Original subtitles

A Florida woman will face a trial on charges

she murdered her boyfriend last month in Monroe County.

Rogers says Mineo asked her to kill him because

he had gotten threats from an online cult.

[Tony] Five years before Stephen died,

there was another follower of Sherry Shriner's...

had a tragic death.

Her name was Kelly Pingilley.

I know that Kelly was struggling with her faith,

and she found Sherry Shriner.

It didn't stop after that.

According to Sherry Shriner's writings,

they started to have a bit of a falling out.

"Mom and Dad, I'm off to fulfill my destiny.

I love you all." Signed, Kelly M. Pingilley.

"Kelly's dead!"

I think Sherry Shriner is a predator,

and, like, the epitome of evil.

♪

♪ [electronic]

♪ [electronic]

♪

[bang!]

When we think of cult leaders,

we think of the Jim Jones', you know,

we think of these guys in robes with long beards and

a lot of followers around.

We, we think of retreats.

We think of people approaching the authors of

self-help books and asking for more guidance.

That's not how things are anymore.

Right now, if we want to know about something,

we go online.

♪

♪

[static]

People didn't go looking for Sherry Shriner,

they went looking for answers, and she provided...

a silver-bullet solution to all of their problems.

And that, if anything,

is what made her so attractive.

[typing clicks]

♪

[laughs]

Pretty much everything we know about Sherry,

we know because she told us.

Sherry started her online ministry early on in the 2000s

and, over the years, she grew it.

She has several twists on tedious conspiracy theories,

but then all of these people are dying, you know,

and why does anyone care what Sherry Shriner says?

Depending upon who you ask, Sherry is this evil cult leader,

or she's this con artist,

or she's literally the daughter of God.

You know, toward the end of her career,

she talked a lot about how she was this poor,

backwoods girl from central Ohio,

but it's not how she started out.

Everybody comes from somewhere...

so, I decided to look a little deeper.

♪

I received a phone call that asked me,

"Hey, did you see the story of what happened

with Sherry Coberly?" And, dude, I'm like...

I-- my brain couldn't even fathom what I was

seeing online with what I knew as Sherry.

I mean, it just, there's certain things,

you know, people change...

then there's some people that, like, whoa!

My name is Randy Sumner, and I knew Sherry Coberly,

which was her maiden name before she became

Sherry Shriner, during our time together as classmates

at Liberty University in the mid '80s.

I grew up in Ohio, not terribly far

from where Sherry grew up.

The same kind of Baptist fundamentalist

kind of background.

Exceptionally conservative.

We don't go to movies...

we don't do any dancing.

That was just kind of the culture,

particularly inside of Christianity

in that part of Ohio.

Sherry came from a very devout family who were

very serious about being in God's word,

living a Christian lifestyle.

Never in my wildest dreams could I have ever seen

where she turned along the way.

It's completely out of alignment.

It just doesn't make any sense.

[bell chimes]

Liberty University, when we first arrived,

had gone from a school that started with 21 people

in a classroom to, 15 years later,

already having 2,500 students.

They came from all 50 states,

came from over 100 countries around the world,

all gathered in one place, all with a singular goal

in mind to go change the world for Christ.

[bike bell chimes]

It was an exciting, exciting time.

At that particular time, Jerry Falwell,

who started the school, was on the air.

He was a leader in the Moral Majority.

Every Sunday morning, you flipped on the TV,

you saw the Old Time Gospel Hour, Jerry Falwell.

[Jerry Falwell] And whatever you need to be set free from today,

God can do it. Our country is in trouble.

Big time trouble.

From the highest level, we've gone bananas.

Any church that's doing God's work,

God's way will be in constant trouble.

Satan is alive and well.

He was a firebrand preacher though.

I mean, he had strong political convictions,

and he was not shy about sharing them.

The White House is a zoo. And the courts.

Yesterday, the Massachusetts court ruled that

two lesbians can adopt a child.

Now, you've gotta be a gross idiot.

I don't know where you went to law school, Your Honour.

That little child is doomed, simply because of your ruling.

That passion for Jesus, I think,

was a seed that was planted in her younger years.

But, it was watered while she was at Liberty,

under Jerry Falwell.

Because of the television ministry that was global

at the time, the broadcasting at Liberty was so unique.

And we had the opportunity, while we're still in school,

to be part of some operations that were being

broadcast around the world.

