April 9, 2024 • 45 mins
In 2007, a new father in the small Czech town of Kurim installed a baby monitor only to find that, instead of picking up the feed from his own home, he was receiving a camera signal from his neighbors’ house. The feed showed two young, filthy boys locked in a cellar, being tortured. This was only the beginning of the strange and twisted tale of the Kurim cult.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fillow conspiracy Realist. We are beyond excited and maybe a
little bit punchy to bring you a story that absolutely
rocked us the first time we read about it. Do
you remember this, Matt.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I can't forget this, and I really wish I could,
So maybe you think about that before moving forward with
this episode. You already played it, so you know, we
get the download. It's cool this one. It haunts my
dreams too.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It's really upsetting, and we have I think, Matt, you
and I both have a pretty a pretty strong constitution
when it comes to learning about and exploring dark, disturbing things.
But our tale this evening takes place in two thousand
and seven when a guy in a small town in
(00:53):
the Czech Republic in Chechia is he's happy he's a
new father. He says, I'm going to get a baby monitor,
I keep an eye on my baby, and then instead
he learns something very disturbing about his neighbors.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, connects to another camera and what he finds is
it's horrible. If you are sensitive to the abuse of children,
then caution yourself away from this one because it's not
in the title. Just be careful. It's there it's worth
your time, though, so just use your own judgment.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
And that's just the beginning.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Nolan.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul Mission Control dec At most importantly,
you are you. You are here that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. Before we begin today's episode,
we want to include a very important disclaimer or call
it a trigger warning, call it what you will. It's
(02:21):
important for us to say at the offset of today's
episode that this show will contain descriptions of graphic child abuse,
very dark and true things.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
In psychological horror.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Really and if this is something that personally you feel
that you should not be listening to, then now is
the time. Just wait for our next episode to come out.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Use our old adage turn back.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Now, Yes, exactly man, exactly as you can.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Yes, that's part of the adage as well.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yes that's true, that's exactly true. This topic existed on
our show first as a video series back when we
were doing YouTube.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Roughly four years ago, well over four years.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
And longtime listeners, you know that we have covered many
things on the audio podcast that we never made videos of,
and we have also covered many things on video that
we've never made an audio podcast. Lest you think that
this is just a rehash of the video, we would
like to let you know that this episode is much
(03:35):
more in depth and it includes some pertinent updates. Our
story begins in a small town with a population of
the little over ten thousand people called Kurrham in the
Czech Republic in May of two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yes, and in this small town there was a new
father named Edward T, mister Edward T. And he did
something simple that almost every new parent has done, or
many new parents have done. He installed a CCTV camera
baby monitor so we could watch the new baby.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
In the nursery room or nursery area of their house.
But there was a malfunction. Matt instead of seeing his
own wee little tyke and the camera feed, he picked
up a different signal. And in this signal he saw
two children, two young boys, covered in filth, chained or
(04:31):
tied up and restrained, locked in a cellar and being
tortured by two women. One of the boys was naked
on the floor, his hands were strained behind his back
and he was being forced as mister Edward t watched
who was being forced to eat food from the floor
like a dog.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, and you can find video stills like Ben found,
and we would not recommend looking at them, but if
you need to understand it, you can find them.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
And if you such is there, they're not. There's nothing
that would be problematic as far as like having on
your computer or something like that. Yeah, just kind of right, vignettes.
They're sort of like the side of a face, and
there's nothing graphic overtly graphic about them, but they are
they are chilling.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, you can see you can see the force feeding and.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
The Yeah, and that's I mean, that's a really good point, Nol.
I'm glad you brought that up, because I'm sure several
of us listening we're thinking, wait, is this something that
shouldn't be on my computer.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
It's like three or four of them. Oh yeah, and
then you know they immediately make you feel repelled and disgusted,
But they're not inherently graphic.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Right, and so we can only imagine what is going
through Edward's mind as he watches this. Is this some
odd malfunction? Is this some hallucination? What he quickly realized,
most likely based on the details of the seller that
he could see in the background, was that this house
(06:04):
seemed fairly similar to his own, and he deduced that
this was indeed a camera feed from a similar baby
monitor in his neighbor's house. Naturally, not being a monster himself,
Edward called the police, and here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Very quickly, yeah, very very quickly. So the police proceed
to the neighbor's home, which is occupied by Clara and
Katerina Marova. They're two sisters who are living at this
house where they believe the feed has been coming from.
And the two boys that were on the camera that
were seen were Andreje and Jacob. These are Clara's sons.
(06:48):
So Clara's sons, Andrea and Jacob. But those weren't the
only people they found at the house.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
That's right, that's right. Police found two adults and three children.
The third child was an adopted daughter, the adopted daughter
of Clara Morova, a thirteen year old named Anika or
Anna sulternately called both. She ran into the arms of
the police, sobbing about the terrible and horrific abuse that
(07:17):
she had endured. She directed the police to the boys
in the cellarn They had serious grievous wounds. One of
the boys died in the hospital, and evidence indicated that
the adults had been slowly skinning him and either eating
(07:39):
parts of him or forcing him to eat parts of himself.
Let's pause there, Let's rewind two years. How did we
get to this situation, because up until two thousand and five,
Clara Morova was a single mother of two and her
two sons Andredge and Jacob or as we talked about
(08:01):
off air, perhaps pronounced yakub jakub and Andredge n d
r e j. These two kids lived pretty good lives,
you know. They went to summer camp, they had a
knack for language, they loved to play outdoors. But things
began to change when Clara's sister Katerina visited the house
(08:23):
and she brought along this thirteen year old orphan sometimes
called Anna, sometimes called Anika and Anika.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
At the time, she would have been eleven.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
At the time she would have been eleven, that's right.
Anika had a terrible, terrible story. She had escaped an abusive,
possibly a child trafficking ring in Norway, and now as
a result of this escape, she is under the protection
of a secret organization, and Clara, being a very good
(08:59):
hearted person at first, almost instantly becomes a nurturing maternal
figure to Anna.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And apparently Anna is suffering from various diseases. She has leukemia,
her kidneys are failing, she's going blind and deaf, and
she's spending a significant amount of time in the hospital
because of all of these things that are going wrong
with her.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
And it's important to note that it's always Clara's sister
Katerina who takes Anna to the hospital. Clara is never
allowed to accompany her, but she is in contact with
Anna's doctor. She starts receiving instructions via text message and
email from this mysterious doctor who is, as far as
(09:45):
Clara knows, the only person who knows how to fully
treat Anna or Anika for both her psychological and her
physical trauma. And these treatments get very weird, very quickly.
One of the treatments that Clara Morova later mentions in
court was that the doctor instructed her to rub Anna's body,
(10:09):
especially her crotch part, for several hours and then this
would improve her quality of life. Keep in mind, again,
this is as far as Clara knows at this time.
This is an eleven year old.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Yeah, you know, shaking my head.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
It's dark stuff. Clara never meets the doctor at all
except one time.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah, in the car in the dark, so she couldn't
actually see this person's face at all. But this is
still a doctor, so the trust in some way in
the institution that he represents, it's still there for her.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
And he also was a diplomat. Yeah, he showed Clara
diplomatic passport, and he also passed along what he said
were Anna's medical files. And later Clara said, I know
it sounds naive, but the fact that he was a
diplomat and a doctor was a guarantee of authority for me,
(11:09):
and so I trusted him. Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
So when Anna was at home, she would describe these
horrifying stories about sexual abuse that she experienced while she
was in Norway. And during the days when she's hospitalized,
when she's constantly there, Clara was supposed to talk to
her on the phone several times a day, and this person,
this doctor, would mediate Clara's messages to Anna so she
(11:36):
can hear mommy while unconscious, so she would be at
the hospital and stay unconscious for periods of time, at
least according to what Clara knew.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Yeah, And by two thousand and six, Clara paid less
and less and less attention to her own children, and
her sons spent more time at their grandparents' house than
they did at home. And Clara was still trying to
help help Anika recover from her traumatic experiences in Norway
and ultimately decided that she wanted to adopt her, but.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
The doctor said there would be huge problems with this.
