Original subtitles

♪

The fact of the matter is, if you're committed to a cult,

you're committing to leave.

My name's Steve. I am Barbara's husband.

Barbara Rogers says her boyfriend asked her to kill him

because he had gotten threats from an online cult.

In a world that doesn't make sense,

where your faith just doesn't hold up anymore,

Sherry Shriner is your one-stop shop for...

what the truth is.

I don't know the whole story.

I don't know if I even want to.

There is a clear pattern that this is something that happens.

This went down because Sherry Shriner.

I was at my sister's house when Mr. Pingilly called me.

And he told me that Kelly had killed herself.

Everybody turns, wounded shark-like,

on the person that they've decided

they're going to rip to pieces.

There was so much sickness, like,

mental health problems, in this.

I think Sherry Shriner is a predator.

♪

And like the epitome of evil.

♪

♪ [electronic]

♪ [electronic]

♪

♪

[Dispatcher] 5-21.

♪ [fireworks crackling]

♪

My name is Lucas Bray, and I was the on-call detective

during the week that this case came in.

I was asleep when I was awoken...

by one of our patrolman.

So, I called my partner in this case,

Detective John Bohrman.

He's a 25-year veteran in this police department.

[John] So, I got the call at home. I was asleep.

I actually live fairly close to,

to the address where this incident had happened.

I, I got in my car and I responded.

I met Detective Bray at a gas station

about 500 yards from the scene.

We had received a copy of the 9-1-1 tape and

we had listened to it.

[woman crying]

It's very... unusual.

It almost seemed like...

she made herself upset at certain points to get...

the attention of the call taker.

It was unclear by her statements in whether

he killed himself, she killed him,

or she was implying that he helped her kill him.

Like there was...

there was a lot of, lot of stuff going on, definitely.

She was saying the gun went off by accident.

And as she was, as she was trying to describe

what happened to the 911 operator.

John listened to it, and he had

very similar concerns that I did.

It just didn't seem right.

And there was things that we needed to investigate.

♪ [1950s style pop]

♪ NO MORE TEARS NO MORE TEARS ♪

♪ [NO MORE TEARS]

I don't think the Poconos has changed much since 1972.

It's a resort, it's a family resort area.

But, it doesn't have like an industry beyond tourism.

♪

I don't want to call it low rent 'cause it's not,

but it's got that weird vibe

that it's like a secondary place.

♪ NO MORE SILENCE OVER YOU ♪

Hi, my name's Tony Russo. I'm a journalist and author.

I'm working on a book.

It's about Sherry Shriner, and all of the

horrible things that happened around her.

At the end of the day, I just want to make sure that

I get to tell people's stories and not just important people.

So, as a matter of fact, specifically

not important people's stories.

I first heard about Barbara Rogers and

Stephen Mineo in 2019.

My initial reaction was, oh, look, crazy people.

And then I started looking into it and,

there were just more and more layers to be uncovered.

And it took me all the way, you know,

to Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania.

And, when I came into town, it,

it's a very depressed town.

[birds chirping]

Just not tidy in the way you think of these picturesque,

little mountain towns.

The Poconos are mostly, mostly renters, mostly renting,

you know, people like Stephen and Barbara.

♪

[Detective Bray] So, we went to the scene.

Barbara Rogers was already in the back of a police car and,

we went in and inspected the scene.

It was a small house...

that Barbara and...

Stephen rented a room, not much bigger than

this office space, very small.

And, you had to go around the house to get to that doorway.

You wouldn't even know this apartment was there.

[Detective Bohrman] It was one room that was kind of...

doubled as a kitchen, slash, living room,

and then there was a bathroom and a closet.

It wasn't very big at all.

There was a bed in that room and,

Stephen was laying on the floor in front of that bed.

And, he had a bullet hole in his head.

[Bray] It didn't appear there were any signs of struggle,

or that she had done anything with the body or

any movement, anything like that.

So, I walked up to the car, I introduced myself to

Barbara Rogers, and I asked her if she could come back

to the station and talk to me about what happened.

♪

There may not even be a crime,

but it was obviously a case that

had to be investigated further.

Ok, again, Barbara, my name is John Bohrman.

I'm one of the detectives here.

