says, Tony,

26:52

I've got to ask you a question. Do

26:54

you know that Jesus Christ

26:57

is coming back to earth again?

27:00

And he looks deep in her eyes and says,

27:02

why yes, Susan, I

27:05

do know, but how did

27:07

you know? And she says,

27:10

well, let's go up to my apartment

27:12

and talk about it.

27:14

And this is where the Susan and Tony

27:17

Alamo Foundation began.

27:19

Chris knew this wouldn't be the last time she would

27:21

see Tony Alamo, but she had

27:23

no way of knowing that she would fall

27:26

victim to his devious sexual

27:28

urges.

27:29

But more on that in a bit. As

27:32

they're leaving the bar, Susan and Tony dance around

27:34

who's going to pick up the tab as neither had

27:37

the money, but they kept spitting

27:39

their scamming stories at each other. Susan

27:42

talks and talks about hearing God

27:44

and her BS testimony at Tony. And

27:47

Tony tells her of the time he heard

27:49

the call of God while in a major

27:51

investment meeting,

27:53

you know, because he's so successful. He's

27:55

got his hands in every industry and

27:57

needed to check his investment portfolio.

27:59

will in this meeting? Well,

28:02

in between, you know, trading

28:05

stocks and shaking hands,

28:07

he said he was begged by Mick Jagger

28:10

to promote the Rolling Stones.

28:13

At some point, I liked a picture that one of

28:15

them was like, we're both full of shit, right?

28:18

And then they agree and then begin

28:20

to form their plan that would take advantage of

28:22

and ruin the lives of people for decades to come, but

28:25

we'll never know how that conversation went

28:27

down.

28:29

They began to scam people together,

28:32

street preaching, working the church scene,

28:34

taking tithe money from churchgoers.

28:37

They did this for about two years. And

28:39

in 1966, right after

28:41

Tony got done serving some time for a

28:44

prior weapons charge, Tony

28:46

and Susie Alamo got married on August

28:48

19th, 1966.

28:51

She took his made up last name, which,

28:54

you know, he chose Alamo, spelled

28:57

like Alamo, remember

28:59

the Alamo? Which is highly confusing,

29:02

but he chose it to be like popular

29:04

Italian-American singers like Frank Sinatra.

29:08

So the Romanian, not

29:10

Italian,

29:11

Tony Alamo, thought

29:13

this Italian crooner persona

29:16

suited him as he fancied himself in the ranks

29:18

of the Sinatras of the industry.

29:20

They were getting in at a time when Los

29:23

Angeles was a hotbed for colts.

29:25

It was a time when teens and young adults felt

29:28

that they needed to not live their lives

29:30

like their parents. They were thinking bigger

29:33

and most angrily opposing the Vietnam

29:35

War. And so many hitchhiked

29:37

their way to Southern California and

29:40

fell into the grips of colts, like

29:42

the children of God,

29:44

which by the way, I think I will cover in a future

29:46

season. I mean, I already did a deep dive

29:48

and found many former members on social media.

29:52

Another cult like the source, the Manson

29:54

Family.

29:55

But Tony and Susan were going

29:57

to be different. They decided

29:59

they would... the exact opposite

30:01

of the LSD type cult sucking

30:04

the city for all it's worth. Susan

30:06

and Tony would appeal to

30:08

kids who grew up in religious families

30:11

and were into wild hippie sex

30:13

and drugs.

30:14

They wanted to belong but wanted to stick

30:16

closer to what they knew.

30:18

So Tony and Susan Alamo prayed

30:21

on this and decided to preach fire

30:23

and brimstone.

30:24

And that the end of days were

30:27

coming.

30:27

So much so that get this, Tony

30:30

Alamo would later preach and put into

30:33

writing that if you protect the environment

30:35

you are basically slapping God in the

30:38

face.

30:39

What do you not trust about

30:41

when God returns to the earth to bring

30:43

the holy home? Do you

30:45

not think that you'll be protected? Are

30:48

you trying to prolong the second coming

30:50

with your sinful recycling and Prius

30:53

driving?

30:55

Here are some direct quotes from Tony

30:57

Alamo that appeared in the pamphlets and

31:00

sermons he would give about this.