He told Clara that an adoption would not be possible
the authorities would never approve it because her sons were
being abusive toward Anika. So the doctor told Clara she
needed to cure the boys to remove the evil spirits
(12:30):
inhabiting them by instituting a regimen of therapy, and he
said the appropriate therapy was hard discipline and physical punishment.
Clara began beating the boys repeatedly, often for very minor
(12:50):
perceived in fractions. She would use her bare hands, a
belt or a wooden kitchen spoon. She would also lock
them in the closet or bathroom for punishment, for a
kind of time out situation where often they were forced
to stay there overnight. Eventually, the doctor decided that this
therapy was inadequate, and we'll return after a word from
(13:13):
our sponsors.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
So when we left, we heard that the doctor decided
that this physical punishment that was being enacted on these
boys was not enough. And Clara is told then by
the doctor to stop behaving as their mother, and she's
ordered to take the boys and move to this other town.
It's a small town in a different district. Okay. So
(13:42):
the doctor then advises a stronger type of therapy, not
just the physical stuff, at least the kind that he
had prescribed before. And in this place, this new house,
Clara meets with Jan Scurla a different person, and Yan
Turk both spelled to Ja, and they also meet with
Hannah Basova, and of course Katerina also joins them.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
The sister. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Yeah, And so this escalation I guess that was recommended
involved the following and this is big time trigger warning territory,
I would say. So the boys were kept in dogs
cages and they were not allowed to communicate with each
other at all, nor to have any of the comforts
of being physically held by their mother. Clara helped simulate
(14:33):
drowning them in a bucket, waterboarding essentially, while Katerina held
their hands.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yeah. In addition, they were burned with cigarettes, scratched with
forks and cutlery, hog tied for long periods of time,
forced to recite quote vulgar sentences. We don't know what
those are. But they were also made to beat one another,
and Jacob was at least one instance forced to protec
and he was dead and lay in a hole that
(15:03):
had been dug in the grounds of the compounds.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
So the Yons were connected with the doctor. They were
his like acolytes and some.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yon and the Yons and Hannah as well as Katerina
were members of something. Yeah, and that that's something still
remains mysterious today. But they were, Yeah, they were affiliated.
They weren't just random people. And there's there's pretty compelling
evidence that Clara actually knew or had been familiar with
(15:34):
at least Jan Turk and Hannah Basova before on some level.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Have you seen the French film Martyrs, either one of
you I believe it's a very extreme, like horror kind
of thing, but it involves a cult situation that's very
similar to this, where it's all about breaking people down
to find who they truly are, to like expose their
ideal selves by torturing them or whatever.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
To get them closer to God.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Close to God.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Yeah, I mean, this seems like the ideology that's at
play here. It's very twisted and sick, but it reminds
me of that. I'm wondering if that movie was inspired
by this case at all.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
And that movie, while I'm very punishing, movie is actually
very well done.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
It is for sure.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
There was an American remake that wasn't good, but living
the French one is quite good.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
And if I'm remembering the correct one, that ending that
stays with you. So Probably the most extreme escalation of
violence here occurs when yon Skila and Jan Turik cover
the children's heads with bags, tie them up, burn them
with more cigarettes, and then they focus a lot of
(16:38):
their abuse on Dredge. They rip off a piece of
tissue from his buttocks and they burn the wound. According
to some sources, he was forced to eat it and
to prevent the screaming and yelling. From this torture, the
group regularly taped the children's mouth shut. While all of
(17:01):
this is happening, By September of two thousand and six,
Clara begins the adoption process with Annika, and she does
so with the doctor's approval. The mysterious doctor from the
text messages again, but surprise, surprise, more shady stuff occurs.
First in the Czech Republic, when you are adopting a child,
the court requires a DNA test of the child. The
(17:24):
doctor said this could not happen full stop because, according
to the doctor, it might reveal Anna or Anka's leukemia,
which for some reason he didn't want to have happened. Yeah,
I mean, I guess Clara was told that that would
make the child unadoptable. Oh the child.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
So to make things even more complicated, when Anna or
Anika is supposed to go to court for this adoption
hearing do you want this person to be your adoptive mom?
Et cetera, et cetera. You're not being four to do
this all the all the basic questions one would ask.
Clara's sister Katerina instead contacts a local actor named Victor Scala,
(18:10):
and Victor Scala's daughter impersonates Anna or Anka in front
of the court, and at this time neither the daughter
of Victor Scala, neither her name nor her picture have
ever been published. Somehow, this whole, this whole con job worked.
(18:32):
The court approved the adoption, and at that point the
doctor has Clara Andredge Jacob Briacob and Anika move into
a new house in that town in Kurrum. Anika has
a normal room from descriptions, it had quite a few
toys and it was painted a happy yellow color. The
(18:55):
boys are tied up and the abuse continues in a
seller and this is when Edward T, who I have
been trying very hard not to call mister T over
the course of this episode, discovers the abuse.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
So let's let's just let all that sink in for
a second. Okay, we're back up to the point again
where it's been discovered. Let's talk about the sisters, Katerina
and Clara and what is going on with them, because
none of this makes sense. Let's start somewhere right. So
these sisters both were apparently exhibiting some signs of mental disorders,
(19:33):
and they believed that they had received some kind of
spiritual visions, something that is giving them higher than regular instructions,
basically like martyrs. M Yeah, but they did say that
they had been duped.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
They did so. They said that there when the police
were discovered had discovered this event, and when it eventually
went to trial, they said that the kids were beaten,
sexually abused. Shocked more because the adopted daughter, Anika, was
the mastermind behind it.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
And yeah, guess thirteen year old girl.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Right, Anika and the mysterious text message email only doctor
they said had brainwashed them. Police were not sure how
to proceed. The three children were being held at a
foster home kind of situation. But then Anna or Anika escaped,
and as it turns out, Anna or Anika, whatever name
(20:31):
you want to call, this person was not a child
at all. You see, her real name was Bibora Skilova
and she was thirty three years old.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Wow that's a twist, Yeah, it really is. And if
you look at pictures of her, you can find pictures
of her online from various stages in her life, some
family photos from early on when she was with the
new family, as well as later photos of her, and
she definitely he almost passes as a thirteen year old girl.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
And we're talking Christian Baale levels of physical fluidity, changing
of appearance. So, according to Clara Morova, Bobora had incited
this torture, gradually convincing the mom and her sister that
she was being victimized by these boys, that they were
(21:26):
being unfair, that they needed discipline, and she said, you know,
my doctor saved my life. This is the only person
who can advise them. And as the investigation unfolded, police
realized they were dealing with more than an isolated case.
They realized there were multiple people involved.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
So the so called friends of Anika's who were a
party to this torture, such as the yans Yon Turrek
and Yanscria, who by the way, turned out to be
Barbora Skorlova's brother Yanscria that is also had known each
other previously. And law enforcement began to really get the
picture that there was more at play here than Metpi,
(22:11):
and that they may actually be on the hunt for
some kind of cult.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
And we'll get to that. Right after a word from
our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
We returned. I guess this segment of the episode could
be called we were going to use Gallo's humor. Where
in the world is Barbora Skilova. First she goes to Denmark,
but the heat is catching on to her, so she
flees Denmark. And this is right, This is right after
she escapes the foster exactly ly. And she was eventually
(22:51):
found later in Norway and Oslo, where she had purportedly
originally come from. Right when she visited this house, she
was living with other members of this organization or cult,
and she was living as a thirteen year old boy
named Adam. You can see pictures. She shaved her head.
