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Hello

and welcome to my favorite murder.

So this is very exciting for us.

When you hear this, we're about to do our first live show after six years.

We'll be doing two of them in Denver.

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Yeah.

And so because of that, we're bringing you a quilt episode where we combine two of our favorite Colorado stories.

First up, Karen is covering the twisted cult of Love Has Won and its leader, Amy Carlson.

And then Georgia will be telling you the story of the local case murders of Barbara Olberholtzer and Annette Schnee.

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NMLS 696891.

So, this is something that cropped up, and I remember it from basically kind of mid-quarantine before any kind of vaccination had been developed, when we were all still washing our hands for 30 seconds while singing the theme to the Mr.

Rogers neighborhood or whatever, like

just past the point where we were wiping down cereal boxes, but still stuck in our houses and very unsure as to what was going on.

So, this was the kind of story that when it popped up, it was like, ew,

what's that about?

And it just kind of like hit my radar,

essentially.

So, this is the story of the death of Amy Carlson and the Love Has Won cult.

So, there's an amazing article by Virginia Pelly.

I hope I'm pronouncing that right, Virginia, in the magazine Marie Claire called Love Has Lost.

Got a lot of information about that because it was very comprehensive.

Cool.

Also, there's an article in the Washington Post by Marisa Aiti.

There's an episode of Dr.

Phil that actually has the whole family of Amy Carlson on it.

A vice documentary called False Gods, Cult Leader, Abuser, or Goddess, Meet Mother God, a BBC News article by Joshua Nevitt, a Denver Post article by Noel Phillips.

There's obviously a Wikipedia article, a People Magazine article by Jeff Truesdale, and a Honolulu Star Advisor article by the Star Advisor staff.

For a second, I thought it was a woman named Star Advisor.

It's just like a way to go.

And it's funny because this is such a recent story.

There's been.

So far, it doesn't ring bells.

Okay.

So in September of 2020, so about six months into quarantine, there's a news story out of Kauai.

one of my favorite Hawaiian islands.

Beautiful.

That popped up about a group of roughly 11 people calling themselves Love Has Won who tried to relocate to the island from Colorado in August of 2020.

So aside from breaking the state's quarantine protocols, the group, who many believed to be a cult, had been co-opting native religious practices and generally pissing everyone off in the island.

Because

many of us know who like to go to Hawaii and like to visit there, it's like going to a very small town.

And, you know, it's...

White people are very invasive over there.

They're tourists and they're oftentimes can be very disrespectful.

So ingratiating yourself into the culture over there is a very important part of visiting those islands because it's about respecting

the reason you love it there so much is because of the Hawaiian people and the native culture.

And so a big group of people coming over there and basically ripping them off and,

you know, disrespecting.

Basically, yeah, just being kind of a bunch of assholes.

It, of course, didn't sit well.

People were immediately, and also they had, they already knew because this was the second cult that had come to Kauai during the quarantine so this was actually a kind of a problem yeah

for the people there the locals especially like the fact that it's they're disrespecting them and and possibly bringing COVID over.

It's like.

Yes, it's unsafe.

It's really shitty.

It's disrespectful.

And it's like, go fuck yourself.

So

there was vandalism.

There was several small fires.

It was just a huge problem almost from the get-go.

And so for the safety of the residents of Kauai, the police end up escorting this group of people back to the airport on September 4th, and they end up flying back home to Colorado.

So, at the time, this story was just kind of a blip in an already very overwhelming news cycle

until about seven months later on the night of Wednesday, April 28th, 2021, when 43-year-old Miguel Lamboy arrives at the Salita police station near the tiny hundred-person mountain town of Moffat, Colorado in Sawich County.

So basically, Lamboy is there to report that a group of people have brought a dead body into his home.

He explains it's the corpse of Amy Carlson, the leader of a local religious group, Love Has Won.

And

they got there the day before and they needed a place to stay.

Lamboy has also is a member of this religious group, quote unquote.

And he didn't realize they had this this body until the next day.

And so

there are seven people, I believe, in the group.

And so when he does realize this dead body is in his house,

he takes his two-year-old son and he goes to leave.

And they say, you can leave, but the boy has to stay here.

And that's when he decided it's time to go to the police.

So the police are, the local police are well aware of this group.

Many locals have claimed it's a cult.

And the Sawich County Sheriff's Department was quoted as saying, saying, quote, they've received many complaints from families saying that the group is brainwashing people and stealing their money and that from all over the country, not just in the area.

So according to Miguel Lamboy, this group drove from California to Colorado with Carlson's dead body in the back of their SUV.

Holy shit.

And then they landed at his house because they needed a place to stay.

So the police are granted a search warrant for Lamboy's house, which they execute at around 11.50 that night.

And they find this group of seven people as well as the dead body as Lamboy had described to them.

But the body is in an even more disturbing state than they had imagined.

In the back bedroom, police discover what appears to be a mummified corpse with gray skin wrapped in a sleeping bag lying on a bed.

Her teeth are showing through her lips, her eyes are missing, and her eye sockets are painted with glittery makeup.

Oh my

The whole body is wrapped in Christmas lights.

What?

And a shrine has been,

she's basically surrounded by a shrine of trinkets and different lights.

How do seven people

like

agree that this is like seven people?

That's so many.

I mean, that's what cults do, but I mean, it's the, this is, uh, this is a long,

this has been a long process to getting to this point, basically.

So all seven adults are arrested and charged with abuse of a corpse.

And because one woman who's in this group, her name is Karen Raymond, her 13-year-old daughter is with the group and Lamboy's two-year-old son are in the house.