Barbara, this is a tape recorder.

It tape records... our voice.

- Is that alright with you? - Yes, that's fine.

Ok. I know you went through a traumatic event tonight,

and I want to talk to you a little bit about that.

You're not under arrest.

So, after examining the scene,

listening to the 911 tape,

I had an open mind about what had happened.

I immediately went into the interview room,

and started talking with Barbara.

Can you, can you tell me exactly what happened tonight?

Tonight? Yes. Um, ok, it all started

I know that we were on Facebook,

and I think this might have been what triggered it.

He saw a bunch of bad comments from somebody named Marian,

putting that, you know,

that I'm a witch and a reptile.

And I think when he saw it, he got really angry,

and he commented, like, a whole bunch of comments.

And I kept telling him, "Look, just forget the whole thing.

Don't worry about it." And afterwards,

you know, I don't know after that,

I think that might have been what triggered him

to be this way, but then he's like,

"Come on, let's go to the bar, and, you know,

have a little bit of fun," and he seemed normal, you know.

We had, like, one or two drinks,

and everything was well, ok.

And then when we came home, he goes,

"You know, I need to practice shooting my gun.

Come walk with me into the woods."

So, he took his gun... He grabbed it,

he loaded it, he walked into the woods,

he fired a few rounds.

He goes, "Do you wanna fire one?"

And, I'm like, "No, that's ok", you know.

So, then, you know, we walk back into the house.

All of a sudden, he took the gun,

started putting it into my hand.

He goes, "Here, take it, point it at me. Point it."

He just starts grabbing it, the thing, you know,

he put it in my hand and he goes

"Point it at me, and shoot it right now."

That's when it went off, right there.

[Detective Bohrman] Ok.

[Barbara] And the thing is ever since he... [sighs]

There's a woman named Sherry Shriner...

and, ok, he used to be close friends with her.

And he used to follow her.

He was really good friends with her.

She runs a religious cult,

some type of weird religious cult.

- Ok, are you - And she's on Facebook.

And she talks about, like, aliens and stuff.

Are, are either one of you two in a cult?

Not anymore. See, we were both friends with her,

but then one day, out of the blue,

she just turned on us, you know.

When me and him got together,

she started turning on both of us.

What cult?

Is there a, is there a name for that cult?

No, they're just, they call themselves Orgone Warriors.

- Oregon? - Orgone Warriors. Yes.

Like the state Oregon? Or just--

Not Oregon. O-R-G-O-N-E.

Alright.

[crackling]

♪

Get the fuck-- that's the house! Oh, shit...

It's just weird 'cause I feel like I'm connecting to,

like, 2017 when, like, you know, I heard the news.

I saw all the, the video, with the state troopers

out front and stuff like that. It's kind of weird to, to like,

to be here in person. It's just weird.

You know, honestly, in a million years,

I wouldn't think Steve would've gotten shot and

killed the way he did.

And it's just, it's just so weird that he lived here,

that's where him and Barbara hung out.

And for him to not be here anymore,

you know, just the absence of him,

it's just, it's so strange to me.

I'm just, I'm glad I actually came here, man.

You know just to see the house, you know.

'Cause he asked me, man, he asked me so many times,

"Come out to the Poconos." And I always thought like,

"Ah, you know, in a couple of months I'll come out here,"

but I never got around to it.

And then he got fucking killed three months later.

I'm Charles Benincasa.

I was good friends with Steve for several years.

Steve and me both had similar interest in firearms.

We also had a similar interest in conspiracy theories.

And, we also had an affinity for, for, for,

for YouTube and putting stuff up.

Steve had a following on YouTube.

Hi, YouTube. This is Steve.

He's well known in the conspiracy theory world.

You know, some of his videos have over 100,000 views.

Now, Steve, right now, at the moment,

he's unemployed. [laughing]

Oh, you don't have to mention that.

Yeah, it sounds bad, but, you know what

[inaudible]

Listen, listen, unemployment's bad, right?

Yeah, and that zero jobs were created in August.

I met Steve in 2010.

He, for the most part, was always unemployed and

he would go through people's trash and find,

like, TVs, computers, and he would fix them up,

and then sell them on Craigslist.