She went to school for three or four months. The
(23:15):
only class she didn't go to was pe and her
teachers didn't want to push it on her. Apparently she
did such a good job that even later people who
taught her would still refer to her as Adam. Police
believe that Barbora's father, a man named Joseph or Yoseph Scala,
may be the mastermind behind the torture. He was suspected
(23:39):
by several sources to be the doctor behind those text messages.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
But it is not confirmed.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
But it is not confirmed. Yeah, so let's look a
little bit more into the character of Joseph Scila.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
So this guy is believed to be the head of
a group called the Ants, and this group allegedly began
as just a hiking collective and then it ended up
later evolving into some offshoot of this strange, enigmatic, controversial
thing called the Grail movement.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Yeah, if we want to pause just for a second
there to explain what the Grail movement is. Sure, it
started in Germany in the late nineteen forties, and it
was the It follows the teachings of a guy named
Oscar Ernst Bernhardt, who is also known by his pen
name Abdrushin. He was a self proclaimed messiah, and he
(24:41):
did not establish this organization himself. The movement was organized
by people who followed them. They primarily wanted to disseminate
and spread the work of a book he wrote, in
the Light of the Truth, the Grail Message. There all
around the world. They live in different areas, sixteen countries
across Europe. They're also in twenty two African countries worldwide.
(25:04):
They're somewhere in the neighborhood of ten thousand members. But they,
for their part, were largely considered maybe maybe a little
out there, a little off the beaten path, but not
harmful you know what I mean. Certainly not as harmful
as organizations such as say the Catholic Church.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Oh, shots fired and other things. But yeah, it's one
of those kind of I don't know, just a little
more eccentric new version of religions that ends up being
called a cult because that's how we describe.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Cults, right right. So from what we understand about this story,
this group, the Ants was part of a larger organization
similar to a scouting group in the US, like Girl
Scouts or boy Scouts or I think didn't boy Scouts
change their name now they're just scouting?
Speaker 2 (25:59):
I think you're right, right, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yeah, they I think now they will admit female children
as well.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Wonderful, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I mean, the Girl Scouts are still around. Yeah, I
don't know, I don't know. Tell us what you think
about it.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Too much money in those cookies, man.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
That's true. That's true. Anybody who ever had to be
in the Boy Scouts you'll understand. You'll understand exactly what
I'm saying when I say that man peddling popcorn just
did not compare.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Well.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Those cookies just sell themselves, true popcorn. You gotta have
a really slick line.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Yeah, popcorn, you gotta you've got to work the angles,
for sure, sell popcorn. But this organization, this kind of
scouting organization, they met up regularly. They would go hiking
and camping, maybe twice a month or so. In Boy Scouts,
groups of kids will be organized into smaller groups called troops,
(26:54):
and troops are often going to be named after animals,
like just almost any animal you can imagine. Rabbit, true, yeah,
that's great, the rabbits.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
The we blows, that was one of mine.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
You had a troop of boy Scouts called the wee Blows.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Yeah, wasn't that just like the many boy scouts y's
you know it's.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, I know, it was awesome, just for.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Below cub right, I can't remember, is it cub scout?
We blow boy scout? Okay, okay, but eagle right, coveted
eagle like doctor Buzz rendezvous.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Isn't there also life life Scout?
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah, there's life after eagle is the top one, and
then you get life before that.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Oh wow, gotcha? Okay, gotcha, I think.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
And then after that there are all things like order
the arrow, and then do you want to be a
Scout master? And that's cool. It's interesting. You know, our
one of our coworkers and producers, Ramsey Yun, is an
Eagle Scout.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Yeah, and you're not.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I am. I was gonna say, yeah, I just wanted
in another life. In another life, I paid my dues
in the boy. That came out way more cryptic than
I meant. I meant that I had to go get
orienteering marit badges and stuff.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
That's fair.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Wow. So this group, the Ants, was just kind of
like one of those yeah, the same, but kind of
like it. They were just called the Ants.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Yeah, like the Rabbits to Nola's example. Is so even now,
we don't know very much about the internal escalation that
led this group, that led Joseph Scala and his followers
to go from being a hiking enthusiast group to possibly
an offshoot of this other new spiritual movement. But we
(28:39):
do know that psychological experts studied Barbora Scarlova extensively while
she was in custody and while she's under supervision, and
this again is going to be a situation where we
do want to give a warning about the graphic nature
of their findings. So in their investigation, the way that
the trial went is that the trial didn't really focus
(29:04):
on the mysterious doctor because they couldn't find that person,
couldn't prove who it was, so instead they looked at
Clara and Katerina as the instigators along with Barbora or Anika,
and according to the psychologists, Barbora was the main initiator
(29:27):
and manipulator of the situation. She initiated the abuse by
getting the grown ups quote unquote grown ups, because let's
not forget she was in her thirties to abuse these children.
And when she was arrested in Oslo, Norway, living as
thirteen year old kid named Adam, police also found her diary,
(29:49):
and in her diary, she allegedly described all the details
about her various identities, including how she prepared herself, and
experts said that beyond a shadow of a doubt, this
woman does not have schizophrenia or a similar disease. She
knows what she's doing is wrong, she can differentiate between
(30:09):
good and evil, and she's wearing multiple identities just to
manipulate people.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, it's not multiple personality disorder anything to that effect.
It's I'm doing this to get something.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Well, and she's obviously successful at it. I mean this,
the amount of effort that's going into these schemes is outrageous.
Like you said, Ben Christian Bale, method Meisner kind of
like levels of yeah prep.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Well, and here's one of the craziest things. You'd think
someone like this is a criminal mastermind of some sort
of genius level of person elector yeah. Yeah, But her
her IQ levels were tested multiple times and she consistently
came back as around ninety nine, which is not not
a genius. It's I mean, it's it's fine, it's functioning,
(30:58):
but it's you know, I don't know what do you
guys know what your IQs are, at least from the tests.
I don't know mine is either I'm hoping I'm in
the hundred something range.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Your way up there.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I honestly havenoyed less. We should all take one.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
I don't know, we have to go one, two three share.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Also, the IQ test is I'm sure several folks listening
along with us will point out, is just cartoonishly flawed.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Well, yeah, and here's the here's the thing. The big question,
right she kept scoring ninety nine, is that because she
wanted to score around to ninety nine?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Good question? Is it an affectation right, Because what they
also found was that the experts believe that this person
had consciously chosen to live as a child on all
levels on you know, like we said that like a
Meisner Daniel day Lewis level where production never raps and
(32:00):
the movie never ends.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
This allows her to avoid taking responsibility for her actions,
and they say, at the same time, it allows her
to get the attention that she desperately seeks, because they
said she had what's called a histrionic personality and a
strong inclination to manipulative behavior. They also had sexologists study her.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
I didn't realize they were called sexologists, And you.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Know, it may be an error of translation on my part.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I hope not.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
It's a very straightforward name for a profession.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
It's a legit thing, sexology, scientific studies of course.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
Of course, of course, So the people in this profession
proved that she definitely has sata masochistic predispositions, which I
could see that as being very clear from her actions
and with lesbian and pedophilic orientation also pretty clear.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah. In other words, she means this means, I guess,
or kind of tells us that she is excited by
the exploitation and torture of children. She is sexually stimulated
by that, which is that's the horror that we were
talking about at the top of the show.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
That's what they call a bad combo.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, a monster made flesh. I haven't you know? This
is this is the kind of thing that you would
maybe here associated with very monstrous serial killers. Yeah, you know,
like Albert Fish or something.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Well, and it gets us into some of the most
most basic but controversial and difficult to discuss topics, which
is the whole nature versus nurture thing of when you
you know, when you're when you're born, or what happens
to you, What creates something like that in someone? Generally,
(33:58):
my opinion would be that some thing happens to you,
that that person is made that person is things happen
to that person to create that kind of orientation, in
my opinion. And you know, when you think about the doctor,
whoever that person was, if it was, in fact, you know,
the father.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
You'd think maybe for it to be that specific, such
a specific hang up, a specific fetish, I guess as
a lack of it for lack of a better term. Yeah,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Know, it's a lot of a lot of serial murderers
have either a history of abuse or a history of
brain injury. Oh, absolutely, that triggers them. And then I
guess if we're looking at maybe a mental condition like schizophrenia,
you know, they're having people who have committed murders because
(34:49):
they have a break. But this sounds so calculated on
this person's part, you know.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Yeah, in the in the show I work on outside
of this one about the kill or Keith Hunter jesperson,
he had a head injury. He also had a very manipulative,
abusive father that he kind of kowtowed too when he
was a child. And he also just had a predisposition
to violence, and so it was kind of a combination
(35:17):
of nature. It's sort of the show's about is like
kind of like pinning down where that divide is, and
you see that in all these cases. But I agree
with you, Matt, that the more abhorrent and kind of
out there that the predilections are for these people, like,
the more likely that part is they experienced something something
was done to them that they carried with them. That's
that's chilling.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
And that podcast is Happy Face available now wherever you
find your favorite shows.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Thanks Ben. We've had a couple episodes left and we
took a break off for the holidays, but it's back
strong to me, twelve episodes total, so it chicks me,
Thanks dude.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
And as these details emerge. When we first did this video,
we didn't have have the benefit of this expert analysis, right,
We didn't find that the first time around, So the
video is much shorter, but we have some additional details
(36:13):
as well as the different specific aspects of this case
and this horrific event, a horrific series of events emerges.