The group is also charged with two counts of child abuse.

Even though both children were found asleep and safe, it's just child abuse that they would even be in that scenario.

So, Raymond's daughter is taken into social services custody after the the mom's arrest.

Lamboy's two-year-old son is returned to him after the

search of the house is finished.

So when the coroner inspects the body, it's so decomposed that fingerprints can't be taken.

And it leads him to believe that Amy Carlson must have been dead for at least a month, if not longer.

Yeah.

Oh, chills.

In fact, the body's so decomposed, it takes him three months to confirm that this is indeed the body of 45-year-old Amy Carlson.

So, over the weekend following the raid, other members of the Love Has Won group post a video on their Facebook page about their leader's death, saying that she has ascended to the fifth dimension.

So, this video was later deleted, but Carlson's devoted followers still hold this belief.

And in fact, the idea of Amy's ascension had become the main tenet of the group.

Amy is called Mother God in this group,

and she claimed to already have been reincarnated 500 times.

Whoa.

Yeah.

That sounds exhausting.

She, well, and

more so when you realize that she has already been Jesus, Joan of Arc, and Marilyn Monroe.

Right?

As it's the old joke, no one ever is reincarnated as just the person down the street.

It's always Joan of Arc.

And on her next ascension, she was telling believers in these video streams that she was making that

starships were going to come and take her away, and that when she ascended, her followers would finally learn this truth that a powerful quote-unquote cabal had been keeping from the people of Earth in every

incarnation that she had.

So, right when she was about to,

right when the people of Earth are about to learn like the ultimate truth, the cabal comes in, kills her, and keeps the truth from coming out.

Okay.

That's basically her theory.

What a bummer.

Right?

It's really unfortunate and

kind of tidy.

It's all just this one.

This is the reason we're all suffering.

It's just

one cabal of like rich people.

It's the same as you always hear.

It's like the cabal is super rich people, Hollywood people,

and

then just like villains from around the world.

Any non-believers that don't follow Mother God will be sent to live on the quote central galactic sun

or be turned into rocks.

So there's a former member named Ash McCoy who said that the shrine that the police found around the body wasn't new.

They didn't put that there when the body got there.

It had actually been made long before Amy Carlson's death with the idea that when she did finally ascend in this lifetime, her followers would want a place where they could come and commemorate her life and basically treat it like a museum exhibit.

So they had been preparing for her quote-unquote ascension for years.

Wow.

The members of the Love is One cult are convinced their leader, Mother God, will go down in history as the greatest being who has ever lived.

Which is just, if you think about it, all of this is just a perfect 2021 vibe.

Just like super intense, super apocalyptic.

Everything's like

everything is conspiracy.

It's simplistic, and it's kind of like, do what I say,

or the cabal will get you.

It's because we're living in an unprecedented time, so anything is possible and people just want to believe something.

Yeah, people are disenfranchised.

They're scared.

They're alone.

A lot of people are sick or feel like they can't, they're not healthy.

And they're looking for answers online.

Right.

And so as many, as many Web MDs and like websites that are, you know, standardly reliable, there are just as many

websites that start start out as kind of new age, quote-unquote, holistic medicine alternative practices.

And that's how this started.

Okay, so we'll talk about Amy Carlson's early life.

She was born on November 30th, 1975, and grows up in Dallas, Texas with her two sisters, Chelsea and Tara.

Their parents divorced when Amy's young.

She lives with her dad at first, but then she goes back to live with her mom and her new stepdad.

She's a popular, straight A student with a beautiful singing voice, and her sisters say she was always really sweet and kind.

But as she gets older,

she starts dating a lot of controlling or abusive men.

By the time she's in her early 20s, she's basically on her third marriage.

Oh my gosh.

And she has a child with each husband.

So she has a daughter and two sons.

But then after her third marriage, she basically starts to settle down.

She gets a manager job at the local McDonald's and her family and friends, people on the outside, believe that she's happy.

But shortly after her third child is born, there's a noticeable change in her personality.

She begins to grow distant.

Her mom, Linda, admits, although Amy has never really been maternal, but now she's basically become a neglectful mother.

And she disengages from her children's lives and she's spending all her time online.

looking at bizarre new agey kind of websites.

And this is when her basically her world view begins to change.

Then Amy starts meeting up with the people that are also on these websites, meeting them in real life.

And soon she's constantly talking about these things, like about ascension, about alternative medicine, about starships, all kinds of kind of nonsensical new age philosophy.

Yeah.

And then when Amy's in her early 30s, she decides to leave her husband and her children, who are age two, seven, and 12.

It's heartbreaking.

Yeah.

Heartbreaking.

She moves out of state with an unidentified man that she had met online.

It reminds me so much so far of Heaven's Gate.

Yes.

Of the, yeah.

Yeah.

Of the idea of people that have always kind of been unhappy in some way

that stumble upon a group that has all the answers.

Totally.

Yeah.

So she moves out of state.

Her family tries to contact her.

She doesn't ever respond.

She basically cuts herself off from her family completely.

They're convinced Amy's new boyfriend has tricked her into joining a cult, but when she finally re-emerges and they see her again years later, she's the one that's leading the cult.

Oh, twists.

Yeah.

So the man Amy ran off with called himself Father God and convinces Amy that she's mother god.

And he brings her to Creststone, Colorado, which is a remote area 200 miles south of Denver that is considered sacred by the native people.

And because of that, it's attracted.

it's almost like a Sedona type of town in Colorado.

It's attracted spiritual seekers for decades.