And, that's the way he would support himself.

I mean, Steve always talked about, like,

going to the mountains.

You know, he really romanticized about it...

You know, growing up in Jersey, in New York,

you know, there's a certain tempo, you know.

The people are different.

And I think, for a lot of people,

Pennsylvania is an escape.

I personally feel like it attracts a lot of weirdos,

and a lot of misfits, the people that couldn't

make it in Jersey, in New York, you know.

Like Pennsylvania's your next best option.

The way he painted it was that he was

really happy out here, you know.

[sighs] I swear if Steve never met that girl, man,

he'd still be alive.

He'd be, he'd be in North Arlington,

calling me up about his crazy conspiracy theories, and...

[laughing]

He'd still be alive, man, he'd still be alive.

♪

Ties to a cult may have led to a fatal shooting

in Monroe County.

A woman is now in custody for shooting her boyfriend

in the head.

Police say 42-year old Barbara Rogers called 911

claiming she shot her boyfriend,

32-year old Stephen Mineo, and he was dead.

Rogers told police she and Mineo were members of

a cult centered on aliens and raptures,

headed by a woman named Sherry Shriner.

♪

Sherry Shriner started off on Blog Talk Radio.

I know that Sherry Shriner hated being called a cult,

but she also really liked it.

[Tony] The question for me became,

what about Sherry is worth following?

Why does anyone care what Sherry Shriner says?

I think the most important thing is

to deal with the reptilians.

I think once you kind of understand the reptilians,

the rest comes a little bit easier.

I mean, it's really very, you know,

early 1980s alien movie kind of stuff.

The new world order is a broad way that

people describe the vast conspiracy to control us.

There are a group of people who want

complete domination over the world.

And those people run the banks, the governments.

They run everything, right?

In Sherry Shriner's case, what's important is that

the devil is behind the new world order.

They're taking their orders from him,

from, from the devil.

♪

[Detective] I understand that this was an accident,

but I need you to be as specific as you can because

we have to compare the scene to what you're telling us.

[Barbara Rogers] Well, he took his gun.

He just starts putting it in my hand and

he's pointing it at his direction.

You know, he just goes-- he placed it in there and

he pointed it at, at himself, and goes,

"Here, shoot it right now," And it just went off.

So, where was he when he was saying that?

- In our house, right - But where?

Where in the house? On, on the bed? On the

We were beside the bed. We were standing there.

- Standing up? - Yeah. We were standing up.

[Detective] Standing, standing by the bed.

Did it go off by accident? Or

[Barbara] It went off on accident.

I was actually trying to let go, you know.

He was telling me, you know,

"I want you to point this", you know.

[Detective] How, how far would you say the gun was

from him when it went off?

- Maybe this far? - Was it...Ok.

So the gun from his forehead was about that far?

Yes.

So, the gun was a Glock 45.

The gun was laying next to him

approximately, maybe 5 feet away.

It appeared to me to have been placed on the floor

as opposed to falling on the floor from a suicide

or being thrown from the floor.

It, it appeared as if it was laid down on the floor.

[Detective Bohrman] Ok. So, when the gun went off,

try to think of where his hands were.

[Barbara] They could have been off of it,

but I know that we both had it on there at the same time.

I think he kind of pushed me away.

He did push me away.

But I could tell that was accidental.

I could tell by looking at the forehead,

the wound had a star-shaped pattern to the forehead,

which is typical of a very, very close contact wound.

The body, the way it was positioned...

it appeared to be that Stephen had been sitting

on the floor when the gun went off.

Are you sure he was standing, because...

you sure that you guys weren't sitting on the floor?

Or he wasn't sitting on the floor?

None of us were on the floor.

We were both standing.

Or sitting on the bed?

No, we were not sitting on the bed.

- Both standing? - Mhm.

When Barbara told me that she and Stephen were

both standing when the gun went off,

it was probably the first indicator that something

wasn't completely truthful here in this story.

That was not consistent with what I had seen from the scene.

It was almost sure to me that he had been sitting

on the floor when the gun went off.

[Detective] Um, I, I'm gonna step outside for a minute.