The Grail movement themselves deny any involvement with this sect
or this group, or this community or this dare I say,
this cult known as the Ants, and they also denied
(36:35):
any involvement with other offshoot sects of the movement, sort
of like how sort of like how a mom's in
the Muslim world will deny the nation of Islam. They'll say,
that's a different religion. We're Muslim, they're something else.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
You know what I mean. Well, and the other thing
here is the quality and the amount of filming the
cameras that were set up to monitor this abuse. They
were of such a level that it's thought that perhaps
this was something bigger than just Barbara up there as
Anika watching it for her own pleasure, or you know,
(37:17):
could it have been somebody else also watching it? Was?
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Yeah, was there more to this story? And that I
think is the most frightening aspect of this because that
is largely the question upon which our story ends. Publicly,
no one really knows what happened. Somehow Joseph Scala escaped.
(37:42):
He was never charged with a crime, just like Kaiser
Souse disappeared. His whereabouts are unknown as we record this.
We don't even know if he was actually the doctor,
which I wanted to ask ask everyone, do do we
think it's possible that, in addition to impersonating these different people,
Barbara herself could have been the doctor, like with a
(38:06):
hidden phone sending text messages or something. I don't know,
because then she did meet Clara, did meet somebody in
the car, right yeah, ooh, so you have to wonder.
We do have good news of a sort of all
the people who are charged in this trial, Clara, Katerina,
(38:26):
jan Turik, Hanna Bosova, Jon Skila and his sister Barboris Sklova,
all of them were found guilty and they were all sentence,
but they have all served their sentences already and they
live free somewhere in the world, at least as far
as we can find. Barboris Sklova was released from prison
(38:49):
in twenty twelve, and now people believe she's either been
living in South Moravia or a place called Berna, Brno.
The most recent reports show that she is living under
a new name, no longer plays the piano. She was
noted as a talented pianist. She's under the monitoring of
(39:12):
the Probation and Mediation Service or Medication Service. According to
the psychiatrist who observe her, she has severe mental difficulties
and she often appears to switch between one or more
of her previous young male personalities. Here's another thing to
add to that troubling possibility, that breadcrumb of a larger
(39:36):
ring people. She has more more young personalities than Anika
Anna r Adam. Yeah, she exhibits multiple ones.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
And is that because she has been she's infected other
families in the past.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
Earlier we said that she was analyzed and there were
no signs of multiple personalities. Cazophrannia like calculated even more
or is this like a project monarch?
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Thing. Yeah, something is placed upon psyche.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Good god, this story is the stuff of nightmares. And
I know this sounds really messed up to say, but
I would be interested to see this handled very artfully
in a film. Maybe it's too I don't know. Maybe
it's almost like giving a short shrift to the victims
to even consider making this into some kind of work
(40:31):
of you know, fictionalized account or whatever like that. But
it's just got all the intrigue and the twists and
like you could, Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
I think there was some I want to say, when
we were working on this few years back, there was
some film that maybe borrowed aspects of the story, but
I think maybe it was just they were borrowing the
idea of an adult impersonating a child so successfully for
so long.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
It's the it's called orphan.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Orphan, that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
It was available like not that long ago at least,
and I don't think it came out that long ago either.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Two thousand and nine, Yeah, two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Okay, oh god, that's it's over nine years ago. We're all, yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah, but you know, maybe we're aging like wine or
a good cheese, like fine wine, like fine a minor
fine cheese.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Those tannins are really shown up.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
So at this point, unfortunately, this story is probably not over.
But this is where the path drops off. We don't
know much else about what's happened. We do know that,
according to the psychiatric reports, while Barbora has stopped playing
(41:45):
piano near as much, she does spend a lot of
time drawing quote, very morbid pictures. As for what happened
to this group, this possible cult, whatever you want to
call them, Where the leader is, if the leader exist,
if the so called doctor exists, what their plans are
for other children or other families. For now, it's something
(42:09):
they don't want you to know. It's a relatively successful conspiracy.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
And that's something that I'm perfectly happy to close the
book on for today, because geez, the lease.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I remember the feeling in twenty fourteen when I finished
the video. I didn't ever want to think about this
ever again.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
And here we are, and here we are.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Pull you back in, Matt, Well we got through it.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
Well, you're an intrepid traveler, my friend.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
We've made it through guys, all of us.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
We can end on a completely unrelated different note that's
not near as suppressing. Okay, scary, here it is. We
want to thank Spencer C. Schlooter who dropped by our
community page here's where it gets crazy and hipped us
to an amazing story that I did not believe at first,
(42:59):
even though it's in Time magazine.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
It's titled the US military believes people have a sixth sense.
That's cool, yeah, intuition. Since twenty fourteen, the Office of
Naval Research apparently has embarked on a four year, three
point eighty five million dollar research program to explore premonitions,
(43:25):
intuition or what we have on this show before called
spider sense. That's right, and specifically they're looking at it
for I was going to say for use, or looking
at it in application to apply to sailors and marines,
people who are actually in the fighting force, and or
people who are surveilling.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
We should do an episode on this. What do you think? Yes, agreed,
a sense that we may that's the worse joke. Well,
thank you so much for listening, everybody. Enjoy is the
wrong word, but we hope you have found this as
strange as we have this story. Let us know if
(44:05):
you have any updates on the Kurum case or the
case of the ants and let us know if you
have found stories in your neck of the woods that
are similar.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
I know this goes without saying, but if you suspect
a child, you know, a friend of one of your children,
perhaps is being mistreated. Any way, there are resources for
reporting this beyond just calling the police. I mean, there
are you know, people that can help absolutely.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
In the US and Canada, you can contact the Child
Help National Child Abuse Hotline. Its staff twenty four hours
a day, seven days a week, with professional crisis counselors
and interpreters that can provide assistance in over one hundred
and seventy languages. That hotline is one eight hundred for
(44:53):
a child or one eight hundred four to two two
four four five three.
Speaker 4 (44:57):
But if you feel a child is in imminent d
sure you know, call call it.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Please, yeah, don't hesitate.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
And that's the end of this classic episode. If you
have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can
get into contact with us in a number of different ways.
One of the best is to give us a call.
Our number is one eight three three st d WYTK.
If you don't want to do that, you can send
us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fillow conspiracy Realist. We are beyond excited and maybe a
little bit punchy to bring you a story that absolutely
rocked us the first time we read about it. Do
you remember this, Matt.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I can't forget this, and I really wish I could,
So maybe you think about that before moving forward with
this episode. You already played it, so you know, we
get the download. It's cool this one. It haunts my
dreams too.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
It's really upsetting, and we have I think, Matt, you
and I both have a pretty a pretty strong constitution
when it comes to learning about and exploring dark, disturbing things.
But our tale this evening takes place in two thousand
and seven when a guy in a small town in
(00:53):
the Czech Republic in Chechia is he's happy he's a
new father. He says, I'm going to get a baby monitor,
I keep an eye on my baby, and then instead
he learns something very disturbing about his neighbors.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
Yeah, connects to another camera and what he finds is
it's horrible. If you are sensitive to the abuse of children,
then caution yourself away from this one because it's not
in the title. Just be careful. It's there it's worth
your time, though, so just use your own judgment.