The town itself only has about 1,800 people, but it has over or around 24 spiritual centers

with a full range of, there's like, there's Buddhist, there's Catholic, there's, it's, I mean, it's everything.

Yeah.

So after a couple years, father and mother god split up, but Amy keeps the title, mother god.

And if they can't make it work, who can?

I mean, that's a real sign.

Relationships are so hard, the gods can't even get it right.

So she, of course, keeps on basically pursuing these interests.

And then she starts releasing YouTube videos and Facebook live streams.

And she

claims to be the leader of a group called the Galactic Federation of Light.

So it's not in any way associated with Star Trek.

She preaches about her plan to save humanity.

And in these videos, at first, she's just the voiceover and it's just kind of like images.

But then

after a while, she's front and center.

She's the leader.

And she's got followers in the videos who were talking about Amy as if she is God.

Wow.

So we've gone from this kind of like, oh, an alternative to Western medicine to I am God,

which is pretty.

That's a pretty steep incline.

And then in 2018 is when they changed the name of the group to Love Has Won.

So Amy's followers believe that she's God in human form, a being with an elevated consciousness that's been continually reincarnating for the last 19 billion years.

Jesus.

So that she can complete her mission, which is to save humanity by leading a chosen 144,000 people into the mystical fifth dimension.

They claim that she's currently on her 534th incarnation.

And she also claims, very strangely, after Robin Williams dies in 2014, that she has a direct spiritual connection with him.

Leave him alone.

For real.

She broadcasts herself channeling on these live streams.

She claims that Donald Trump was her father in another lifetime.

Well, I wouldn't brag about that.

But to the people who are starting to get into this kind of like this conspiracy, it's a conspiracy community.

Yeah.

So she's kind of using the buzzwords that attract people who are online in the first place because they're kind of like starting to be believers in these things.

And they're also, I've said this before, but it's my personal theory.

These are people that didn't grow up with computers.

They don't understand that websites can be made by anyone

and they can say anything.

I mean, talk to Janet.

It's just how it is for people that it's like they're looking at, they're people who grew up with one newspaper and that newspaper was just telling you the truth.

There was no reason to question it.

So now we're in the world of the digital age of anyone can make any website and suddenly everything is this kind of believable.

And it's also about numbers.

The more people believe it, the more believable it is.

And I definitely screamed at my mom the other day.

What was the source?

What was the source?

That's some fucking bananas batshit thing she said.

It was WWW.

That's the source.

So a lot of her teachings end up dovetailing with QAnon conspiracy theories.

And basically the entire foundation of Love Has One draws from New Age spirituality, Christianity, astrology, Scientology, numerology, and basically anything else that appeals to Amy and that appeals to kind of like quote-unquote spiritual seekers.

She claims to have lived in the magical ancient land of Lemuria.

She claims the lost city of Atlantis is real, but sunk from an explosion that took place after a certain technology was stolen, and that her and her followers must fight an everlasting war against the cabal.

And that's all the same, that's that's kind of same theme that comes up all the time is that it's people declaring this small group are the pure, they're the noble, they're the, they're the, they're the heroes of the story, and that basically whoever they decide, Hollywood, rich people, whoever, you know, believable,

believable theories, but it's like, but that these people are then whatever they decide and that they're trying to attack them.

They're trying to kill them.

They're trying to

squash the truth.

The truth and keep the world in darkness.

Right.

Essentially.

So there's anywhere from 12 to 20 followers who actually live with Amy, like in a commune

between Colorado, California, Oregon, sometimes Florida.

They wind up.

Basically, they come back to that area in Colorado on two pieces of land, one ranch house in Salita, and then this mobile home in Moffitt.

These two places become the home base for the group.

So essentially, how it goes is every day at six in the morning, Amy and her followers begin about a three-hour live stream.

And in the beginning, the videos are about energy, connecting with spirit,

essentially new age stuff that's like lots of people ascribe to, and that isn't in any way destructive.

Yeah.

It's ill.

Then they start talking a lot about frequencies and about negative versus positive.

It's that kind of thing.

Then basically, the videos devolve into these outlandish concepts about the cabal and them being hunted and all of that.

There's two young women in the group that serve as basically hosts at the top of the show, and their group names are Archia Hope and Archea Aurora.

And they're like young, kind of beautiful women who like it's just, it's good marketing, basically.

They're hosting this and talking about the tenets of these beliefs, but they get into some stuff that's like incredibly fucked up.

They start talking about like basically the pros of Hitler.

I knew it.

I knew.

I almost pointed at myself because I was like, you're like, they were anti-this and that.

I'm like, say, Jews.

Like, come on.

Well, that's the thing is they, they're basically kind of floating the idea of being Holocaust deniers and then floating the idea of maybe that Hitler's intentions were better than you know, it's all that shit.

And

basically they they preach Amy's God status, her plan to save humanity, and they start offering these things called spiritual surgeries.

So that's like a virtual healing session with Amy.

It costs $88.

She does spiritual surgery on you and claims that she can cure everything from addiction to cancer, saying that her words and her hands have strong healing powers so this is where they get people who are sick people who have who have gone to doctor after doctor of like a typical Western medicine and haven't been cured right and or been told that they're it's all in their mind or they've been treated poorly by traditional doctors yeah and they're they're on here looking for other stuff so in the beginning that idea and sometimes it really is just that mental thing of somebody somebody going i can spiritually surgically cure you over the internet and just the idea of that there's a solution right and it's 88

is very alluring to people yeah then you then you're coming in with and while we're here maybe we'll talk about how the holocaust wasn't real i mean that's it's they're playing upon people who are already like at low points and weak points of their lives right

so as insane as that seems love has won't facebook group climbs to about 20 000 members

And their YouTube channel gains nearly 10,000 followers.

