Original subtitles

THE FOLLOWING EPISODE CONTAINS DESCRIPTIONS OF CHILD ABUSE

WHICH MAY BE DISTURBING TO SOME VIEWERS

[producer] Please introduce yourself.

[speaking Korean]

[interpreter] I am the heartless woman who caused the uproar

at the Baby Garden incident that occurred in 1996.

SUN YEONG-RE

FORMER MEMBER OF THE BABY GARDEN MOTHER OF CHOI NAK-GWI

I'm Nak-gwi's mother, Sun Yeong-re.

[traditional percussion]

[chanting]

[bells jangling]

I'm deranged.

I'm mentally ill. Completely insane.

[woman shouts]

[woman shouts]

Because Nak-gwi was very light-skinned,

everybody said that he was adorable and beautiful.

They all loved him.

[man 1] When I was investigating this incident,

one of the biggest questions I had was

"Who on earth was Nak-gwi's mother?"

[sighs]

Well...

I can't even call myself a mother. I can't use that word.

I'm a bad and horrible human being. I'm evil.

I wish somebody would just stone me to death.

I'm a horrible person.

I wish I was dead. I don't deserve to live.

- [producer] Stop it, please. - [sobbing]

I'm such a horrible person.

I just can't forgive myself.

After a period of silence, the religious cult has returned.

The Baby Garden's four cult leaders were arrested

for stealing money from their followers,

and murdering three of their members for disobeying their leader.

KIM KI-SOON FOUNDER OF THE BABY GARDEN

[newscaster] The leader Kim Ki-soon created the cult.

She deceived her followers

by promising them eternal life and heaven on earth.

Our sources say that she deified herself

and brutally assaulted followers who didn't obey her.

A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD BOY, CHOI NAK-GWI

STARVED FOR ONE WEEK AND BEATEN UP IN A PIGPEN

CHANGED HIS NAME FROM NAK-WON TO NAK-GWI AS "HE WAS POSSESSED BY AN EVIL SPIRIT"

TIED UP IN A PIGPEN AND FED HUMAN WASTE

[newscaster] Nak-gwi, the son of the cult member Choi Myeong-ho, was five years old

when he was beaten to death in a pigsty in 1987.

[Yeong-re sobbing]

[sighs]

I can't change anything about what happened.

I'm so ashamed to even be alive.

So ashamed.

[somber music]

[choral church music]

IN THE NAME OF GOD: A HOLY BETRAYAL

THE BABY GARDEN, ON THE WAY TO THE HEAVEN

[ominous music]

ICHEON

ARIRANG WORLD

SYNNARA

[man] Come out when you're done.

Jeong Hye-sun!

[group talking]

Come on, stop, wait a minute.

You need to do it fast and then come out.

[blows landing]

I don't want to watch it. I... I didn't know it was this bad.

It's horrible. I was just following orders.

I... I didn't know what was going to happen next.

It's so different to watch it this way.

It breaks my heart.

CHOI NAK-GWI 5 YEARS OLD AT THE TIME OF THE INCIDENT

My name is Sun Bok-re.

FORMER MEMBER OF THE BABY GARDEN, AUNT OF CHOI NAK-GWI

I am Nak-gwi's aunt.

I participated in the murder of an innocent boy.

He was my little nephew Nak-gwi.

1987 NAK-GWI'S DEATH

It was summer.

Back then, I was working at a factory.

My afternoon shift was ending.

I got a call. Kim Ki-soon wanted to see me.

She called me to her chambers and I sat by her feet.

She said that

Nak-gwi had pooped and smeared it all over the walls.

That he was possessed.

She said we needed to discipline him, but his mother was at work

and his father was gone, so then I had to discipline him.

She said Nak-gwi was in the pigpen.

[pigs grunting]

So I went there.

When I got there,

they had taken all of my nephew's clothes off

and tied him up.

He was left in the pigpen with his hands tied behind his back.

I couldn't leave because people... had followed me there

to see if I would do as Kim Ki-soon said.

So I had no choice but to follow her orders.

FORMER MEMBER TOOK PART IN THE BEATING OF CHOI NAK-GWI

I went to beat him up too.

I was brushing my teeth after lunch and people were looking for me outside.