Speaker 1 (01:29):
And that's just the beginning.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my
name is Nolan.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul Mission Control dec At most importantly,
you are you. You are here that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. Before we begin today's episode,
we want to include a very important disclaimer or call
it a trigger warning, call it what you will. It's
(02:21):
important for us to say at the offset of today's
episode that this show will contain descriptions of graphic child abuse,
very dark and true things.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
In psychological horror.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Really and if this is something that personally you feel
that you should not be listening to, then now is
the time. Just wait for our next episode to come out.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Use our old adage turn back.
Speaker 1 (02:52):
Now, Yes, exactly man, exactly as you can.
Speaker 4 (02:55):
Yes, that's part of the adage as well.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Yes that's true, that's exactly true. This topic existed on
our show first as a video series back when we
were doing YouTube.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
Roughly four years ago, well over four years.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
And longtime listeners, you know that we have covered many
things on the audio podcast that we never made videos of,
and we have also covered many things on video that
we've never made an audio podcast. Lest you think that
this is just a rehash of the video, we would
like to let you know that this episode is much
(03:35):
more in depth and it includes some pertinent updates. Our
story begins in a small town with a population of
the little over ten thousand people called Kurrham in the
Czech Republic in May of two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Yes, and in this small town there was a new
father named Edward T, mister Edward T. And he did
something simple that almost every new parent has done, or
many new parents have done. He installed a CCTV camera
baby monitor so we could watch the new baby.
Speaker 1 (04:11):
In the nursery room or nursery area of their house.
But there was a malfunction. Matt instead of seeing his
own wee little tyke and the camera feed, he picked
up a different signal. And in this signal he saw
two children, two young boys, covered in filth, chained or
(04:31):
tied up and restrained, locked in a cellar and being
tortured by two women. One of the boys was naked
on the floor, his hands were strained behind his back
and he was being forced as mister Edward t watched
who was being forced to eat food from the floor
like a dog.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Yeah, and you can find video stills like Ben found,
and we would not recommend looking at them, but if
you need to understand it, you can find them.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
And if you such is there, they're not. There's nothing
that would be problematic as far as like having on
your computer or something like that. Yeah, just kind of right, vignettes.
They're sort of like the side of a face, and
there's nothing graphic overtly graphic about them, but they are
they are chilling.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
Yeah, you can see you can see the force feeding and.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
The Yeah, and that's I mean, that's a really good point, Nol.
I'm glad you brought that up, because I'm sure several
of us listening we're thinking, wait, is this something that
shouldn't be on my computer.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
It's like three or four of them. Oh yeah, and
then you know they immediately make you feel repelled and disgusted,
But they're not inherently graphic.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
Right, and so we can only imagine what is going
through Edward's mind as he watches this. Is this some
odd malfunction? Is this some hallucination? What he quickly realized,
most likely based on the details of the seller that
he could see in the background, was that this house
(06:04):
seemed fairly similar to his own, and he deduced that
this was indeed a camera feed from a similar baby
monitor in his neighbor's house. Naturally, not being a monster himself,
Edward called the police, and here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Very quickly, yeah, very very quickly. So the police proceed
to the neighbor's home, which is occupied by Clara and
Katerina Marova. They're two sisters who are living at this
house where they believe the feed has been coming from.
And the two boys that were on the camera that
were seen were Andreje and Jacob. These are Clara's sons.
(06:48):
So Clara's sons, Andrea and Jacob. But those weren't the
only people they found at the house.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
That's right, that's right. Police found two adults and three children.
The third child was an adopted daughter, the adopted daughter
of Clara Morova, a thirteen year old named Anika or
Anna sulternately called both. She ran into the arms of
the police, sobbing about the terrible and horrific abuse that
(07:17):
she had endured. She directed the police to the boys
in the cellarn They had serious grievous wounds. One of
the boys died in the hospital, and evidence indicated that
the adults had been slowly skinning him and either eating
(07:39):
parts of him or forcing him to eat parts of himself.
Let's pause there, Let's rewind two years. How did we
get to this situation, because up until two thousand and five,
Clara Morova was a single mother of two and her
two sons Andredge and Jacob or as we talked about
(08:01):
off air, perhaps pronounced yakub jakub and Andredge n d
r e j. These two kids lived pretty good lives,
you know. They went to summer camp, they had a
knack for language, they loved to play outdoors. But things
began to change when Clara's sister Katerina visited the house
(08:23):
and she brought along this thirteen year old orphan sometimes
called Anna, sometimes called Anika and Anika.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
At the time, she would have been eleven.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
At the time she would have been eleven, that's right.
Anika had a terrible, terrible story. She had escaped an abusive,
possibly a child trafficking ring in Norway, and now as
a result of this escape, she is under the protection
of a secret organization, and Clara, being a very good
(08:59):
hearted person at first, almost instantly becomes a nurturing maternal
figure to Anna.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
And apparently Anna is suffering from various diseases. She has leukemia,
her kidneys are failing, she's going blind and deaf, and
she's spending a significant amount of time in the hospital
because of all of these things that are going wrong
with her.
Speaker 1 (09:23):
And it's important to note that it's always Clara's sister
Katerina who takes Anna to the hospital. Clara is never
allowed to accompany her, but she is in contact with
Anna's doctor. She starts receiving instructions via text message and
email from this mysterious doctor who is, as far as
(09:45):
Clara knows, the only person who knows how to fully
treat Anna or Anika for both her psychological and her
physical trauma. And these treatments get very weird, very quickly.
One of the treatments that Clara Morova later mentions in
court was that the doctor instructed her to rub Anna's body,
(10:09):
especially her crotch part, for several hours and then this
would improve her quality of life. Keep in mind, again,
this is as far as Clara knows at this time.
This is an eleven year old.
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Yeah, you know, shaking my head.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
It's dark stuff. Clara never meets the doctor at all
except one time.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
Yeah, in the car in the dark, so she couldn't
actually see this person's face at all. But this is
still a doctor, so the trust in some way in
the institution that he represents, it's still there for her.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
And he also was a diplomat. Yeah, he showed Clara
diplomatic passport, and he also passed along what he said
were Anna's medical files. And later Clara said, I know
it sounds naive, but the fact that he was a
diplomat and a doctor was a guarantee of authority for me,
(11:09):
and so I trusted him. Okay.
Speaker 2 (11:14):
So when Anna was at home, she would describe these
horrifying stories about sexual abuse that she experienced while she
was in Norway. And during the days when she's hospitalized,
when she's constantly there, Clara was supposed to talk to
her on the phone several times a day, and this person,
this doctor, would mediate Clara's messages to Anna so she
(11:36):
can hear mommy while unconscious, so she would be at
the hospital and stay unconscious for periods of time, at
least according to what Clara knew.
Speaker 4 (11:47):
Yeah, And by two thousand and six, Clara paid less
and less and less attention to her own children, and
her sons spent more time at their grandparents' house than
they did at home. And Clara was still trying to
help help Anika recover from her traumatic experiences in Norway
and ultimately decided that she wanted to adopt her, but.
Speaker 1 (12:09):
The doctor said there would be huge problems with this.
He told Clara that an adoption would not be possible
the authorities would never approve it because her sons were
being abusive toward Anika. So the doctor told Clara she
needed to cure the boys to remove the evil spirits
(12:30):
inhabiting them by instituting a regimen of therapy, and he
said the appropriate therapy was hard discipline and physical punishment.
Clara began beating the boys repeatedly, often for very minor
(12:50):
perceived in fractions. She would use her bare hands, a
belt or a wooden kitchen spoon. She would also lock
them in the closet or bathroom for punishment, for a
kind of time out situation where often they were forced
to stay there overnight. Eventually, the doctor decided that this
therapy was inadequate, and we'll return after a word from
(13:13):
our sponsors.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
So when we left, we heard that the doctor decided
that this physical punishment that was being enacted on these
boys was not enough. And Clara is told then by
the doctor to stop behaving as their mother, and she's
ordered to take the boys and move to this other town.