And their videos have like 1.5 million views.

Oh my god.

So people are watching.

We don't know how they're watching or what their approach is, but it's being seen.

There's lots of fan engagement.

Viewers communicate with each other in the comment sections.

And Amy and her followers answer questions or give shout-outs to people who are commenting in the live streams.

Plus, of course, this is a crucial element of it.

Money is pouring into into the group in the form of donations made out to either Love Has One or Mother's Joy.

So throughout the duration of this group, Love Has One, they see a rotating cast of father gods who partner up with Amy.

But the most notable is the most recent, Jason Cisteo.

He joins Amy in mid-2018 when the group changes its name to Love Has One.

It's uncertain how he and Amy have met, but what is certain is his criminal record.

His rap sheet lists charges for drunk driving, breaking and entering, and child neglect.

So after his arrival, things on the commune go from bad to worse.

Members are only allowed to sleep when Mother God sleeps.

So they're usually limited to maybe four or five hours a night.

They're always forced to rise at 5 a.m.

The live streaming starts at 6 a.m.

every single day.

And they usually last three hours.

They're also not allowed to sit for very long.

No.

The whole thing is leading to to exhaustion for everybody.

Totally.

And here's the other one.

They're underfed.

Right.

So Carlson claims that eating too much is a symptom of our rampant ego, which Amy claims stands for edging God out.

They're only allowed to get small amounts of food that are donated from local food banks and no snacking is allowed.

So they basically

levels.

I can't do any of it.

I'm all about that ego.

But

this is fucking

by the book cult brainwashing practices.

Yes.

Exhaustion and starvation.

The members live on their on the compound rent-free, but they have to serve Mother God with whatever she needs.

And they don't get paid for anything and they don't get any of the donation money.

Most of the time, members wind up giving whatever money they have to Mother God.

And as one former member named Taylor puts it, quote, everything is revolved around Amy.

Of course.

But she's not the gentle, compassionate compassionate leader that she claims to be.

Even though drugs and alcohol are expressly forbidden in the group, she drinks to excess every day and openly on camera.

What?

Yeah.

So this is a real, like, we're watching, this is, this really parallels the synanon story.

Oh, yeah.

Where the leader who starts out with these really lofty goals about helping people, it slowly slides into saving humanity, which slides into I am God,

which goes right along with some kind of substance abuse.

Yeah.

So when Amy's sober, she puts on a warm, kind facade, but at night, she launches into drunken, cursed-filled tirades on the live streams.

Holy shit.

And on one, she shouts into the camera, quote, spiritual ego whores, die.

If you're not connected to me, you're out.

Damn.

So it's turning.

Yeah.

I feel so bad for her kids back at home.

Like, they have to be explained where mom is.

It's so sad.

It's so sad.

It's, yeah, it's

lot of victims here.

Yeah.

She also starts calling the followers Adams, A-T-O-M, like an Adam.

And

there's one live stream where he brings her meatballs for dinner, but she asked for chicken Parmesan.

So she starts screaming, my vision was chicken parmesan.

So the fucking Adams turn around on me and get me meatballs.

I didn't say meatballs.

I love meatballs, but I didn't fucking say that chicken parmesan.

She's just like flipping it.

What the fuck?

And recording it.

Like, that's why.

That's, yeah, you want to hide that behavior.

You would think.

Also, Father God, he also gets in on it.

He can be seen getting into Robertson's face and glaring at him with rage and chastising him

while Robertson hangs his head in shame.

So he got the order wrong and he's just being attacked by mother and father God.

Oh my God.

You know, the way the Lord, the Lord, you've always heard about.

There's also a thing where there's on video, they give a two-year-old child a timeout by putting it in a closet and screaming at the child and saying that they're not, that normal people, their child-rearing is programming.

And

it's basically society that's the cult.

Love has won is the only same group of people.

That's got to be it.

Okay, so around that time is when they try to go to Kauai.

They basically get kicked out real quick.

So they come back and then, so they start pushing these holistic health products.

They make a thing called plasma coasters, which, quote, act as receivers and transmitters with the ability to neutralize harmful energy.

And you're supposed to put them in glasses of water.

They sell for $66.66.

Fuck.

Sounds like a shrinky dink or something.

Sea, what were those sea creatures you'd put in water?

Oh, sea monkeys.

Sea monkeys.

They also are big on colloidal silver and gold supplements.

Those were big.

Colloidal silver was huge for a while.

So basically, they sell their own version of it.

Of course, they do.

Yeah.

And they claim that it can cure COVID.

They end up getting a letter from the FDA saying you have to stop claiming this.

You have to stop selling these products.

And they don't.

They're not available anymore.

So some of their other terrible medical advice, their holistic alternative medical advice,

they say that turmeric cures diabetes, that lemon and baking soda cures cancer.

And they actually tell people that it's a myth that staring into the sun makes you go blind.

Oh, no.

Yep.

They say that you need to stare into the sun to receive healing, quote-unquote, light codes, and that it, quote, burns away the darkness inside you.

Yeah.

They also tell people that you don't have to worry about having heart attacks because it's just your heart expanding.

No, it's

okay.

It's not.

So they it's just a bunch of super dangerous and very crazy, like basically personal theories and creative writing that they're now telling people is like medical, the medical truth.

Yeah.

Okay.

Dangerous.

Basically, she's gone so far off the rails that her family goes on to Dr.