They said that Nak-gwi had been possessed by Satan.

Agaya said we had to exorcise him.

So I followed them.

They said he should eat feces,

so I took some with my hands and put it in his mouth.

Then Nak-gwi pushed it out with his tongue.

He pushed it out twice.

[woman 2] Then she said each one of us should take a stick, line up and hit him.

- [blow lands] - [pig squealing]

[Bok-re] I think there must have been some nails attached

to the stick I used to hit him,

because he was bleeding.

When I saw the blood, I just tossed the stick aside and left.

Any other child would have cried out for his aunt.

They should have done something, they should have stopped it.

[woman 2] I hit him a few times. Everybody took turns beating him.

We said "Leave his body, evil spirit. How dare you come here, Satan?"

We kept beating him up.

- [blows landing] - [pig squealing]

SIX DAYS BEFORE NAK-GWI'S DEATH

AUGUST 8, 1987 THE BABY GARDEN, ICHEON

[mournful music]

FORMER MEMBER WITNESS OF CHOI NAK-GWI INCIDENT

I remember well that it was summer break.

I don't know exactly what I did wrong, but I was told I was no better than a pig.

I lived in that pigpen the entire summer.

Nak-gwi was already there when I got there.

NAK-WON: NAK-GWI'S ORIGINAL NAME

Tied up.

What really sickened me,

no food was given to him all day.

Not even water.

There was... this pipe that pigs drink from. Water only came out if you pressed it.

So I gathered water in my hands

to help Nak-gwi drink some.

[woman] He wasn't there for more than ten days, but it was at least a week.

One night he went to the kitchens, he was hungry.

He went there and said, "Ma'am, I'm hungry."

[Yeong-re] It's pretty far away, even for a grown man.

PIGPEN, DINING ROOM

He was probably hoping there'd be some food left,

so he walked all the way there, because he must have been very hungry.

The kitchen lady went straight to Kim Ki-soon, saying "Agaya, Agaya!"

"I think Nak-gwi is really possessed by a spirit."

"He hasn't had anything to eat,

but he still has the energy to come all the way here."

So they immediately took him back and tied him up.

They didn't even let him drink water. They just tied him back up.

When I learned that, I was...

After two days, Kim Ki-soon beat him up again,

even though he was too weak... to cry.

I saw her hit him.

I saw it right in front of my eyes.

[pigs squealing]

She was hitting him, but he couldn't even scream.

He was hit so many times.

He should have been screaming in pain, in tears,

but he just couldn't.

[blow lands]

Instead, he had his eyes wide open. I remember that.

But he wasn't really looking at her.

He was just a baby.

He was an innocent child.

It looked like he didn't even know

why he was there.

After that, Nak-gwi left us,

and that was it.

SUN BOK-RE, AUNT OF CHOI NAK-GWI TOOK PART IN THE BEATING OF CHOI NAK-GWI

I knew I would remember that day. It was pouring rain.

I saw my nephew's shoe outside the bathroom.

AUGUST 14, 1987

When I saw that shoe, I couldn't believe that my nephew had died.

[Yeong-re] When all that happened, I was at the market.

I found out about the incident

the day after he died in the pigpen.

Kim Ki-soon asked me to come see her.

AUGUST 15, 1987

She said "Nak-gwi is gone. He's dead."

"When he died, his face was twisted like a cat's."

She said, "I need somebody to be a scapegoat to teach people a lesson."

"And there are other parents that are very faithful."

"Since your family joined last,

and don't have enough faith,

it would've been hard for you to stay here without sacrificing Nak-gwi."

"But now, you will receive the blessing of the heavens

because of Nak-gwi's sacrifice."

"You should cooperate in this matter."

"Just do as I say."

1987 NAK-GWI'S DEATH

1978 THE RISE OF KIM KI-SOON

THE DANCE OF HEAVEN, SPINNING NAKED

[newscaster] Ms. Kim Ki-soon was one of Pastor Lee's best students.

Lee sparked controversy by dancing naked with his followers

at a worship ceremony in the late '70s.

NAKED WORSHIP PASTOR LEE KYO-BU

Ms. Kim's worship ceremonies,

where she sings popular songs while wearing thin, see-through pajamas,

seem to be influenced by Pastor Lee.

