Who is roch theriault

A sketch of cult leader Roch Theriault hangs on the wall of his abandoned log cabin in Burnt River. Writings in his journal reveal a tormented man tired of life. Report an error. Journalistic Standards. About The Examiner. The goal was to form a community where people could freely listen to his motivational speeches and live in unity and equality, and be free of sin. He moved away from being a motivational leader and, as his drinking problem increased, so did his controlling style of direction.

The norms of the group became more and more controlled. He feared for the end of the world and used the commune to prepare for it. There, he made the commune build their town while he relaxed. As he watched the group work, he compared them to ants working in an ant hill, naming the group the Ant Hill Kids. He fathered over 20 children with 9 female members of the group.

The group wore identical tunics to represent their devotion to the commune. In the group was relocated to Burnt River, Ontario. Roch became fascinated with the Old Testament, with its strict codes of masculine authority; he was also fascinated with Apocalypse, with its message of violent retribution for sin in the end times and the division of the human race into the elect and the reprobate.

He soon proved to excel at this. By he had amassed to himself a number of followers:. In , he and his followers attended an Adventist retreat on Lake Rosseau, in the woods of Muskoka, Ontario. The natural scenery of Lake Rosseau apparently made a huge impression on Roch. He said he had a vision in which the sky was lit up with a white radiance, and the voice of God told him that the outcropping on which Roch was about to kneel was a holy place. Here, they opened the "Healthy Living Clinic," an alternative medicine venue where you could get organic foods and holistic literature to help you cure any ailment — cash up front, of course.

Not only was he making money in this enterprise, he was also attracting followers. A strange dynamic took hold of the group, with all the women except Maryse Grenier, who hated being with the commune competing for Rock's attention.

The Adventists weren't convinced. Even when the police came, at the behest of the families of some of the girls, they refused to speak. Roch convinced M Auclair to let him visit Geraldine in the hospital, where Roch got in a loud argument with the doctors over the matter of Geraldine's treatment — particularly the amount of drugs they were giving her.

Roch convinced M Auclair to check the year-old cancer patient Geraldine out of the hospital and into the Healthy Living Clinic, where even Geraldine's own father was not permitted to visit. It was Geraldine's time. Solange invited her parents to the ceremony, and on advice from their priest they decided to attend, if only to show Solange that they still loved her. Some of the women in Solange's family wept — and not for joy. In June, , in spite of its financial success, the Healthy Living Clinic faced some serious problems.

First, there was the outstanding debts. Second, the constant police surveillance to which they had been subjected since Auclair's death. Third, the cutting-off of health food and missionary literature supplies from their former friends, the Seventh Day Adventists. Prognosis: negative. Recommended treatment: Move. They wandered from town to town, down the Fleuve Saint-Laurent, for a month.

They, the commune, would become God's chosen, but only if they made a righteous life for themselves in the scrub of these Appalacian foothills. The group set out on foot into the hills from the village of Saint-Jogues, on July 9, They hiked for two days until they found an isolated hill beside a small body of water called Lac Sec "Dry Lake". They erected a tent-town, spent a week retrieving tools from the cars, and then began construction on a large communal cabin.

They worked at least seventeen hours a day clearing the land, and occasionally getting supplies from the village. Jacques Fiset and Claude hacked at the ground with a shovel and pickaxe where the center of the cabin would be, working all summer to dig a well; when they finally reached the water-table, Roch declared it a miracle.

They worked in their tunics, and when tripping over these became inconvenient and dangerous, Roch commissioned new uniforms: dark blue wrap-around short shrifts. His role was much more important for their spiritual salvation: impressing upon his followers that everyone in the outside world, most especially their families, were active oppressors of the righteous, who were doomed to lie dead for all eternity for the unforgivable harm they had inflicted upon these poor, innocent souls. For some, this was all too much.

Roch did nothing to stop them, but made it clear that Faucher was evil in the eyes of God. When it was all done in September, the cabin consisted of a single open room with a floor made of pounded wooden rounds and with the well in the center, a ceiling made of mossy, twiggy bark-covered logs, and rooms consisting only of metre-high partitions and bedsheets hung as curtains.