Phil in September of 2020 to try to get her to basically be like, this, you have to come out of this.

This is a, this is brainwashing.

And her sisters and mother are there and they're all really worried about her.

Dr.

Phil confronts her about how she's not a peaceful being.

They show the videos of all her cursing and confrontation.

She claims that one of the reasons is she's been raped several times and that her house has burned down and that she's basically grown weary of it all.

But essentially, it's, you know, it just is kind of like, it...

It doesn't make a difference.

Yeah.

And it's an ineffectual way to kind of try to break this person out of the cults.

The problem is that her health is clearly

taking a downturn, maybe from the drinking, maybe from all the colloidal silver that she's constantly ingesting.

But her mom notices on the live stream she's being carried around by her followers, and she seems to be paralyzed from the waist down.

What?

Yeah, so something they, her sisters are seeing it, they're so scared and worried.

They say that they knew she was ill, she looked weak and frail, and that she was basically that she was kind of turning a gray-blue from how much colloidal silver she was ingesting.

Do we know, like, is that not good for you now?

Like, do we know that now, or it's just large quantities?

I have no idea, but I, yeah, if she, if she was ill and they were saying, this is what's going to fix you, then, then, right, large quantities of anything like that.

But I don't, I'd hate to say anything about

chloidal silver, not knowing.

During a live stream on October 15th, 2020, two of her followers admit Amy has expressed a desire to see a doctor, but they refuse to take her.

And they say, there's moments when mom has asked us to take her to the hospital.

Nope, there's no way we know how a hijacking works.

So the hijacking is this idea that right as when she's about to ascend, the cabal comes in, kills her, and represses the truth.

So

they're basically like, you can't go to the hospital because it's a hijacking.

So all of her own crazy theories are now turned against her.

And her followers are basically like becoming the ones in charge.

Wow.

The last time an outsider confirms seeing Amy alive is on April 10th, 2021.

She's in California.

She gets a visit from her landlord and he sees that he thinks she's dying.

Yeah.

Like she looks so bad.

The members say she has cancer, but she hasn't gone to a doctor.

So there's no official diagnosis or records of that anywhere.

It's just what the followers say.

So her mother calls the authorities in California asking to do wellness checks, but every time they go to where the followers and Amy are, they turn the police and the ambulances away.

Then on April 16th, 2021, a photo is posted in one of the Love Has Won private chat rooms of Father God holding a very frail, incoherent looking Amy in his arms.

And it is unclear if she's alive or dead in the photo.

Okay, so Her cause of death is as yet to be determined because of the lack of medical records and because of the state of the body when the coroner got it.

Charges against four of the seven members that were arrested on April 28th have been dropped, including those against Father God Jason Castillo.

Sawach County District Attorney Alonzo Payne tells Dateline: Our office looked at all the documents and everything that was provided, and from our perspective, the allegations could not be met beyond a reasonable doubt.

Charges against the remaining three members are still pending.

The group that existed under the name Love is One has since disbanded, but many of its members have splintered off and they continue preaching the same ideas under different names.

And all the shops that sold products have been shut down.

But Lamboy has opened a new nonprofit that basically

gets them out of paying taxes.

So any of the money that goes there, they don't have to pay taxes on it.

They now have one of the groups that still live streams, they have a tapestry with a photo of Amy on it that's like behind them in the shot.

Some of them are still selling etheric surgeries, like the way that Amy did spiritual surgeries.

Those are $55.55 for 30 minutes.

No, discounted.

And they're described as your ticket to heaven.

For the people who have escaped love has won, their search for spiritual fulfillment continues, but now with a much more cautious approach, a former member who goes by the name Sarah,

that's not her real name.

She's scared of retaliation.

She Amy took a lot of spiritual teachings about vibration and energy that are on the right track, but she hijacked them and said they were hers.

I still believe there's truth in those principles, but I'm working on taking Amy out of them.

And

essentially, that is the very strange, bizarre death of Amy Carlson and the story of the Love Has Won cult.

Wow.

I want to find out how she died eventually, right?

Yeah.

Well, I mean, sounds like she, whatever sickness she had,

there was never any, like they were just doing holistic practices and no,

no one there.

So she could have gotten pancreatic cancer

or something that's quick and awful and just ravages your body.

And then she's just taking.

colloidal silver or drinking.

Right.

Right.

Or liver cancer, maybe.

Horrifying.

So fucking wild.

I know.

Wild.

Great job.

So crazy.

Thank you.

I know.

Sorry, that was so long.

No, no, it's like there was so much.

It's just the weirdest thing because I remembered it.

I remember seeing the story and I think people posting about it on Twitter.

But it was just at that point in the pandemic where I'm like, no, only comedies.

I can't do this.

Like, I don't want to know.

I can't look at this.

I mean, it's wild that in the middle of a pandemic that everyone's freaking out about, you could have such an like outside wild story.

Yeah.

It's like, didn't everything stop?

Didn't everyone's life stop?

Right.

Why didn't you just, but also, I think it's like, that's the thing.

Like you said, in these unprecedented times, people are scared shitless and they're looking for answers.

They're looking for easy, like digestible answers and solutions.

And it makes sense.

They're right to want that.

They're human to want that.

Yeah.

Just don't be stupid.

Just like, it's, I don't know.

Yeah.

Well, here's the thing.

You know, there's very clear,

you know, they say in cults, it's like, if it's one leader, you're not allowed to contradict.

You're not allowed to take in outside information.

You cut yourself off from your family.

Like, there's the whole, there's a whole thing of like, is your,

are you just, you know, is it just a group of people who are like-minded spiritual seekers?