[man] I knew Lee Kyo-bu very well when he worked as a pastor

in Iri Jeollabuk-do during the '70s.

YANG BONG-SIK, REPORTER AT AMENNEWS.COM REPORTED ON THE BABY GARDEN INCIDENT

He taught a life of integrity, sacrifice, and morality.

I believe Lee Kyo-bu had about one thousand followers.

If Kim Ki-soon is building the new celestial kingdom,

then I will go there to be with her.

How should I put this?

LEE KYO-BU SPIRITUAL TEACHER OF KIM KI-SOON

Kim Ki-soon was one of the followers who used to come to my assemblies.

She was one of the church members.

She said, "I respect you just as much as Jesus."

She said she would follow me.

Even other people thought that she was like that.

[all calling out]

She was orphaned at an early age.

She was poor. She wanted to study hard, in order to achieve glory and honor.

After she married the son of a pastor and gave birth to a son,

she could no longer fulfill her dream.

KIM KI-SOON FOUNDER OF THE BABY GARDEN

I think she had a lot of regrets because of that.

And then, suddenly, incredibly,

people started following Kim Ki-soon instead of Lee Kyo-bu.

I wasn't originally one of Kim Ki-soon's followers,

and Lee Kyo-bu was somebody who lived a pure life.

In some ways, he actually set a good example for other people.

I was one of Mr. Lee's followers because I loved listening to his teachings.

FORMER MEMBER

CULT PASTOR ARRESTED LOCKED UP AND BEAT EIGHT PEOPLE

Back then, I ended up in jail for two years and six months.

After that incident, Pastor Lee went to prison.

And while he was gone, Kim Ki-soon appeared and took over the preaching.

A lot of people thought that the spirit of Mr. Lee had moved on to her.

Shortly after, Kim Ki-soon realized,

if she used my name, she could take advantage of that.

Those people would follow her, even to a pit of fire, to their certain death.

It wasn't very hard for Kim Ki-soon to win over Lee Kyo-bu's community.

She said she had gone to visit Lee Kyo-bu in prison,

and that he asked her to personally take care of his followers.

[wistful ambient music]

When she came back from prison, she told us about the conversation with Lee Kyo-bu.

KIM SEONG-KEUN FORMER MEMBER

She told us that Mr. Lee himself had asked her

to take care of us, lead us and keep us united.

She said that Kyo-bu was like a matchmaker who matched her with the community.

She said, "He's like John the Baptist of the old days."

"But I'm here now, so you must follow me."

[Bong-sik] That was the beginning of Kim Ki-soon's rise to power.

She became the leader while Lee Kyo-bu was away.

She told us to call her by the name "Agaya."

[choral church music]

[Yeong-re] She said "I'm Agaya, a three-year-old baby."

She couldn't go to Heaven unless she was a child.

[woman] When we sang songs, we had to look at her.

While we sang hymns too, we looked at Agaya.

[woman singing in Korean] ♪ O, great and amazing peace ♪

♪ It is a gift from Agaya ♪

It was first called The Garden of Eden, but then she changed it to Baby Garden.

BABY GARDEN COLLECTIVE FARM

1978 THE RISE OF KIM KI-SOON

1982 THE BEGINNING OF THE BABY GARDEN

THE BABY GARDEN, ICHEON, GYEONGGI-DO

[calm, romantic music]

She said, "I will create heaven on earth."

LEE SOON-BOK FORMER MEMBER OF THE BABY GARDEN

"We're all one family. We're all brothers and sisters."

And we believed her.

At first we lived in our own homes, but then we lived communally.

She tricked people. She said the apocalypse was coming

and only her followers will enter the millennial kingdom,

so basically, the only way you could save you soul was in Baby Garden.

I remember she said, "Only the chosen few may enter the kingdom."

And that's how about 300 or 400 people decided to live communally.

[woman singing in Korean]

[gentle piano music]

You must all realize that this is actually love.

People all around us say that it's love, and they're not wrong.

It is love. This is proof of that.

In her mind, Kim Ki-soon had created a doctrine back then.

HOUSE OF LOVE

It was simply called "Love."

In order to go to this... kingdom,

where you can live forever, all you had to do was love.

[Ki-soon] Now, I will open the door of love.