This was to be their home until God began his thousand-year reign on Earth. He then began marrying the women to himself — including Gabrielle Nadeau, the twenty-year-old multiple sclerosis invalid, though apparently didn't try to have intercourse with her. He did have sex with his other "wives;" the rebellious Solange was the last to fall to his wiles.

The one exception was Maryse Grenier, the outsider. But they now had a very pressing problem. He claimed that he wasn't the "leader" of the group; that the commune was a democracy and that they lived "in peace and without any promiscuity. The authorities realized he was a delusional crank, but without any proof he was a dangerous delusional crank, they released him under his own recognizance. He began eating meat and junk food. He prostituted Gabrielle to a local grocer for some milk, meat, and cheese.

He also started drinking again after two years sober — first communion wine, then beer and cognac. He began to deliver long, rambling, drunken sermons. If anyone fell asleep, he'd smack their head with a four inch thick club.

A favourite punishment would be to force someone to strip naked and stand in the snow for a few hours. No one would fight back; it would be like raising a hand against God himself.

As for the others, all of this served only to make them more obsequious. They would write letters like this:. I am writing about what you said on the subject of nutrition. It is very true that I nibble, a damnable fault which I will never again repeat. The thought of ingesting such a large quantity of food in so little time discourages me, even if I work outside the entire day without eating.

I ask that you forgive me. If it is stealing, I did not realize it. It is this fault which causes my plumpness. I do not want to be a fat and plump servant. That is too ugly next to the man that you are. I don't know what to think about everything and the meaning of my actions. I only know that I will not repeat them. And I don't speak lightly. I wish to be a true servant to you, my Master.

Alert, vigorous, with a clear and lively spirit and well-balanced to serve you every moment of my life. Maryse Grenier began to talk about leaving. Don't you have any balls? If you want to be a man, you have to learn how to teach your woman a lesson. The prophecied day, February 17, came and went without any Second Coming.

Chantal Labrie's parents obtained a court order for a round of psychiatric tests for their daughter. When the family of other cult members tried to visit them to try to talk some sense into everyone, they were treated coldly and it was made clear they were unwelcome.

He claimed that he had saved these kids from the self-dissolution of drugs and put them on the right track. He was released from the hospital early, judged fit to stand trial for obstruction of justice, and given a one-year suspended sentence.

The media began to portray him as a gentle mountain man that had run afoul of a prejudiced industrial society. In the eyes of his followers, this only proved that he was an emissary of God, just as he said he was; if psychiatric experts couldn't find anything wrong with him from their position of objectivity, how could they, his most intimate family? Gabrielle Nadeau went into a coma and died shortly thereafter.

In early November, , Guy Veer joined the commune. He was the first new member of the group since the Healthy Living Clinic. Veer, of course, was not invited; his job was to look after those three outsider children. There are two versions regarding what happened that night.

According to this version, Samuel was crying that night and keeping Veer awake. Veer lost his temper, and started screaming at the child to be quiet. Then, picking the two-year-old up by the throat, he plunged his fist into the child's face five or six times. Allegedly, baby Samuel's head was flopping around on his neck, and his penis had swelled up. Rock took a pair of scissors, and after sterilizing them in alcohol, he lanced Samuel's penis to permit urine to flow out.

The next morning, Samuel was found dead. This is the account accepted by the courts. According to her, Samuel's face was bruised on the morning of the 24th of March, but there was nothing else wrong with him.

He used the ninety-four percent ethanol solution to do more than sterilize the razor, though; he also poured some into a rubber bulb, which he squeezed into Samuel's mouth for use as an anaesthetic. According to investigators the death was a homicide. Roch Theriault is shown in this file photo. Don't Miss false. Veterans in Iqaluit brave cold temperatures in ceremony. Excited dachshund frolics in neck-deep Sask. Group gifts handmade quilts to residential school survivors. Top Videos false.

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