It is my sincere prayer that this video,

which you are now watching, will be a great blessing to you.

Because, we have received literally hundreds of letters

through the years from people like you,

whose lives have been totally changed

as a result of watching messages like these.

Ah, good evening.

[audience] Good evening!

I pray tonight God will just flood your soul

with blessings from above.

At this moment in time, this was a special place,

where you felt like you could take over the world,

and do it in a way where you're showing love and

showing what Christianity's all about.

♪

When Sherry arrived on campus at Liberty,

she came in with this big, blonde hair,

the '80s blonde hair, and she had this

big, sunny disposition.

She stood up immediately, said,

"Hey, I wanna be news director." Just like that.

I mean, the first person to really kind of speak up

while we're all still trying to figure out,

how do you run a radio station,

or a student TV station?

She knew exactly what she wanted.

She wanted to use her voice, and she wanted to

take her voice, and be able to change the world,

and let them see Jesus first.

Obviously, she took it a direction that most

evangelicals would not have fallen.

[Randy] Sherry thought it was all about herself.

"I've got a special direct line and understanding from God.

If you listen to me, you don't have to pay attention to

what the Bible says because I'm going to tell you

what the Bible says." The second you make that

move over, it becomes about a person instead of God,

that's when it gets dangerous.

What I can tell you is the heresy that Sherry was

presenting on her websites, her podcast,

is 100% counter to the gospel

the way that she learned it at Liberty.

[laughs]

♪

When we were at Liberty, we were considered outsiders.

Most of the rest of academia across the United States

would lean much more towards the left,

as opposed towards the right.

And we were about as far right as you could possibly come.

You find yourself ostracized.

They'll pre-judge you, based on the fact

of a particular ideology you happen to follow.

"Fundamentalist Christianity",

just those words, they evoke emotions in everyone.

[laughs]

When I knew Sherry, politics was her driving force.

Now, she had a Christian component to that,

but it was clear what she wanted.

She had strong convictions.

She wanted to be a voice that would change the world,

on a news network like CNN.

[Crew] Standby. Ready, three, take three.

Ready camera three, one center up.

Good evening, I'm David Walker.

And I'm Lois Hart. Now, here's the news.

[Randy] And that was her ultimate goal from the time

she was at Liberty, and tried to pursue that.

The fact that she was never quite able to land that big job,

it clearly had a big impact on her,

and probably changed her perspective.

Because, here's the thing, when you're young,

you feel like you can take on the world.

Then, suddenly, it becomes obvious you're not

going to be able to fulfill that dream.

Suddenly, now, you start questioning

a lot of different things in your life.

She wanted to work for CNN, she wanted to be in the news,

and it didn't happen. This is something that,

I think is, it's not uncommon.

Country girl goes to the city, fails, goes back home.

♪

She gets married, she has a couple kids.

And I think it was a kind of life that she thought that

she could escape by going to college,

and by getting a straight job, and things like this.

And, it just wasn't meant to be.

My name is MJ Banias.

I'm a journalist who covers cults,

conspiracy theories, and fringe subcultures.

As someone who covers cults...

you eventually stumble upon Sherry Shriner.

And it's almost like falling down the rabbit hole.

At the time, mid '80s, early '90s,

you would have had already a landscape of

rampant conspiratorial beliefs.

Roswell, a location of what some believe is one of the

most significant UFO sightings ever made...

[Host] On my Area 51 line, you're on the air. Hello.

[Caller] What we're thinking of as, as aliens

are us, they're extradimensional beings.

A kind of a reptoid race,

and they're not really friendly to us.

That's what I want to say to the viewers is, like,

if you've got the remnants of your religions,

pull 'em out. This is the time for it.

[MJ] And they would have explained to her, you know,

"The reason why CNN didn't hire you

is because you're not one of them."

♪

She's realized that the world is cutthroat.

CNN didn't want her, and...

maybe there's something wrong with CNN,

maybe there's something wrong with the media.

And so, she's stewing there, up in Ohio.

She had 4 kids, and she wanted to make a living.

"What can I do from home? What are my options?"

And, she hit upon this blogging thing,

and this was right when blogging was super hot.

And that was kind of how she started to gin up her following.

I think it's not unreasonable to say that she was

looking around for, how can she make some money online?

You know, this is where everybody is.

More ears, more dollars, more attention.

[Sherry] Hello, caller, you're on the air.