Right.

Or are you, are you basically being indoctrinated?

Yeah.

And those are the things where it's like, if basically there's one person, they're God.

They have all the answers.

And the rules are theirs

to make alone.

And suddenly the rules become about caring, you know, like you serve me.

Yeah.

Chicken Parmesan.

Wow.

Yeah.

Let's keep an eye on that one.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Good job.

Thank you.

I'm going to tell you a story that I found during one of my many late-night cold case news scrollings that piqued my interest and is going on right now.

And there's a recent twist to it.

So, the sources I used in today's episode are The Guardian by an article by Richard Luscombe, the Unsolved Mysteries fandom page, which is really cool, the Rocky Mountain Cold Case website, a UPI article, a New York Times article written by Maria Kramer, a nine news article by Matt Jablow, and a Fox 31 news article by Evan Krugel.

Okay.

So, have you ever heard of Breckenridge, Colorado?

No.

Okay, it's a former mining town dating back to the gold rush.

It's at the base of the Rocky Mountains, about 80 miles from Denver.

So like a cute little quaint ski resort town, lots of beautiful old buildings, breweries, you know, like nice restaurants, an art scene, small, cool little town.

So on the evening of January 6th, 1982, 29-year-old Barbara Jo Oberholzer, whose nickname is Bobby.

I'm going to call her that from now on.

She is at a Breckenridge bar with some friends celebrating a promotion at work.

A little before 8 p.m., she decides to leave early and head back to her husband named Jeff.

Instead of getting a ride back with her friends who are leaving a little later, she decides to hitchhike, which of course is totally normal at the time.

Everyone hitchhikes around town.

And the area is known for being a popular ski resort.

So there's a lot of rich tourists, but the people who live in town, a lot of them can't can't afford their own car, so hitchhiking is the norm.

Bobby has a couple rules she follows.

When she hitchhikes, she doesn't get into cars with two men in there and she won't get into vans.

So hitchhiking is super normal, but everyone's still a little aware of that it's dangerous and are still careful about it.

But by the next morning, she's not home.

And so Jeff, her husband, tries to file a missing persons report.

But, you know, as it was in the 80s, you can't file one for an adult.

It's too early.

She probably just fucking spent the night at at a friend's house, sort of a thing.

Right.

However, and so he goes out with his friends trying to find her.

They can't track her down.

But the next day at around 3 p.m., a farmer who lives 30 miles outside of Breckenridge finds Bobby's license, gets a hold of Jeff, and he comes out to pick up the license.

And on his way, he spots something in a snowy field

and he finds it's Bobby's backpack, his wife's backpack.

So he also finds a blood-spattered wool glove and some tissues that are also covered in blood.

And also found there is a woman's orange booty, like an orange sock, like snow booty that doesn't belong to Bobby.

Jeff and his friends start searching for Bobby, and two hours later, 10 miles south of Breckeridge, they find her body.

15 miles from where her backpack was recovered.

So almost like someone scattered her, you know, possessions after leaving the body.

Police find a pair pair of 18-inch zip ties tied to one of Bobby's wrists, meaning they think someone had tried to bind her, but she maybe got away before they were able to bind both wrists.

In the parking lot of the bar that Bobby had been in that night, police find her keyring, and there's also this like metal hook on the keyring that her husband had made her as like a defensive tool, just in case she ever got in any trouble.

And it looks like maybe she had pulled it out to like try to use it.

So they think maybe she had gotten in the in the car with you know whoever picked her up realized something was amiss he tried to zip tie her she took out her tool and ran and was able to escape the car and then they think that she ran downhill to get away and then the killer caught up with her and so she had been shot twice so they think that that's how she was how she was stopped when she was running away and then she died a short distance away of blood loss

then law enforcement gets word that that very same day, the day before, that Bobby had gone missing, another young woman had also disappeared from Breckeridge.

And this is a small town, about a thousand residents.

So this is like two women in one day.

That is very odd.

So at around 4:45 that day, a 21-year-old woman named Annette Schnee, who is a cocktail waitress, had been hitchhiking home after running some errands.

But Annette didn't make it home.

There's no trace of her until six months later later on July 3rd, when her body is found by what is called like a young boy or a youth, which always

is terrible.

Yes.

While he was fishing, it's an isolated mountain area where she's found and what's called Sacramento Creek, 20 miles south of Breckenridge.

Annette's body had been well preserved because of the freezing temperatures, and the medical examiner is able to determine that Annette died from a gunshot, same as Bobby.

She's wearing bow shoes, and on one of her feet is an orange booty.

It's the same as the one found at Bobby's scene, so clearly they're connected.

Yeah.

Police speculate that the killer had murdered Annette first, and then hours later picked up Bobby and murdered her, and then had discarded the belongings between the two scenes.

And so the orange sock must have somehow been mixed up by the killer and accidentally discarded.

Also, in Annette's possession is one of Bobby's husband, Jeff's business cards.

Oh, right?

Yeah.

So, of course, Jeff immediately becomes top suspect.

Law enforcement questions him about Annette.

So, at first, he denies knowing her at all, but then he sees a picture of her on the news later and goes back to law enforcement.

He's like, Yeah, I actually do know her.

I've met her once.

He said he had picked up Annette once while she was hitchhiking and given her his business card of his appliance repair shop after she mentioned needing something fixed.

So, like, fucking coincidence.

With a capital C.

Right.

Of course, he denies any involvement in her disappearance or in his wife's death.

He takes a polygraph test and passes, apparently, has an alibi for the night, but it's sketchy.