♪

[Barbara gasping]

[voice of Barbara Rogers]

[voice of 911 dispatcher]

[Barbara sobbing]

One of the things that struck me,

the first time I heard it, it's just clear that

she's not all there.

And I mean, I don't blame her.

I've never seen anyone's blood, you know.

I've never seen anyone get shot in the head by me before,

but I would imagine it's disorienting.

So, you know, she gave the wrong address,

like, she's all over the place from the get-go.

We've got a woman who shot somebody in the head and

has no blood on her.

And we've got a 20-minute lag time between her shot,

as she tells it, and the time that she calls the police.

Of course, it wasn't 20 minutes,

it was 20 seconds.

I mean, maybe as she said, you know,

"Maybe I sat there crying for a little while".

But I can't imagine what that stress is like.

An out of place dead body is disorienting enough,

let alone one that was alive and then dead,

and she was there for the transition.

And, it snapped something in her.

She's just not really in touch with what's going on anymore.

I think her memory got broken when she shot Stephen.

♪

At some point during the interview,

Detective Bray came in.

Sometimes a different interviewer

will spark a different response.

I, like I said before, I think you're a good person,

but there's more to this that you're still not telling me.

It's not matching with what's over there.

Not matching with what's at the scene. Ok?

So... part of what,

part of what we found over at the scene

is that he wasn't standing when you pulled the trigger.

He was sitting on the floor next to the bed.

[Barbara] Sitting on the floor?

[Bray] It looks like he was sitting on the floor with

his back against the, against the bed.

[Barbara] No, he, he wasn't.

I'm confused. He was not on the bed.

He was stand He was clearly standing.

[Bray] Ok.

[Bohrman] It looks, it looks to me like you did this on purpose.

No, no, I promise.

And, and, and on purpose doesn't mean that, like,

you thought about this in the morning and

you thought this is gonna happen,

but it was just a spur of the moment thing.

You were mad.

You did this, and now you're sorry about it.

- Is that possible? - I don't know.

I remember him standing up.

He placed the gun in my hand.

It, it, it That doesn't, that doesn't match.

My experience is when someone lies about

small details, sometimes they're lying about

large details too.

Sometimes, somebody can make an honest mistake also.

It's possible that she could have made a mistake like that

because this is a traumatic event.

He, he's sitting on the ground,

you put it right against his head,

you pulled the trigger. That's what matches.

[Barbara] He was sitting on the ground?

[Bohrman] Yes. And I understand why,

why you're trying, your mind is trying to change it.

But in reality, you know what happened.

And now, like, if you want me to believe

you're sorry about this, you have to tell the exact facts...

[Barbara sighs]

Right? You did this on purpose.

I would never shoot him on purpose.

But now I think it's possible he could have

been sitting on the ground.

You know, everything just happened so fast.

But see how many times you've changed the story

already with me now?

Like, it's easier to tell it right the first time

than to change it a couple times.

As the inconstancies mount, as there's more and

more of them, then, then it, it makes me believe

more and more that she's lying completely.

So he's sitting on the ground, right?

Now you remember that?

I think it's, it's possible, but I just, I don't know.

I remember him standing.

But it's possible that he was,

he could have been sitting on the ground.

And you put it against his head and

you pulled the trigger.

It wasn't, it wasn't an accident.

I'm not saying you wanted to do it,

but it wasn't an accident.

You did it on purpose. Right?

Well, I, I didn't mean to do it on purpose.

I'm not saying you meant it.

I'm not saying what you meant to do.

I'm just saying what actually happened.

And that is you, you, you, you put it at his head and

you pulled the trigger on purpose.

Right?

Only a couple of days after Stephen died,

Sherry went online to tell everyone that

God had spoken with her, and had revealed

what really happened in the room that night.

And it's... it's weird.

[Tony] According to Barbara,

Stephen and Barbara met online...

through the Sherry Shriner group.

It's not uncommon.

Someone sees something they like.

Somebody thinks somebody's cute.

They make a comment, and then they,

they go from there.

♪

I remember him telling me that,

you know, he got a girlfriend,

which was a shock to me because the many

conversations Steve would have,

usually scare people away.

And I think in a lot of ways,

it hurt his ability to form relationships.

[Stephen] I make something called Orgone.

I have a belief that it does certain things.