[Caller] I don't know how you get

people to open their eyes, Sherry.

If I say anything to 'em, they think I'm crazy too, so...

[Sherry] People do think you're nuts, but just keep talking,

keep planting seeds, and let the Lord handle it.

[Caller] My husband turned off the computer

'cause he thinks I'm crazy over all this.

They seriously said that they will put me in for

therapy or something, talking about all this.

When they come to get 'em, I'll say,

"I told you so."

[Sherry] Alright, well, thanks for calling in.

- Oh, man... - Interview, take two...

- Just blow your mind. - AB mark.

- Do not disturb. - That's great.

I'm Shane Pettman and,

I'd consider myself a renaissance man.

The things that I study are things that are typically taboo,

things where you talk about it and,

instantly, people sort of lose their marbles.

Like, "What, oh? What are you, some sort of a

tinfoil hat conspiracy whack job or something?"

Most people just spend hours every night

watching television, or drinking beer,

or doing whatever it is they do.

My escape was to study, to grow my mind,

to get lost in the information.

And so, I started studying about a lot of different

conspiracy things, you know, cryptozoology,

aliens, demons, fallen angels.

I've always craved all that information, but...

with the advent of the internet, it,

it opened everything up for people to be able to

research as much as they wanted.

People are going through things,

but they feel like they can't talk about it.

Like, demons, as an example.

They're plastered across all the television and the movies...

but you're not allowed to ask these questions

to your pastor. Why is that?

Why are you so scared to talk about it?

People are starving,

and they're hungry for this information.

So, approximately, I would say 2008 or 2009,

I probably heard some of the first things

I heard of Sherry's work.

I had some friends who were really close with Sherry,

and they're like, "Hey, you should come in this group,

and hang out, and you can maybe learn some stuff."

And so, I, said, "Sure, why not?"

I think one of the first things that I, that I came across

probably had to do with reptilians.

That's one of those things where people are like,

"Oh, reptilians, pfft, come on, buddy."

A normal human could go through a process

to be inhabited by one of these things.

They remember everything that happened in your life,

they're able to carry on as you,

but they're now in the driver's seat.

They look like people,

but they can transform into a reptilian form.

Yeah.

Yeah, I really, I really do believe that

these reptilians are-- It's, it's either...

fallen angels or a,

a bloodline of Lucifer, himself.

Christians lose their mind when you talk about it.

And then, you start looking into ancient civilizations,

and archeology, and there's these reptilian creatures

that are carved in all these petroglyphs,

in all these separate societies all around the world.

Like, why would they take the time to carve in these

crazy, ornate petroglyphs, if there's nothing to it?

There's too many unanswered questions to be like,

ah, I don't know.

I've had family members that have just blocked me,

all a sudden, gone, never talked to me again.

Because of the information that I researched.

One of the things that I saw from the beginning...

was that this is

a really easy story to tell in, like, a big way.

"Reptiles, and aliens, and crazy people," and

I wanted to stay away from that temptation because...

the story has gotta be more about what draws people,

why are people drawn to this?

So, Blog Talk Radio was where she said the stuff,

but she would put the shows on YouTube.

Sherry said the aliens were something like 90% of people

you see on TV.

Really anybody you don't know in person could be an alien.

And it's interesting because that sort of feeds into

more mainstream conspiratorial beliefs that don't say that

people on TV are aliens, but it does say that

they're evil, conspiring elites, or they're out of touch,

they have nothing in common with you.

The problem with conspiracy theories isn't that

they're wrong, the problem is that these people

know that something's wrong.

And they don't know how to address it.

♪

"You know, the government's lying, religion is lying.

I need someone who's gonna tell me the truth."

People who have had really, really,

really shitty lives can't explain it.

But then, if you say, "Well, the devil is making it

his full-time job to make your life garbage.

Your life is awful because you're so important."

It's easier to get up in the morning.

I think that Sherry's particular genius was

she was able to take all of these different beliefs,

all the conspiracy theories, and tie them together

under one umbrella and solve

everyone's problems with orgone.

So, whatever ailment you think you have,

orgone is the cure and...

Sherry's got a little bit of,

enough for you to be excited about.

♪

Sherry Shriner offers a very simple solution

to a very complex world.

As a journalist who started researching Sherry,

the first rule is you can never trust...

the person you're writing a story about

to tell their own story.

So, I began reaching out to some of the individuals

who were part of her movement.