And of course, law enforcement consider him their top suspect, but aren't able to collect enough evidence to charge him.

The case goes cold and becomes the area's like biggest, most enduring cold case.

okay fast forward about seven years retired Denver homicide detective Charlie McCormick he gets burnt out on the Denver homicide scene it's too stressful for him so he finally retires and moves to Breckenridge

he hears about the mysterious double murder that happened on the same day in his new hometown and because he's a homicide detective at heart, his interest is peaked over time he becomes more and more involved in the case until 1989.

Annette's family hires him as their private investigator on the case.

He chases some leads throughout the years of serial killers in Montana and Idaho, other suspects as well.

Later, he volunteers for the district attorney's task force that's opened.

He continues to work on the case almost every day for the next three decades.

And guess how much he charges for his detective services, private detective services for Annette's family?

Nothing.

A dollar a year.

Oh.

I know.

I know.

So he's like, I want to do and like do this.

It's so symbolic.

Well, you know what?

I like about that is

that he clearly wanted to be a homicide detective, but like the culture,

you know, like was part of why he couldn't do it.

Right.

But he can do it by himself independently and separately.

And he still wants to be a person that's helping

solve those crimes and clear those cases.

Yeah.

Like as soon as he heard about it in his new small hometown, he's not just going to be like, well, whatever that is, bye.

He's.

Yeah.

He wants to, it's like,

like anyone else who would hear about that and have the interest would be like, I need to know what happened.

Yeah.

He's somebody who could actually, who has this, the skills and the availability or the means to get it done.

Totally.

So originally the blood on the glove and tissue found near near Bobby's belongings were thought to be her blood.

But in the 90s, the blood is tested, and results show that the blood actually belongs to a man.

So that male DNA is tested against Jeff's, the husband of Bobby.

It's not his DNA.

Oh, wow.

And so, as a result of this and other evidence, including several alibi witnesses, he's eventually cleared as a suspect.

So, the fact that his wife

gets killed on one day and another woman gets killed on the same day and happens to have his fucking business card in her wallet is

just a coincidence.

It's literally and truly just a coincidence.

How fucking bananas is that?

Yeah, that's horrifying.

Yeah.

And you imagine like so many years, everyone in town thinks she fucking did it.

Well, and also it's that thing of that is in those cases

that it's one thing like that, that it, even if it's not enough evidence to prosecute, it just is enough evidence to change everyone's mind about you.

Totally, totally.

And it would be hard to explain that words.

Just like,

yeah, it's not out of this realm of possibility that everyone would think he's guilty.

It totally makes sense.

Yeah.

So, unfortunately, the male DNA is not in the criminal database, so the case goes cold again in the 90s.

Police look into several different suspects in the case.

One is a cab driver named Thomas Edward Luther, who in February 1982 in Breckeridge had picked up a hitchhiker and had raped and assaulted her.

And while in jail, he allegedly bragged about being responsible for the murders.

And according to his girlfriend, he didn't come home on the night of the murders.

And then another suspect named Tracy Petroselli murdered his fiancée in 1981 and went on a multi-state crime spree.

And during this crime spree, he stayed at the Holiday Inn where Annette worked.

Oh, wow.

So another fucking crazy coincidence.

Neither suspect's DNA matches the evidence from the crime scene.

All right.

So 20 years later, in 2018, authorities decide to go the forensic genealogy route in hopes of finding a DNA match.

So the company United Data Connect finds 12,000 people who are a possible match to the DNA profile that's on the glove and the tissue.

And private investigator Charlie McCormick, who's now 80 years old and still on the case.

I know.

And he's like, the photo of him, he's like, salt of the earth, grandpa.

Sure.

So he and his team start going through the 12,000 people.

Like, you know, genealogy can only get you so far.

You still have to do the groundwork.

Groundwork?

Footwork?

Footwork.

Thank you.

But it's the same.

Your feet are on the ground.

That's right.

They have to be.

Pick one.

So the team reaches out to a ton of people who like make sense in those 12,000 people and they all agree to give DNA.

And so finally, after a year of searching, the team finds a direct match to whoever the killer is, so a relative of the killer.

All right, so I'm going to pivot real quick for another story that made news in the area at the same time as the missing women did.

So on January 6th, 1982, same day that the women went missing, at just before midnight, Sheriff Harold E.

Bray is on a United Airlines flight to California.

As the plane is flying over the Guanela Pass in Colorado, over these mountain ranges, thousands of feet above, the sheriff sees headlights blinking the Morse code signal for SOS.

What?

Like he just happens to be looking out the window.

He happens to be a sheriff, so he knows SOS, and he fucking sees blinking SOS.

Oh my, ew, ooh, keep going.

Okay.

I'm like, the chill's like, what did he do?

I know.

The sheriff tells the flight crew and they

radio the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration.

The controller for the FAA asks a closeby plane to investigate.

The plane circles the area, spots a car.

that had blinking SOS, flashes his light to let the driver know that he's been located.

And then the FAA contacts Clear Creek County Fire Chief David Montoya.

He's like, can't fucking believe what he's hearing.

A sheriff in an airplane saw a car on the ground using headlights to signal SOS.

Later, he says, he tells Nine News, I thought it was the craziest thing I'd ever heard of.

So Dave drives to the top of the Guanela Pass, which has an elevation over 11,000 feet and is widely known to be unpassable during the winter.

Again, it's January.

Dave finds a truck stuck in a snowdrift, and inside is a 30-year-old local mechanic named Alan Lee Phillips.

Dave says, sure as heck, there he was in his little pickup, and he saw me and said, Oh my God, I'm saved.