31:02

Quote, Earth Day is just

31:04

another trip the devil is putting all

31:06

of you deceived earthlings on. God

31:09

is going to keep messing up the environment and

31:11

those who despise wisdom are going to spend

31:14

trillions of dollars to unsuccessfully

31:16

clean it up.

31:18

And there's no

31:21

such thing as global warming. These

31:24

are all about Earth Day that Tony Alamo

31:27

wrote and distributed in pamphlets across

31:29

America.

31:31

Tony and Susan would eventually make

31:33

a home for this dangerous rhetoric and

31:35

they formed the beginnings of their communal

31:38

living in a three bedroom home on Crescent

31:40

Heights and Sunset.

31:42

Now a Trader Joe's and

31:44

Crunch Jim are at. Eventually

31:47

over 200 followers were living in the cramped space

31:49

and soon they knew they needed to expand.

31:52

Others were complaining and police had to respond

31:55

to many of these calls. So now

31:57

it was on to planning their expansion.

31:59

quickly convinced the kids to sell all

32:02

their stuff and give their worldly possessions

32:04

over to them and God.

32:06

And this is how Susan and Tony

32:09

got the money to build their first compound.

32:13

A bus called

32:14

Heaven then picked up

32:16

the newly converted followers and

32:18

shipped them off to the compound as

32:21

they joyfully sang praise to the Lord

32:23

and their leaders, Tony and Susan Alamo.

32:26

A street car named Heaven moves through

32:28

Charles Manson country north of Los Angeles

32:31

carrying a load full of joy and baffling

32:33

belief that

32:36

Jesus chose from the Susan

32:38

and Tony Alamo Christian

32:40

Foundation, their communes main

32:42

source of incomes received when a convert sells

32:45

his earthly goods and hands in the money.

32:48

Now with no money or possessions many

32:50

never left, they were trapped.

32:52

Susan even admits in an interview that

32:55

aired on like I said the brilliantly produced

32:57

Sundance documentary Ministry of Evil

32:59

that she basically ate these poor

33:02

souls alive.

33:04

Listen. How do you support yourselves? I mean admittedly

33:06

when people come to join you they give you all their worldly

33:09

goods. No, most of them don't have a thing. Most

33:12

of them

33:12

don't have a thing. I'll make a deal with you.

33:15

Every hippie that comes to the church with money

33:18

and possessions I'll put salt and

33:20

pepper on him and eat them if you'll

33:21

eat the ones, the other ones.

33:24

Would you do that? Most

33:27

of them don't even have shoes on their feet. As

33:29

Tony laughs while she talks they were

33:31

trapping people in a compound

33:34

about 45 minutes north of Hollywood

33:36

in Canyon country, Sagas, California.

33:39

Not far from where Charles Manson's

33:41

LSD looped up followers got

33:44

themselves good and stoned before

33:46

committing one of the most horrible

33:48

murders Los Angeles has ever

33:51

seen.

33:53

The followers almost had no choice

33:55

but to stay and commit their lives to Susan

33:58

and Tony Alamo. It was... the

34:00

classic cult tactic,

34:03

isolate, isolate, isolate. They

34:07

were also brainwashed into thinking that

34:09

the devil would take over when

34:11

their parents or loved ones asked them

34:13

to leave the compound and they had to resist

34:16

the devil and stay.

34:18

They were after all just baby Christians,

34:21

that's what they called them at this point and

34:24

this is where they needed to grow and

34:26

thrive.

34:27

So when parents would arrive and demand

34:29

that they can take their children home with them, the

34:32

followers were already so brainwashed at this point

34:34

that they refused and rebuked the devil

34:36

for trying to take them to leave.

34:39

They were also told their paychecks

34:41

for their work outside the church were to be immediately

34:44

signed over to the church and Tony and Susan.

34:46

They would cleanse that paycheck of the devil

34:49

and use it for the Lord's work.

34:51

Their cult control would continue

34:54

to escalate and so would

34:57

their devious desires. Tony

35:00

and Susan split their time between their

35:02

Canyon compound near Los Angeles and

35:05

their home in Las Vegas.