A lot of them wouldn't speak to me.

They knew I was a journalist,

they wanted nothing to do with me.

I contacted an orgone seller

who was friends with Sherry,

they worked together producing orgone and

they sold it as part of their mission.

I posed as a buyer.

I explained that my family was

being harassed by some sort of force and,

my wife and my daughter were scared.

And they explained to me that this would definitely

keep my family safe from reptile aliens,

from demonic forces, from the devil himself.

This person was trying to sell a product.

That's what's offered in these cults.

It's not trying to really fix the problem.

It's trying to oversimplify the problem into one idea

that's easy to swallow and digest,

and, and go to war with.

But they're being manipulative and they're,

obviously, they're playing a dangerous game.

The Orgone Warrior aspect of Sherry Shriner's ministry

can't, can't be overstated.

These are people who feel like they have a mission.

These are people who are in an army.

And it's research during the day and then,

and then fighting it at night.

It's an empowerment that these people

would not otherwise have.

In Sherry's group, there was,

there was a variety of people from across the world,

to be honest with ya.

Single moms, dads, seniors, young people.

People you would never guess, right?

I guess the key thing that united all them is that

they were willing to just search out

some of this deeper information.

♪

People are curious and,

I think the chat room was where you just kinda...

you sort of sat at Sherry's feet.

Absolutely nothing is off limits.

And I think that Sherry put her life at stake

to get this information out there.

She was tortured on the sly with electronic harassment

and a lot of other really radical stuff because Sherry

had some really deep, nasty information that

they didn't want getting out there.

I think Sherry was right on with the New World Order.

They're doing gigantic, worldwide Satanic rituals

right now, on purpose, to usher in the New World Order.

I learned a lot from Sherry, seriously.

And if you're searching for the truth,

she had a lot of keys, and I don't think those are

gonna go away until they shut down the internet,

shut down social media, and take that away.

There is a time coming in society very soon

where those people asking those critical questions,

they gotta go, because I've seen too much and

I know too much, but...

I just want to be honest.

There's gonna be a massive roundup of people like myself...

and, other people who are asking critical questions.

They will come to collect me and put me in a van,

and that'll be it. I'll be gone.

♪

When you look at the attraction to Sherry Shriner,

what did she have to make otherwise nice and

normal people embrace such...

hate, you know, and embrace this...

world of madness and paranoia?

Just so that they could be part of this woman's group.

Like, there's this constant, "They're coming to get us.

They're coming to get us. They're coming to get us."

And, for me, I couldn't imagine anyone...

embracing that.

♪

Sherry was fearless.

She wasn't scared to call people out on awful,

hideous things that are going on in this world.

I was probably Facebook friends with Sherry for

about five years, and I spent about a year

in the chat rooms.

Then, one day, I got a little sassy.

I think I might have been having a bad day,

to be honest with ya.

And decided to ask some really tough questions.

It could have been over Paul.

Sherry didn't really believe that Paul was legitimate.

Basically, if you want to throw out the apostle Paul,

you're cutting 13 books out of the New Testament.

And, I just wasn't willing to go there.

And, I was just like, "Well, while we're at,

what about this question?

And what about this?" And, I hammered it a bit.

So, one of Sherry's best friends told me that,

you know, this sort of behaviour's unacceptable,

and you're gonna have to leave,

she's asked that you leave the group.

Like, I can't believe this right now.

This person was so cool in so many ways,

and then, pow.

[Tony] That shunning thing? Brilliant.

Brilliant move on her part.

You know, if you're committed to a cult,

you're committed until you leave.

That, of course, is why

Sherry Shriner gets that cult tag.

♪

Because, being in her good graces was the

most important thing to any of her followers.

This isn't just Sherry saying,

"I don't wanna be your friend anymore."

This is Sherry sending a message like she's a mob boss.

"I don't want to be your friend anymore,

and this is what happens to people who displease me."

We saw it with Stephen Mineo.

You realize the mental torture she gives people.

I had suicidal thoughts, and I wanna prevent

other people from getting into that crap.

We saw it with Richard Brown.

Guess what?

I'm not a damn clone, and I ain't in hell.

Do you see me choking like a reptilian?

We saw it with Kelly Pingilley.

Expelling people is what Sherry does.

This is part of her ministry.

This is part of her business plan.

Cults, 30 years ago,

were very different than they are now.