She emphasized love and said God is love.

When she said those kinds of things, people totally believed it.

When I heard her, I really thought it was heaven on earth.

I lived there thinking it was heaven.

FORMER MEMBER OF THE BABY GARDEN

I truly believed that my soul would live for eternity if I stayed there.

THEY ALWAYS SAID I'LL BE ABLE TO LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER

WITH THE PEOPLE I LOVE WHEN THE WORLD ENDS

SO I STARTED FALLING INTO IT MORE

KIM KI-SOON TOLD US THAT HIGHLY EDUCATED PEOPLE

LIKE PROFESSORS AND DOCTORS

WOULD KNEEL BEFORE US AND SERVE US LIKE WE'RE KINGS

[in Korean] ♪ The door of love Has opened ♪

♪ It has opened ♪

[man joins in] ♪ Chase ♪

♪ Love ♪

[shouting]

We need to love!

We all must love!

My sisters and brothers who are wearing these ceremonial robes.

My brothers, who have received the baby's blood!

- That's me. - Love is not missing from anyone!

Agaya, Agaya, let us love.

She was my God and my Ruler, my Jesus.

I thought she was the Second Coming of Christ.

OUR AGAYA WHO ART IN HEAVEN, HALLOWED BE THY NAME

THY KINGDOM COME, THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

[man] To Agaya, the Ruler of Love.

We offer you glory and praise.

Ruler of Love.

We dedicate our laughter, our singing and dancing to you.

[man] That's just how people work.

When you respect someone like they're God,

everything they do seems beautiful and good.

We all thought that she really was God,

so we couldn't find anything wrong about her.

[chuckles]

That's why I danced and danced so much.

[producer] With Kim Ki-soon?

Yes, I think I was the one who danced with her the most back in those days.

[gentle piano music playing]

[man] We will become your eternal source of joy.

Oh, Agaya, you are so beautiful.

[choir singing]

Kim Ki-soon told followers to go out into the world and make money.

In order to build the millennial kingdom, she needed cash.

[Sun-bok] We were very enthusiastic.

Back then, we didn't have much.

So the people who had more sold their belongings and shared with all of us.

[man] Literally everybody who went to live there

gave her their money when they joined.

Back in 1980,

I took three million won and gave it to her.

The price of the land was around 18 million won,

plus the 40 bags of rice.

I gave nearly 20 million won.

I just wanted to give her everything that I had.

We didn't have money.

Not only us, but also my husband's family didn't have much.

So the option they offered us, since we had no money,

was to work for the community.

So we got on with it. We got up very early every morning,

and we started selling fish cakes and gimbap lunches.

We went to work on a daily basis, even if it was pouring rain.

We never missed a single day of work.

We really tried our best. I don't think I could have worked any harder than that.

FORMER MEMBER OF THE BABY GARDEN

There were about 300 people in the community.

We started out by learning how to fix basins.

Then I woke up very early in the morning to sell gimbap and tempura rice cakes.

Honestly, I barely slept.

[chanting]

Sticky rice cakes!

Buckwheat jelly!

[laughs] I kept chanting that, even though it was completely quiet outside,

and then someone would yell back, "Hey, sticky rice cakes!"

And I would race up to their apartment and make a sale.

Sticky rice cakes!

Buckwheat jelly!

Sticky rice cakes!

ESTABLISHING THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM

[man] With everybody working, she made a lot of money.

DAEWOL-MYEON, ICHEON-GUN, GYEONGGI-DO

And with that, she was able to buy more and more land.

On December 19th, 1982, she bought some land in Icheon for the first time.

[Seong-Keun] She went there, took a look at the empty fields and mountains.

She wanted a place to build houses on,

so she bought hundreds of thousands of square feet.

When Baby Garden was established, we took part in construction with our own hands.

The followers built everything themselves.

[man] Every single building and house

was constructed by the labor of both men and women

who built everything with their bare hands.

The followers did all of it. We didn't hire anybody.

"We don't pursue pleasures."

"We will go to the eternal kingdom. Our very own heaven on earth."

[thunder crashing]

Baby Garden? I was living in the Devil's Garden instead.

My life ended up being the complete opposite

of what I expected when I first joined the congregation.