It's a small town sheriff.

Like this shit, like this doesn't happen.

So the fire chief, Dave,

asks Alan what he's doing in the Gwinella Pass when it's 20 below freezing and has been snowing heavily and he doesn't have chains on his tires.

Like kind of everyone in the area knows not to be driving there.

He said he'd been drinking at a bar with some friends and had decided to drive home, which, you know, over the pass and he'd been drinking, so he thought it was a good idea at the time.

You know, the 80s when drinking and driving were an excuse you could tell the sheriff, and that would be okay.

Right.

Alan says that as he traveled over the pass, his truck got stuck.

He tried to dig the truck out, didn't work.

Started walking to a nearby ski area, but realized it was too cold.

So he got back in his truck, covered with an emergency blanket, and then thought about what to do.

He heard the airplane flashed SOS.

And

so that you know,

he got fucking saved.

He would have frozen to death in his truck, yeah, like quickly.

Yeah, before driving Alan home, Dave, the fire chief, notices that Alan has a quote sizable bruise on the side of his face.

When asked about the bruise, Alan says, while he was waiting for help, he'd gotten out of his truck to pee.

When he tried to get back in, he was blinded by the snow and was and slammed headfirst into the corner of the truck.

The story story of this crazy rescue of a man who otherwise would have frozen to death becomes huge news.

Well, almost 40 years later,

40 years from the day that the two women had been murdered and this guy had been found on the pass, the DNA from the glove and tissue belonged, turns out, to none other than that man who had been disposing of Annette's body

after he had gone over the pass.

So, like, these two fucking separate stories just in 2018 turned out to be related.

Holy shit.

Yeah.

So, Alan Lee Phillips is his name.

He's matched to the DNA via a discarded fast food wrapper that had traces of his saliva on.

You know, it still took a while for them to track him down and to match the DNA.

It isn't until his mug shot is shown on local television news that the now retired fire chief, Dave, our friend Dave Montoya, recognizes him as the guy who 40, almost 40 years ago, he had saved from the mountain pass.

So they hadn't even put it together yet that it was the same dude.

And that's exactly, he had been fucking disposing of Annette's body.

Oh my God.

I know.

Chilling, right?

Dave says, quote, we ended up picking up the guy straight out of hell.

So as it turns out, Alan hadn't been driving home from the bar that night.

He was heading home after killing Bobby and Annette.

Alan is now 70 years old and the father of three.

And since 1982, he had been still living in the Breckenridge area.

On February 24th, 2021, police arrest Alan without incident at a traffic stop in Clear Creek County.

He's charged with kidnapping, first-degree assault, and first-degree murder of both Annette Schnee and Bobby Joe Oberhaltzer.

Today, Monday the 13th, was his preliminary hearing.

Oh, whoa.

Yeah.

And as of this recording, we don't have much info info about him.

I did the best I could about who he is and what he did.

He might be connected to more murders, so I'll keep everyone posted.

He also, if he's on his way to court, might be found innocent.

Oh, right.

Alleged.

Important to mention.

Right.

It's all alleged.

It's all alleged.

Right.

Bobby's husband, Jeff, who at one time was a suspect, released a statement saying that he prays the arrest, quote, will finally, after all these decades, bring closure and peace to this hideous nightmare.

After Philip's arrest, Annette's mother, Eileen, who is now 88 years old, says her family has endured, quote, 39 years of hell.

She said, quote, it's been a rough 40 years.

I thought maybe I'd be gone before I had closure in this case.

And then she said, I'm ready to go when it's my time now.

And that is the story of Annette Schnee and Bobby Joe Oberholzer.

I mean,

holy shit.

Yeah.

That is the craziest, most roundabout.

First of all, I can't believe I've never heard that.

Because it just

happened.

They were just connected as two cold cases you hadn't heard about.

It was one guy driving over a fucking mountain pass you hadn't heard about, and then it turns out they're connected.

Yeah, I mean, the mountain pass story feels like the kind of weird news story that you would read separately in any way.

Yeah.

The idea that they're all the same storyline in out of chronological order

is mind-blowing.

And it's not until this guy sees him on the news that he puts it all together.

Fucking 40 years later, I can't recognize someone I met last weekend.

But it must have been, well, because it was weird enough as it was, but it must have been very.

I mean, it made the news, yeah.

Yeah.

The event itself, but I'm saying, I wonder if that fire chief just had some kind of a vibe of like, oh, this is interesting and weird and off.

Yeah.

And whatever.

But he's also not a cop.

So he's just like, all right, let's just get you out of here.

Yeah.

That's that part isn't really

an issue.

It's not suspicious, except for the bruise, but that does make sense of how he would get it, right?

Sure.

Well, absolutely.

And that

as much as the business card in

a dead woman's possessions, you know, you can write that off or you would have to.

Anyone can have a bruise for any reason.

Totally.

Totally.

One you don't even remember.

Like, yeah, wow, that's that's a mind, that's mind-blowing.

So, if anything comes up, I'll update everyone.

Oh, good.

All right, that's it.

We did our job, we absolutely did, uh, and you guys did yours.

Thank you so much for listening.

We appreciate all of you.

Send us your hometowns, send us like you know, high fives and hellos, whatever you want.

Sure, get in there and um,

you know, stay sexy and don't get murdered.

Goodbye,

Elvis.

Do you want a cookie?

This has been an Exactly Right production.

Our senior producers are Alejandra Keck and Molly Smith.

Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.

This episode was mixed by Liana Squolachi.

Our researchers are Maren McLashin and Allie Elkin.

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Goodbye.