It's a small town in a different district. Okay. So
(13:42):
the doctor then advises a stronger type of therapy, not
just the physical stuff, at least the kind that he
had prescribed before. And in this place, this new house,
Clara meets with Jan Scurla a different person, and Yan
Turk both spelled to Ja, and they also meet with
Hannah Basova, and of course Katerina also joins them.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
The sister. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Yeah, And so this escalation I guess that was recommended
involved the following and this is big time trigger warning territory,
I would say. So the boys were kept in dogs
cages and they were not allowed to communicate with each
other at all, nor to have any of the comforts
of being physically held by their mother. Clara helped simulate
(14:33):
drowning them in a bucket, waterboarding essentially, while Katerina held
their hands.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Yeah. In addition, they were burned with cigarettes, scratched with
forks and cutlery, hog tied for long periods of time,
forced to recite quote vulgar sentences. We don't know what
those are. But they were also made to beat one another,
and Jacob was at least one instance forced to protec
and he was dead and lay in a hole that
(15:03):
had been dug in the grounds of the compounds.
Speaker 4 (15:05):
So the Yons were connected with the doctor. They were
his like acolytes and some.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
Yon and the Yons and Hannah as well as Katerina
were members of something. Yeah, and that that's something still
remains mysterious today. But they were, Yeah, they were affiliated.
They weren't just random people. And there's there's pretty compelling
evidence that Clara actually knew or had been familiar with
(15:34):
at least Jan Turk and Hannah Basova before on some level.
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Have you seen the French film Martyrs, either one of
you I believe it's a very extreme, like horror kind
of thing, but it involves a cult situation that's very
similar to this, where it's all about breaking people down
to find who they truly are, to like expose their
ideal selves by torturing them or whatever.
Speaker 1 (15:58):
To get them closer to God.
Speaker 2 (16:00):
Close to God.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
Yeah, I mean, this seems like the ideology that's at
play here. It's very twisted and sick, but it reminds
me of that. I'm wondering if that movie was inspired
by this case at all.
Speaker 1 (16:10):
And that movie, while I'm very punishing, movie is actually
very well done.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
It is for sure.
Speaker 4 (16:14):
There was an American remake that wasn't good, but living
the French one is quite good.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
And if I'm remembering the correct one, that ending that
stays with you. So Probably the most extreme escalation of
violence here occurs when yon Skila and Jan Turik cover
the children's heads with bags, tie them up, burn them
with more cigarettes, and then they focus a lot of
(16:38):
their abuse on Dredge. They rip off a piece of
tissue from his buttocks and they burn the wound. According
to some sources, he was forced to eat it and
to prevent the screaming and yelling. From this torture, the
group regularly taped the children's mouth shut. While all of
(17:01):
this is happening, By September of two thousand and six,
Clara begins the adoption process with Annika, and she does
so with the doctor's approval. The mysterious doctor from the
text messages again, but surprise, surprise, more shady stuff occurs.
First in the Czech Republic, when you are adopting a child,
the court requires a DNA test of the child. The
(17:24):
doctor said this could not happen full stop because, according
to the doctor, it might reveal Anna or Anka's leukemia,
which for some reason he didn't want to have happened. Yeah,
I mean, I guess Clara was told that that would
make the child unadoptable. Oh the child.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:47):
So to make things even more complicated, when Anna or
Anika is supposed to go to court for this adoption
hearing do you want this person to be your adoptive mom?
Et cetera, et cetera. You're not being four to do
this all the all the basic questions one would ask.
Clara's sister Katerina instead contacts a local actor named Victor Scala,
(18:10):
and Victor Scala's daughter impersonates Anna or Anka in front
of the court, and at this time neither the daughter
of Victor Scala, neither her name nor her picture have
ever been published. Somehow, this whole, this whole con job worked.
(18:32):
The court approved the adoption, and at that point the
doctor has Clara Andredge Jacob Briacob and Anika move into
a new house in that town in Kurrum. Anika has
a normal room from descriptions, it had quite a few
toys and it was painted a happy yellow color. The
(18:55):
boys are tied up and the abuse continues in a
seller and this is when Edward T, who I have
been trying very hard not to call mister T over
the course of this episode, discovers the abuse.
Speaker 2 (19:11):
So let's let's just let all that sink in for
a second. Okay, we're back up to the point again
where it's been discovered. Let's talk about the sisters, Katerina
and Clara and what is going on with them, because
none of this makes sense. Let's start somewhere right. So
these sisters both were apparently exhibiting some signs of mental disorders,
(19:33):
and they believed that they had received some kind of
spiritual visions, something that is giving them higher than regular instructions,
basically like martyrs. M Yeah, but they did say that
they had been duped.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
They did so. They said that there when the police
were discovered had discovered this event, and when it eventually
went to trial, they said that the kids were beaten,
sexually abused. Shocked more because the adopted daughter, Anika, was
the mastermind behind it.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
And yeah, guess thirteen year old girl.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Right, Anika and the mysterious text message email only doctor
they said had brainwashed them. Police were not sure how
to proceed. The three children were being held at a
foster home kind of situation. But then Anna or Anika escaped,
and as it turns out, Anna or Anika, whatever name
(20:31):
you want to call, this person was not a child
at all. You see, her real name was Bibora Skilova
and she was thirty three years old.
Speaker 2 (20:42):
Wow that's a twist, Yeah, it really is. And if
you look at pictures of her, you can find pictures
of her online from various stages in her life, some
family photos from early on when she was with the
new family, as well as later photos of her, and
she definitely he almost passes as a thirteen year old girl.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
And we're talking Christian Baale levels of physical fluidity, changing
of appearance. So, according to Clara Morova, Bobora had incited
this torture, gradually convincing the mom and her sister that
she was being victimized by these boys, that they were
(21:26):
being unfair, that they needed discipline, and she said, you know,
my doctor saved my life. This is the only person
who can advise them. And as the investigation unfolded, police
realized they were dealing with more than an isolated case.
They realized there were multiple people involved.
Speaker 4 (21:47):
So the so called friends of Anika's who were a
party to this torture, such as the yans Yon Turrek
and Yanscria, who by the way, turned out to be
Barbora Skorlova's brother Yanscria that is also had known each
other previously. And law enforcement began to really get the
picture that there was more at play here than Metpi,
(22:11):
and that they may actually be on the hunt for
some kind of cult.
Speaker 2 (22:16):
And we'll get to that. Right after a word from
our sponsor.
Speaker 1 (22:25):
We returned. I guess this segment of the episode could
be called we were going to use Gallo's humor. Where
in the world is Barbora Skilova. First she goes to Denmark,
but the heat is catching on to her, so she
flees Denmark. And this is right, This is right after
she escapes the foster exactly ly. And she was eventually
(22:51):
found later in Norway and Oslo, where she had purportedly
originally come from. Right when she visited this house, she
was living with other members of this organization or cult,
and she was living as a thirteen year old boy
named Adam. You can see pictures. She shaved her head.
She went to school for three or four months. The
(23:15):
only class she didn't go to was pe and her
teachers didn't want to push it on her. Apparently she
did such a good job that even later people who
taught her would still refer to her as Adam. Police
believe that Barbora's father, a man named Joseph or Yoseph Scala,
may be the mastermind behind the torture. He was suspected
(23:39):
by several sources to be the doctor behind those text messages.
Speaker 2 (23:43):
But it is not confirmed.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
But it is not confirmed. Yeah, so let's look a
little bit more into the character of Joseph Scila.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
So this guy is believed to be the head of
a group called the Ants, and this group allegedly began
as just a hiking collective and then it ended up
later evolving into some offshoot of this strange, enigmatic, controversial
thing called the Grail movement.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
Yeah, if we want to pause just for a second
there to explain what the Grail movement is. Sure, it
started in Germany in the late nineteen forties, and it
was the It follows the teachings of a guy named
Oscar Ernst Bernhardt, who is also known by his pen
name Abdrushin. He was a self proclaimed messiah, and he
(24:41):
did not establish this organization himself. The movement was organized
by people who followed them. They primarily wanted to disseminate
and spread the work of a book he wrote, in
the Light of the Truth, the Grail Message. There all
around the world. They live in different areas, sixteen countries
across Europe. They're also in twenty two African countries worldwide.