It's harmless.

If you're human, it won't hurt you.

This is what orgone is. It's like a paperweight.

It's not a bomb.

There's nothing harmful about this.

[Tony] One of the things his mother told me was that

he was very, very shy around girls.

When a mother says that, I feel like it's kind of

a code for, he didn't know how to talk to girls and

he didn't go out a lot.

When he got with Barbara, I was very shocked, you know?

And I, I almost felt like, well,

if he's with Barbara, there's gotta be more to

this story because a normal person

wouldn't get into a relationship with Steve.

I felt that there has to be an agenda.

And, I saw, I remember seeing the pictures of her,

and I remember him telling me

he's the happiest he's ever been.

And I remember just looking at her pictures and

finding it very odd.

I think it was the darkening of the eyes,

the, just the, the long face.

Very emotionless.

The photos, it just, it didn't sit right with me.

And I was like, she looks like a witch.

That was my first take, she looks evil.

A buddy of mine who's not a conspiracy theorist,

ok, and I find him to be a fairly logical person,

also said she looks like a witch.

I'm like, yeah, you know, there's something off.

But in a way, I was happy for Steve, you know,

that somebody had similar views to him and

somebody can relate to him, so I was happy for him.

But, I always knew in the back of my head that...

something was amiss.

It was Steve's first serious relationship.

And, a lot of people know how that is,

when you get into your first serious relationship,

how powerful that is.

And, I just remember thinking to myself, I hope Steve's okay.

I hope she's not going to, like, rob him.

My thoughts weren't, she was going to kill him.

Maybe Steve has something that she wants, you know?

And she's going to use him to get something out of him.

That's my opinion.

♪

[Detective] How far away from him were you...

when you shot him?

I don't know, it could have been this far.

The gun was probably touching his head, right?

I would imagine the gun was almost touching

his forehead, if it was not pressed against his forehead.

I think, I think it was pressed against his forehead.

I think you pulled it on purpose.

In fact, I know that you pulled it on purpose.

I don't think that you were planning this,

but I think that's exactly what happened, correct?

[Barbara] It might, yes, that, that could be right.

Why, why is the gun on his forehead?

Could things have happened?

Could he have put it on his forehead as she was

trying to get it away, and then an accident happened?

Yes. There's always some possibility that

there could've been an accident. But she never--

that's why a lot of this investigation...

...was on her. She needed to tell us what happened.

He might've given you the gun because he was mad.

But he didn't ask you to shoot him.

[Bray] Is that what she said first, that he asked her?

[Bohrman] That's what-- she had said that originally,

but she changed that.

[Bray] Can you clear that up for me?

Just so I understand.

At first you said he wanted you to shoot... him?

[Barbara] He-- Yeah, I did say that.

I think he did say something like that.

He said, "Here, I want you to " He just put my hand,

he put it there, and he said,

"Here, I want you to shoot this gun."

I think from there, it did accidentally go off

when he put it in my hand.

I didn't think it was gonna hit him.

Part of the investigation with Barbara and some of

what she initially purported was that he had to

show her how to shoot this gun.

And, it was an accident. It went off by accident.

She had military training in firearms.

She would know how to shoot a gun.

Could you stand up and show me what you mean?

Because it will help me.

So, if-- we'll say this wall is the edge of the bed.

Where is he and where are you?

I guess he, he would've been here and then I,

I would have been here.

You know, he hand-- handed me the gun.

He said, "Point it".

And I think the second, the second I did that,

yeah, I shot it and it went off.

Okay. So you're holding it down here.

That means he was sitting.

You remember now that he was sitting on the ground?

- Yeah, mhm. - Okay.

And you remember...

if he was sitting against that wall,

like that wall was the bed,

how close would you have been to him?

I think I was a little bit closer to him.

I could have been like maybe right here.

Okay. And so, show me with your hands,

how you would have been holding the gun?

Um, he put it in my hand and then I went like that.

So, where would, where would his head have been

at this point? About here? Or right next to it?

Because I want, I want you to be,

I want you to remember.

It seems like you're remembering now what happened.

- Yeah. - So, you show me.

I would think it was right here.

So, right next to his head? Like, if your finger,

make your finger the barrel of the gun.