[newscaster] For most people, the stories of the victims

of the religious cult Baby Garden are beyond belief and imagination.

AN INHUMANE KINGDOM

A BIZARRE GROUP WITH BLIND FAITH LIVING ON A FARM

Forced to perform heavy labor from dawn,

any cult member could be killed if they disobeyed their leader.

Their lives were literally hell.

THE BABY GARDEN, THE GARDEN OF EVIL

Baby Garden wasn't one of the regular cults that one reads about.

KANG MIN-KOO, FORMER PROSECUTOR IN CHARGE OF THE CASE

They brainwashed ordinary people,

and put them to work almost like slaves or livestock.

[intense music]

THREE THINGS TO QUIT IN ORDER TO ENTER THE MILLENNIAL KINGDOM

[Bok-re] Compassion. Material goods. Sexual desire.

We had to give up those things to live forever in heaven.

TIES TO COMPASSION: AN OBSESSION WITH YOUR FAMILY

At that time, honestly, I would have done anything,

even kill my parents, if Kim Ki-soon had ordered me to do so.

We had to let go of compassion.

Regardless of whether it was your own child,

husband or mother.

Compassion made us weak, which is why we had to get rid of it completely.

You couldn't even call someone "honey."

You couldn't think of your own children as yours.

You had to think of them as other members of the Baby Garden.

Back then, the kids had to call their mothers "ma'am."

That's what they made them do.

SEVERING THREE TIES INCLUDING FAMILY TIES YOUR FATHER BECOMES A RANDOM MAN

She wanted to put the mothers to work,

but the children cried and clung to their skirts,

saying, "Mommy, I want this, I want that."

Kim Ki-soon couldn't stand the sight of that.

I HAD NO REASON TO CALL MY FATHER AND BROTHER

BUT I WAS TOLD TO CALL THEM "SIR," AND MY MOTHER "MA'AM"

I MISSED MY PARENTS SO MUCH, BUT I HAD TO CUT MY TIES WITH THEM

I HAD TO LIVE WITH ONLY KIM KI-SOON ALONE IN MY HEART

We had to live separately,

so all women slept among other women.

Men would sleep among men only. We never slept as families.

MEN'S ROOM, KIM KI-SOON, WOMEN'S ROOM

I had to start working as soon as I woke up.

Thinking back on it now, we were insane.

I must have been crazy, I don't know what I was doing there.

At that place, only special people were allowed to go to the hospital.

The rest of us took care of ourselves.

You had to have a severe illness to go to the hospital.

When our arms hurt from work, she told us to use moxibustion.

I would put moxibustion all over me, shoulders, elbows, and stomach,

as a healing remedy.

This is where they did it.

I have a big ugly scar from it.

Life became so hard because of this.

[man] When you get moxibustion,

the area, well, it starts oozing.

So I was itching while I was working, and I couldn't stand it.

There were a lot of aftereffects.

[woman] I felt like a squid over a fire.

It was painful and horrifying.

It was more painful than giving birth.

I have two big scars, two.

- [producer] Where? - [woman] My belly.

TIES TO SEXUAL DESIRE: AN OBSESSION WITH THE OPPOSITE SEX

Live alone. Let go of sexual desire. Love nobody.

To love God was good, and it was permissible,

but loving anybody else in this world was not correct.

It was a sin for men and women to date, or love each other.

FORMER MEMBER

If they did, then it would be called adultery.

IF A MAN AND WOMAN WERE INVOLVED IN SOMETHING RESEMBLING A RELATIONSHIP

THEY WERE TREATED LIKE SLAVES THEY WEREN'T EVEN TREATED AS HUMAN BEINGS

TO A DEGREE THAT COULDN'T BE SEEN ANYWHERE ELSE ON EARTH

Both women and men would become servants.

It didn't matter if they were older than her.

She would treat them like servants.

So the situation was that

unless Kim Ki-soon let them go, they had no freedom.

It was like they were in jail. They had to do everything that a slave would do,

like getting up very early in the morning to start cleaning.

They would sleep way less than the rest,

so basically, they lost all of their freedom and rights.

You had to keep your head down,

stare at the ground like a criminal.

[woman] I used to work with this one guy.

I began to depend on him emotionally.

Eventually, I liked him.