(25:04):
They're somewhere in the neighborhood of ten thousand members. But they,
for their part, were largely considered maybe maybe a little
out there, a little off the beaten path, but not
harmful you know what I mean. Certainly not as harmful
as organizations such as say the Catholic Church.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Oh, shots fired and other things. But yeah, it's one
of those kind of I don't know, just a little
more eccentric new version of religions that ends up being
called a cult because that's how we describe.
Speaker 1 (25:42):
Cults, right right. So from what we understand about this story,
this group, the Ants was part of a larger organization
similar to a scouting group in the US, like Girl
Scouts or boy Scouts or I think didn't boy Scouts
change their name now they're just scouting?
Speaker 2 (25:59):
I think you're right, right, I didn't know that.
Speaker 1 (26:01):
Yeah, they I think now they will admit female children
as well.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
Wonderful, we'll see.
Speaker 1 (26:08):
I mean, the Girl Scouts are still around. Yeah, I
don't know, I don't know. Tell us what you think
about it.
Speaker 2 (26:13):
Too much money in those cookies, man.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
That's true. That's true. Anybody who ever had to be
in the Boy Scouts you'll understand. You'll understand exactly what
I'm saying when I say that man peddling popcorn just
did not compare.
Speaker 2 (26:27):
Well.
Speaker 4 (26:27):
Those cookies just sell themselves, true popcorn. You gotta have
a really slick line.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
Yeah, popcorn, you gotta you've got to work the angles,
for sure, sell popcorn. But this organization, this kind of
scouting organization, they met up regularly. They would go hiking
and camping, maybe twice a month or so. In Boy Scouts,
groups of kids will be organized into smaller groups called troops,
(26:54):
and troops are often going to be named after animals,
like just almost any animal you can imagine. Rabbit, true, yeah,
that's great, the rabbits.
Speaker 2 (27:01):
The we blows, that was one of mine.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
You had a troop of boy Scouts called the wee Blows.
Speaker 4 (27:06):
Yeah, wasn't that just like the many boy scouts y's
you know it's.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, I know, it was awesome, just for.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Below cub right, I can't remember, is it cub scout?
We blow boy scout? Okay, okay, but eagle right, coveted
eagle like doctor Buzz rendezvous.
Speaker 4 (27:27):
Isn't there also life life Scout?
Speaker 1 (27:30):
Yeah, there's life after eagle is the top one, and
then you get life before that.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
Oh wow, gotcha? Okay, gotcha, I think.
Speaker 1 (27:37):
And then after that there are all things like order
the arrow, and then do you want to be a
Scout master? And that's cool. It's interesting. You know, our
one of our coworkers and producers, Ramsey Yun, is an
Eagle Scout.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
Yeah, and you're not.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
I am. I was gonna say, yeah, I just wanted
in another life. In another life, I paid my dues
in the boy. That came out way more cryptic than
I meant. I meant that I had to go get
orienteering marit badges and stuff.
Speaker 4 (28:06):
That's fair.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Wow. So this group, the Ants, was just kind of
like one of those yeah, the same, but kind of
like it. They were just called the Ants.
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Yeah, like the Rabbits to Nola's example. Is so even now,
we don't know very much about the internal escalation that
led this group, that led Joseph Scala and his followers
to go from being a hiking enthusiast group to possibly
an offshoot of this other new spiritual movement. But we
(28:39):
do know that psychological experts studied Barbora Scarlova extensively while
she was in custody and while she's under supervision, and
this again is going to be a situation where we
do want to give a warning about the graphic nature
of their findings. So in their investigation, the way that
the trial went is that the trial didn't really focus
(29:04):
on the mysterious doctor because they couldn't find that person,
couldn't prove who it was, so instead they looked at
Clara and Katerina as the instigators along with Barbora or Anika,
and according to the psychologists, Barbora was the main initiator
(29:27):
and manipulator of the situation. She initiated the abuse by
getting the grown ups quote unquote grown ups, because let's
not forget she was in her thirties to abuse these children.
And when she was arrested in Oslo, Norway, living as
thirteen year old kid named Adam, police also found her diary,
(29:49):
and in her diary, she allegedly described all the details
about her various identities, including how she prepared herself, and
experts said that beyond a shadow of a doubt, this
woman does not have schizophrenia or a similar disease. She
knows what she's doing is wrong, she can differentiate between
(30:09):
good and evil, and she's wearing multiple identities just to
manipulate people.
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Yeah, it's not multiple personality disorder anything to that effect.
It's I'm doing this to get something.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
Well, and she's obviously successful at it. I mean this,
the amount of effort that's going into these schemes is outrageous.
Like you said, Ben Christian Bale, method Meisner kind of
like levels of yeah prep.
Speaker 2 (30:35):
Well, and here's one of the craziest things. You'd think
someone like this is a criminal mastermind of some sort
of genius level of person elector yeah. Yeah, But her
her IQ levels were tested multiple times and she consistently
came back as around ninety nine, which is not not
a genius. It's I mean, it's it's fine, it's functioning,
(30:58):
but it's you know, I don't know what do you
guys know what your IQs are, at least from the tests.
I don't know mine is either I'm hoping I'm in
the hundred something range.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
Your way up there.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
I honestly havenoyed less. We should all take one.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
I don't know, we have to go one, two three share.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Also, the IQ test is I'm sure several folks listening
along with us will point out, is just cartoonishly flawed.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
Well, yeah, and here's the here's the thing. The big question,
right she kept scoring ninety nine, is that because she
wanted to score around to ninety nine?
Speaker 1 (31:38):
Good question? Is it an affectation right, Because what they
also found was that the experts believe that this person
had consciously chosen to live as a child on all
levels on you know, like we said that like a
Meisner Daniel day Lewis level where production never raps and
(32:00):
the movie never ends.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
This allows her to avoid taking responsibility for her actions,
and they say, at the same time, it allows her
to get the attention that she desperately seeks, because they
said she had what's called a histrionic personality and a
strong inclination to manipulative behavior. They also had sexologists study her.
Speaker 4 (32:25):
I didn't realize they were called sexologists, And you.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Know, it may be an error of translation on my part.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
I hope not.
Speaker 4 (32:31):
It's a very straightforward name for a profession.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
It's a legit thing, sexology, scientific studies of course.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
Of course, of course, So the people in this profession
proved that she definitely has sata masochistic predispositions, which I
could see that as being very clear from her actions
and with lesbian and pedophilic orientation also pretty clear.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
Yeah. In other words, she means this means, I guess,
or kind of tells us that she is excited by
the exploitation and torture of children. She is sexually stimulated
by that, which is that's the horror that we were
talking about at the top of the show.
Speaker 4 (33:18):
That's what they call a bad combo.
Speaker 1 (33:21):
Yeah, a monster made flesh. I haven't you know? This
is this is the kind of thing that you would
maybe here associated with very monstrous serial killers. Yeah, you know,
like Albert Fish or something.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Well, and it gets us into some of the most
most basic but controversial and difficult to discuss topics, which
is the whole nature versus nurture thing of when you
you know, when you're when you're born, or what happens
to you, What creates something like that in someone? Generally,
(33:58):
my opinion would be that some thing happens to you,
that that person is made that person is things happen
to that person to create that kind of orientation, in
my opinion. And you know, when you think about the doctor,
whoever that person was, if it was, in fact, you know,
the father.
Speaker 4 (34:16):
You'd think maybe for it to be that specific, such
a specific hang up, a specific fetish, I guess as
a lack of it for lack of a better term. Yeah,
I don't.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Know, it's a lot of a lot of serial murderers
have either a history of abuse or a history of
brain injury. Oh, absolutely, that triggers them. And then I
guess if we're looking at maybe a mental condition like schizophrenia,
you know, they're having people who have committed murders because
(34:49):
they have a break. But this sounds so calculated on
this person's part, you know.