Show me with-- where his head would be.

His head would be like around here.

Yeah, right here.

Ok. So you put the gun right up to his head?

- Yeah. [mutters] - Ok.

And then pulled the trigger, right?

Yeah.

So, that was good enough for me.

At that point, I went back to doing what I was doing,

and John continued the interview a little bit more.

At this point, we're gonna be charging you with...

criminal homicide.

Um, ha A lot of what you're telling me is a lie,

and I know that.

So, kind of, this is your last chance...

to tell me.

I don't know. What should I say?

The truth.

♪

My name is Jeff Monzo.

I was one of the attorneys that represented Barbara Rogers.

And, I'm Dick Galloway and I was the other defense

counsel in the defense of Barbara Rogers.

My first impression of, of Barbara was that

she was scared.

She was a little bit confused.

And certainly sad by what had happened.

She explained her experience with the police to us.

She explained the background with...

Stephen and Sherry Shriner.

And I remember being very struck by her...

her innocence.

When Barbara was interviewed,

she was interviewed for six and a half hours.

And this is a person who has mental health issues.

She hadn't slept in, I don't know what,

better than a day.

And, you see the mental health problem she has when

you watch that, because she sort of is trying to

figure out what really happened because,

obviously, this is a terribly traumatic event for her.

And her story, you know, the,

her version of it wanders around a little bit.

But they're telling her, in essence,

they don't believe her. They're questioning her.

And she begins, it seems to me,

to be questioning herself.

And that's what happens in interrogation.

She was under constant video and audio recording

the whole time she was there.

They would leave for periods of time.

You could see her, she'd say things like,

"I'm really cold. I'm really tired."

Detective Bray and Detective Bohrman

didn't like what they were hearing.

She told them 24 times that this was an accident,

and they would-- they simply refused to believe it.

And that interrogation wasn't going to stop

until as, as, as...

until she gave them some, at least inconsistencies

to doubt the credibility that it was an accident,

in my opinion. I believe that, that...

if, in fact, she changed her story,

that it was to satisfy them who were searching for

their version of events, and importantly,

searching for a motive that they never,

after 7 hours of interrogation, got.

[Bohrman] I do believe that she purposely pulled the trigger.

I don't know if she realized that that would kill him or not,

but I believe she purposely pulled the trigger.

I don't believe that it was an accident.

I don't believe that Stephen pulled it and shot himself.

We are confident at that point that we have the

right person and she murdered Stephen.

We were comfortable with charging her and

that she's the one that did it.

Like, we never really established a motive,

not that we need to establish a motive,

but I don't think that there was anyone else involved.

[Tony] I think the police saw it as an open-and-shut case,

and I think it may have affected the way that they...

proceeded.

I don't want to say for a second that

they weren't taking it seriously, but it's clear,

they want to solve...

the crime, but they don't want to understand,

they don't need to understand it.

♪

[clanking chains]

The police didn't have a motive.

Barbara didn't really provide them with one.

Couldn't, couldn't provide them with one.

The best that they could do was that Stephen was angry,

and wanted to die, because he got kicked out of that cult.

[Reporters] Barbara, is there anything you'd like to say?

Did you kill Stephen?

Do you have anything you want to say to us?

Did a cult have anything to do with this?

[News] According to court paperwork,

Rogers changed her story multiple times and

kept contradicting herself.

First, she claimed the victim asked her if she wanted

to learn to shoot a gun and had her put the gun

on his forehead and pull the trigger.

Then, she said she shot the victim standing up

from a distance, away.

And finally, she said the victim wanted her to kill him and

was undergoing a lot of stress due to problems with a cult.

♪

♪

[voice of Barbara Rogers]

[Stephen] This is what's happening right now!

If they were to listen to me over the years,

they don't understand, truth divides, okay?

♪

I don't think Stephen Mineo's fate

was sealed when he met Barbara Rogers.

There are plenty of scenarios where Barbara

doesn't kill Stephen.

But, I don't think there are very many scenarios

where Sherry Shriner doesn't betray Stephen Mineo and

drive him to the edge.

[Stephen] I felt like killing myself over this.

I felt like killing myself because of her.

♪

Hello?