What we're seeing now is these charismatic leaders

use social media to promote themselves,

promote their brand,

promote the product that they're selling.

And, in exchange,

you don't need to leave your family.

You can sit in your basement or your living room,

and engage with the cult,

without the obvious signs that you're being removed.

The problem with this is it's much more insidious.

Anyone, for free, can start an Instagram page,

or a Facebook page, or a Twitter account,

anyone can start a YouTube channel,

it costs nothing.

It's really important to understand that when we are

talking about people who are joining cults,

there is this price,

often times a literal price of participation,

so that you have to purchase goods,

or you have to pay to attain a

the next level of spiritual attainment.

And in that dynamic,

when you have the charismatic leader,

and you have followers who are really revering that person

in a spiritual or almost god-like way,

that really paves the way to, to pretty gross exploitation.

As you grow followers, that's when the mon

money starts to come in, right.

That's when you monetize your content,

and all a sudden, you're, you're a full-fledged

cult leader, earning a profit from people

who you've sort of slowly brought in.

[Joe] Those people are often very vulnerable

to being controlled and coerced.

And so, I think we see some of that evidence within the

Sherry Shriner cult, that she's really

manipulating her followers to buy her goods,

and to revere her as this exulted figure.

[Kelly] It's hard to quantify how many followers

Sherry Shriner had, just because they didn't have a

physical compound, and they didn't have membership cards.

But, we can sort of estimate from things like fundraisers

she had online that she had a lot of supporters.

[MJ] Sherry's Go Fund Me campaign was very successful.

For someone who had a, a small following of maybe

about 20,000 people, she generated

over $774,000 over a 10-year period.

The fact that she was able to, to generate so much revenue...

is astounding, It, it's...

it's actually mind-blowing.

Sherry might have believed what she was selling,

and she might have had some sort of

religious conviction, but she still profited from it.

She still monetized her YouTube channel.

She still put advertisements on her website.

She still sold orgone to earn money.

[Tony] I think that she found her...

her niche and... path, and followed it along.

But, it was the talking, and the idea of having

her followers more than, more than the belief.

It was, it was the adoration and the money.

♪

There's criteria for a cult. And it's that

someone has an unreasonable amount of power over you.

There's a list. I don't think it matters.

I don't think that there are enough cult boxes

that Sherry doesn't check to not count.

It took a special combination of personalities

to make it dangerous, but it was always there.

Sherry Shriner is not new.

This is the same thing that happens all the time.

Someone wants money, or power,

and the only way they know how to get it

is through fear and intimidation.

Sometimes it's gangs and

sometimes it's internet preachers.

♪

It's easy for me, as a believer

and former classmate of Sherry's,

to have a great deal of empathy of her

as she got further down that path where she would

espouse these things that are counter to what

she had known in her younger years was the truth.

It's a tragedy of epic proportions,

based on the Sherry that I knew and the Sherry that,

that we all saw in the end.

A lot of people would have called Sherry a cult leader.

I think that was preposterous.

To me, a cult leader is someone who

is doing nefarious things.

They're trying to lead you in a certain direction.

They want you to sell all your stuff,

and move to the wilderness, drink the Kool-Aid,

you know, buy the white sneakers,

and kill yourself.

Sherry never asked any of that.

If you wanted to share Sherry's information, fine.

If you didn't want to share her information,

okay, that's your business.

It's unfortunate that some people passed away,

but I don't think Sherry had any part of that.

She didn't do this stuff to slap you in the face,

or be a mean, old lady.

She did this stuff because she cared.

And I wish that you would be more loving before you

judge Sherry on some of these deeper things,

and spend some more time researching it,

and just ask yourself, are you being honest with yourself?

I didn't agree with everything Sherry said.

But, if you don't have the capacity to ask hard questions,

you're a slave, whether you know it or not.

♪

[laughs]

♪

Barbara Rogers is facing one count of criminal homicide,

and trial is expected to continue into tomorrow.

When you put the gun to someone's forehead,

like this, that's murder. - [gun shot]

If the gun was held at all by Barbara Rogers,

it was held with the deceased's own hands

over her hands.

[gun shot]

We didn't know if Sherry would be a witness, but...

I emailed her, expecting to never hear from her.

She emailed me back, I think the same day.

If they want to take this to trial, it's gonna come out.

I'm not afraid of any of 'em.

They want to fight, I'm ready to fight.