Speaker 4 (34:56):
Yeah, in the in the show I work on outside
of this one about the kill or Keith Hunter jesperson,
he had a head injury. He also had a very manipulative,
abusive father that he kind of kowtowed too when he
was a child. And he also just had a predisposition
to violence, and so it was kind of a combination
(35:17):
of nature. It's sort of the show's about is like
kind of like pinning down where that divide is, and
you see that in all these cases. But I agree
with you, Matt, that the more abhorrent and kind of
out there that the predilections are for these people, like,
the more likely that part is they experienced something something
was done to them that they carried with them. That's
that's chilling.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
And that podcast is Happy Face available now wherever you
find your favorite shows.
Speaker 4 (35:42):
Thanks Ben. We've had a couple episodes left and we
took a break off for the holidays, but it's back
strong to me, twelve episodes total, so it chicks me,
Thanks dude.
Speaker 1 (35:52):
And as these details emerge. When we first did this video,
we didn't have have the benefit of this expert analysis, right,
We didn't find that the first time around, So the
video is much shorter, but we have some additional details
(36:13):
as well as the different specific aspects of this case
and this horrific event, a horrific series of events emerges.
The Grail movement themselves deny any involvement with this sect
or this group, or this community or this dare I say,
this cult known as the Ants, and they also denied
(36:35):
any involvement with other offshoot sects of the movement, sort
of like how sort of like how a mom's in
the Muslim world will deny the nation of Islam. They'll say,
that's a different religion. We're Muslim, they're something else.
Speaker 2 (36:53):
You know what I mean. Well, and the other thing
here is the quality and the amount of filming the
cameras that were set up to monitor this abuse. They
were of such a level that it's thought that perhaps
this was something bigger than just Barbara up there as
Anika watching it for her own pleasure, or you know,
(37:17):
could it have been somebody else also watching it? Was?
Speaker 1 (37:21):
Yeah, was there more to this story? And that I
think is the most frightening aspect of this because that
is largely the question upon which our story ends. Publicly,
no one really knows what happened. Somehow Joseph Scala escaped.
(37:42):
He was never charged with a crime, just like Kaiser
Souse disappeared. His whereabouts are unknown as we record this.
We don't even know if he was actually the doctor,
which I wanted to ask ask everyone, do do we
think it's possible that, in addition to impersonating these different people,
Barbara herself could have been the doctor, like with a
(38:06):
hidden phone sending text messages or something. I don't know,
because then she did meet Clara, did meet somebody in
the car, right yeah, ooh, so you have to wonder.
We do have good news of a sort of all
the people who are charged in this trial, Clara, Katerina,
(38:26):
jan Turik, Hanna Bosova, Jon Skila and his sister Barboris Sklova,
all of them were found guilty and they were all sentence,
but they have all served their sentences already and they
live free somewhere in the world, at least as far
as we can find. Barboris Sklova was released from prison
(38:49):
in twenty twelve, and now people believe she's either been
living in South Moravia or a place called Berna, Brno.
The most recent reports show that she is living under
a new name, no longer plays the piano. She was
noted as a talented pianist. She's under the monitoring of
(39:12):
the Probation and Mediation Service or Medication Service. According to
the psychiatrist who observe her, she has severe mental difficulties
and she often appears to switch between one or more
of her previous young male personalities. Here's another thing to
add to that troubling possibility, that breadcrumb of a larger
(39:36):
ring people. She has more more young personalities than Anika
Anna r Adam. Yeah, she exhibits multiple ones.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
And is that because she has been she's infected other
families in the past.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
Earlier we said that she was analyzed and there were
no signs of multiple personalities. Cazophrannia like calculated even more
or is this like a project monarch?
Speaker 1 (40:04):
Thing. Yeah, something is placed upon psyche.
Speaker 4 (40:09):
Good god, this story is the stuff of nightmares. And
I know this sounds really messed up to say, but
I would be interested to see this handled very artfully
in a film. Maybe it's too I don't know. Maybe
it's almost like giving a short shrift to the victims
to even consider making this into some kind of work
(40:31):
of you know, fictionalized account or whatever like that. But
it's just got all the intrigue and the twists and
like you could, Oh my god.
Speaker 1 (40:40):
I think there was some I want to say, when
we were working on this few years back, there was
some film that maybe borrowed aspects of the story, but
I think maybe it was just they were borrowing the
idea of an adult impersonating a child so successfully for
so long.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
It's the it's called orphan.
Speaker 1 (40:58):
Orphan, that's what it is.
Speaker 2 (40:59):
It was available like not that long ago at least,
and I don't think it came out that long ago either.
Speaker 1 (41:05):
Two thousand and nine, Yeah, two thousand and nine.
Speaker 2 (41:08):
Okay, oh god, that's it's over nine years ago. We're all, yeah.
Speaker 1 (41:15):
Yeah, but you know, maybe we're aging like wine or
a good cheese, like fine wine, like fine a minor
fine cheese.
Speaker 2 (41:23):
Those tannins are really shown up.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
So at this point, unfortunately, this story is probably not over.
But this is where the path drops off. We don't
know much else about what's happened. We do know that,
according to the psychiatric reports, while Barbora has stopped playing
(41:45):
piano near as much, she does spend a lot of
time drawing quote, very morbid pictures. As for what happened
to this group, this possible cult, whatever you want to
call them, Where the leader is, if the leader exist,
if the so called doctor exists, what their plans are
for other children or other families. For now, it's something
(42:09):
they don't want you to know. It's a relatively successful conspiracy.
Speaker 4 (42:14):
And that's something that I'm perfectly happy to close the
book on for today, because geez, the lease.
Speaker 2 (42:20):
I remember the feeling in twenty fourteen when I finished
the video. I didn't ever want to think about this
ever again.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
And here we are, and here we are.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Pull you back in, Matt, Well we got through it.
Speaker 4 (42:34):
Well, you're an intrepid traveler, my friend.
Speaker 2 (42:36):
We've made it through guys, all of us.
Speaker 1 (42:39):
We can end on a completely unrelated different note that's
not near as suppressing. Okay, scary, here it is. We
want to thank Spencer C. Schlooter who dropped by our
community page here's where it gets crazy and hipped us
to an amazing story that I did not believe at first,
(42:59):
even though it's in Time magazine.
Speaker 2 (43:03):
It's titled the US military believes people have a sixth sense.
That's cool, yeah, intuition. Since twenty fourteen, the Office of
Naval Research apparently has embarked on a four year, three
point eighty five million dollar research program to explore premonitions,
(43:25):
intuition or what we have on this show before called
spider sense. That's right, and specifically they're looking at it
for I was going to say for use, or looking
at it in application to apply to sailors and marines,
people who are actually in the fighting force, and or
people who are surveilling.
Speaker 1 (43:43):
We should do an episode on this. What do you think? Yes, agreed,
a sense that we may that's the worse joke. Well,
thank you so much for listening, everybody. Enjoy is the
wrong word, but we hope you have found this as
strange as we have this story. Let us know if
(44:05):
you have any updates on the Kurum case or the
case of the ants and let us know if you
have found stories in your neck of the woods that
are similar.
Speaker 4 (44:16):
I know this goes without saying, but if you suspect
a child, you know, a friend of one of your children,
perhaps is being mistreated. Any way, there are resources for
reporting this beyond just calling the police. I mean, there
are you know, people that can help absolutely.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
In the US and Canada, you can contact the Child
Help National Child Abuse Hotline. Its staff twenty four hours
a day, seven days a week, with professional crisis counselors
and interpreters that can provide assistance in over one hundred
and seventy languages. That hotline is one eight hundred for
(44:53):
a child or one eight hundred four to two two
four four five three.
Speaker 4 (44:57):
But if you feel a child is in imminent d
sure you know, call call it.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
Please, yeah, don't hesitate.
Speaker 2 (45:05):
And that's the end of this classic episode. If you
have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can
get into contact with us in a number of different ways.
One of the best is to give us a call.
Our number is one eight three three st d WYTK.
If you don't want to do that, you can send
us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
Stuff they don't want you to know. Is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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