I was having a really hard time because of my feelings.

But then, Kim Ki-soon found out about it.

After that, I basically became her slave.

I had to wear clothes that were old and ragged,

and I had to work even when others were asleep.

Back then, beatings were frequent. She wouldn't do it in public, though.

- [producer] Right. - She would take you somewhere else.

Beat you with anything.

I even saw her using a chain once.

It was a bicycle chain.

She beat people up whenever she wanted.

But she forced their relatives to do it first,

saying the legal consequences would be less if a family member did it too.

If somebody else beat you, it would be grounds for assault.

But if it was a family member, you could say it was disciplinary.

There were kids hitting their parents.

[woman] How was it possible for a child to strike their own parent?

But in order to live there, both of us,

my older sister and I, had to hit our mother.

Kim Ki-soon said my mother had gone crazy because she was possessed.

And that my mother had met with one of the guys,

that she had hugged him and had sex with him.

She told us both to beat her up.

When my sister and I started to hit my mother...

[sighs]

...everybody else began to beat her too.

A lot of things happened there that are unthinkable for most people.

You really never knew who would rat you out.

Everyone was spying on each other.

That is why I decided to run away from home when I was in fifth grade.

[rail crossing bell ringing]

But some adults

from Baby Garden found me right away

and dragged me back to Icheon.

[poignant music]

It was in Icheon where Kim Ki-soon started to beat me up.

I was beaten to the point of death.

I was covered in bruises from head to toe.

She didn't miss a single spot.

[producer] What about your parents? Where were they?

Honestly, they couldn't interfere.

If they had tried to tell her to stop, it would've been worse.

We would've all been beaten.

My mom must have been hurting, but she kept silent.

You couldn't say anything to Kim Ki-soon.

It was absolute terror.

I lived in complete fear. Always.

She hit me all the time.

She got other people to hit me.

That was commonplace.

I was always afraid.

[Bong-sik] Some of the people who escaped Baby Garden

began to share their shocking stories.

They said Kim Ki-soon had slept with a lot of young male followers.

She forced everybody else to live a life of celibacy.

But for herself, she would pick the best young men.

She thought they were good-looking, but also healthy.

So she would indulge her own desires.

At the time of the trial, I wrote a news article about that situation.

MEN PLEAD FOR "LOVE MEETINGS"

Witnesses believed God touched them.

DANCES NAKED IN A LUXURIOUS BEDROOM

THROWING SEX PARTIES

She didn't do it with just anybody, she only let her favorites do it.

I mean, isn't it obvious?

What did she do with them behind closed doors?

I was young at the time.

I wouldn't just look away when she showed me her breasts.

In that moment, I started to suck on them.

I really thought that she was my lover.

There were a lot of young people back then.

Some were even younger than me. We were all in our 20s.

When she gave us a hug and patted us on the back,

we were absolutely ecstatic.

That display of approval made us happy.

[man 2] Kim Ki-soon likes really good-looking people,

and also very young.

At the time, we thought that our relationships with women and God

were one and the same.

How nice is it to think that God was your lover?

That's why we all loved her with such devotion.

When guys went in there...

FORMER MEMBER OF THE BABY GARDEN

...they were grunting and making noises.

I figured they were having sex.

- It was... - [producer] You could actually hear them?

Of course! You could hear them in there having sex.

There were always guys going in and out.

One guy would come out and tell another guy to go inside her room as well.

When they came out, their faces were flushed.

There were men who waited all night to go in there, but they never got to do it.

I don't think she spent a single night by herself.

Whenever they went in, the women got jealous.

Because we were born women, we couldn't experience her love like men did.

[laughs] We were all jealous, I wasn't the only one.

[door opens]

[somber piano music]

[sighs] I got special treatment back in Baby Garden.

FORMER MEMBER OF THE BABY GARDEN

Apparently, I was pretty handsome back then.

Some of the members got jealous because she treated me so well.

For example, she would be eating the nicest food,

then she would take a couple of bites

and tell me, "Come sit over here. Eat this instead."

The first time she called me, she was lying on her bed in her pajamas.

She wore pajamas that always showed her cleavage.

She said, "Wanna look?"

Then she showed me her breasts and told me to touch them.

She asked if I was shy, and she said she was Love.