35:07

So in 1966, 16 year old Chris would move into her

35:09

mother, Susan

35:13

and new stepfather Tony's home in Las

35:15

Vegas as she was missing

35:17

her mom because she was spending more time in LA.

35:20

A decision she would regret forever.

35:24

Chris never really liked Tony. She

35:26

knew it from the first moment she met

35:29

him.

35:30

But now that Susan and Tony were married,

35:33

Tony tried to get close to her

35:35

and she was about to find out how close he

35:37

would get.

35:39

She was always uncomfortable around him and

35:41

his advances were putting her on edge.

35:44

One day while Susan was out of the house

35:46

and Tony and Chris were alone,

35:48

Tony sexually assaulted

35:51

his 16 year old stepdaughter. Susan

35:54

walked in during the assault but

35:56

like the model parent that Susan is,

35:59

she refused. to believe that Tony

36:01

had attacked her daughter and instead

36:03

blamed 16-year-old Chris

36:06

for trying to seduce her man.

36:08

She said Chris was a liar and was

36:10

trying to steal Tony away and

36:13

screamed at her while Tony

36:15

sat there smirking. Chris

36:17

had no other choice but to leave and go back

36:20

to Los Angeles completely broken and

36:22

alone.

36:23

To avoid the shame of thinking Tony

36:25

had betrayed her and to block out the

36:27

reality that Tony was a rapist and a

36:29

sexual predator, Susan

36:31

instead blamed her young daughter and

36:34

threw her out.

36:36

Susan and Tony returned to Los Angeles a few

36:38

months later after Chris had fled

36:40

in 1967 with money they

36:43

had accumulated from their followers.

36:46

When Susan called Chris out of the blue,

36:48

Chris was shocked and she'd

36:50

also vowed not to speak to her mother again

36:53

but

36:53

when Susan asked her to lunch, Chris

36:56

accepted as she was broken alone and

36:58

needed a meal. When she

37:00

arrived, Susan and Tony

37:03

were dressed straight out of a 1960s movie

37:06

with expensive tailored clothes.

37:10

She described Tony saying, quote, he

37:12

was wearing an unborn calf coat.

37:15

It was the most disgusting thing I had

37:17

ever seen. Susan

37:20

was dripping in diamonds and

37:22

Chris joked to them, who'd you

37:24

kill to get this? Susan

37:26

told her of their scam and

37:29

then said that she forgave Chris for

37:31

what she had done back in Las Vegas. How

37:35

could she still blame her and defend

37:37

Tony? But practically

37:40

homeless, Chris didn't have a way to support herself

37:42

and was forced to move back

37:45

in with them. Chris

37:47

would try to escape the grips of her

37:49

mother and Tony again in a few years, but

37:51

this time

37:52

she was threatened they would kill

37:55

her. This

37:57

concludes episode one on

37:59

Susan and Tony. Tony Alamo and shockingly

38:01

this is just the tip of the iceberg in

38:04

the insane and evil lives of the

38:06

Alamos.

38:08

We're going to be taking the weeks of Christmas and New

38:10

Year's off but we will be back the week

38:12

of January 4th 2021 to

38:15

ring in the new year with these insane creatures.

38:18

In the future episodes on them we're going to cover

38:20

even more bizarre and criminal actions.

38:23

There's a stolen dead body kept on

38:25

display in an attempt to rise them

38:27

from the dead. There's sex

38:30

trafficking and tax evasion and

38:32

there's plenty of Tony Alamo

38:34

himself talking to the news and defending

38:37

his marriage

38:38

to little girls some

38:40

under the age of 10.

38:43

Thank you so much for listening and if you're enjoying

38:45

the show the best thing you can do is to

38:47

tell a friend leave a five-star rating

38:49

and positive review on Apple podcasts.

38:52

It means everything to us. Thank

38:54

you.

39:03

Seven Deadly Sinners was written and

39:06

created by me Rachel O'Brien.

39:08

Research and

39:10

writing assistance by Kate Codman.

39:13

Sound engineering and music production by Greg

39:15

Hunter

39:16

and produced by Rachel

39:18

O'Brien and Greg Hunter. Thank you for listening.

39:42

Hey Prime members you can listen to Deadly Diocese

39:45

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