She told me to take off my clothes.

First, she asked to take off my pants.

She told me to show her...

And that's when she sexually assaulted me.

God, I don't want to think about it.

Makes me want to throw up.

[man 2] Now that I think about it, she was strategically playing with us.

She deceived us while taking advantage of naive young boys.

Guys like me thought of her as a love interest,

so after we got a taste of those feelings,

we started working really hard for her.

[choral music]

It's absolutely unbelievable.

She basically enslaved each and every person inside that organization

for her personal wishes.

The unique thing about Baby Garden was its exclusivity.

They didn't evangelize.

Cults usually try to take in more people to attract them and expand,

but Baby Garden made money by exploiting their own members for labor.

With that money, Kim Ki-soon could do whatever she wanted in the world.

AN OBSESSION WITH MATERIAL GOODS

[man] I was basically a slave.

Kim Ki-soon's slave.

They put every single person to work.

If you weren't a salesman, you were a farmer.

If you were not a farmer, they would find you some other use.

Even the old women would help, trimming the vegetables and cooking.

Laziness wasn't allowed.

Sometimes I just wanted to take a nap for five minutes.

I got so sleepy out on the street. I needed to get rest.

Even if there was nothing to sleep on,

I wanted to nap on the ground for five minutes to make me feel better.

THIS FOOTAGE DOES NOT CONTAIN ANYONE FEATURED

[video narrator] On March 11th, at Jongno 3-ga Station in Seoul,

a boy dressed in ragged clothes boarded the subway train

and offered chewing gum and chocolate to passengers.

- [man] How much? - One fifty, sir.

[man] Ah, here.

[woman] They used kids to sell things, they made the children act like orphans.

Little kids in elementary and middle school.

They made them sell things to people.

"Go follow that person."

"Offer some to that lady over there."

They even made the kids beg. All of them did it, every single one.

[wistful music]

FORMER MEMBER

None of my kids had the chance to go to high school or anything.

FORMER MEMBER

Some of them were good students,

but they were not sent to school,

despite having potential to thrive.

She said we didn't need to learn anything else.

We were at God's kingdom.

She actually forced us to stop studying.

So I dropped out of school during the summer break

of my first year in middle school.

"You don't need school. The world is ending."

She didn't let them study.

On the other hand, her own kids were doing great.

They went to college, and even studied abroad.

Of what I remember,

none of us were getting paid.

I didn't have access to my bank account, I didn't even know I had one.

They opened bank accounts in our name.

They kept the checkbooks. They handled it all.

They managed our bank accounts and we lived on whatever they gave us.

That's just how we lived, working whenever they told us to.

Using her followers' offerings, the leader Kim Ki-soon

established a company called SynNara Distribution,

a very influential company in the music industry.

[man 2] SynNara Distribution was established in 1982,

achieving spectacular growth that has spread to rural neighborhoods,

making records available to everybody.

Back then, she wanted to start a record business.

RECORDS

She bought wholesale vinyl records and cassette tapes in Cheonggyecheon.

She started selling them to record stores.

She didn't have anything else to spend our money on,

so she managed to save up a huge amount of money.

THE BABY GARDEN IS A "RECORD KINGDOM"

THE LARGEST RECORD STORE IN SOUTH KOREA WILL OPEN

SYNNARA MUSIC

[Sun-bok] They made... so much money.

I heard they were actually making...

FORMER MEMBER WORKED AT SYNNARA

...an unspeakable amount of money.

FORMER MEMBER WORKED AT SYNNARA

I think Kim Ki-soon's room was about one and a half thousand square feet.

And when we got the money,

two-thirds of that room was filled right up to the ceiling with all that cash.

[dramatic music]

I lived in terror.

[Min-koo] In the beginning,

I honestly thought that what was happening could not be true.

That's how shocking it was.

[woman] They're all dead.

Yoon Yong-ung, Seo Jong-won, Nak-gwi, Mi-gyeong, all of them.

It was completely beyond my imagination.

Still... it wasn't complete nonsense.

[dramatic music]

ALL INTERVIEWS USE REAL TESTIMONIES

TO PROTECT THE SUBJECTS' IDENTITY, SOME INTERVIEWS HAVE BEEN REENACTED