(From a second-generation member of < the Family International)

A few words of introduction: I’m 35 years old and have been in the Family since the age of three when my parents joined the Children of God. I’ve lived through pretty much every part of the Children of God/The Family International’s history, and lived in Homes on almost every continent.

I’ve been saddened and appalled by the recent events involving the brutal murder of Angela Smith by Ricky Rodriguez, but I’m even more appalled by the rewriting of history that is being perpetrated both by Ricky before his death, and bitter former members who are using this tragedy as a platform for avowed goal of harming and destroying the Family. As someone who for years lived with both Ricky and Angela, I can’t just stand by and watch the news media make a mockery of the memory of such a saint as Angela was by the twisting of the truth, whether intentionally, or unwittingly playing into the hands of those intent on causing us harm to justify their own choices in life.

Angela Smith was a saint, and I don’t use the word lightly. I was blessed to spend a few years in the same community with her, but anyone who had even casual contact with her could testify that she lived her life thinking of others–if more people in the world were like her, how much better place it would be. I’m comforted that she’s now happy in Heaven, but it’s a loss for the many who were touched by her care and giving soul.

I knew Ricky well. We lived in the same house for several years just prior to his departure from the Family in 2000. I also spent three months with Ricky in 1995 touring all the Family communities in Russia–a great trip that was, and I got to know him well. During those years in the same house lived his mother, Karen Zerby, and therefore I was acquainted with her interaction with him both while in the Family and after he left. Ricky and I were pretty good friends, and I enjoyed talking with Ricky, especially our theological debates which were stimulating, both of us being rather analytical thinkers.

Ricky always talked positively about his childhood and had nothing but good things to say about his parents and those who raised him. He didn’t always agree with his mom on religious issues, but it was very clear from conversing with him that he knew that he loved her and that she took good care of him. He did struggle with the fact that children raised in the Family looked up to him as the “child of the prophet”, something he desperately tried to shrug off. He just wanted to be like everyone else, and that adulation and having to “be a good example to others” was tough for him. I felt sorry for him in that respect–it’s not an easy position to be in. But abused? You must be kidding. Never in the nearly four years that we lived together did he even hint at anything of the sort. In fact, not even after he left, in his written communications, did he look at his upbringing in that way. It was only a few years later, after contact with bitter former members, that he suddenly changed his whole stance and began touting that line. Among wolves, even a dog learns to howl.

Of course, Ricky was raised in a pretty sexual liberal environment; it was the seventies after all, the era of free love and pot (though no pot in Family communities). We were children of the sixties “flower power” and “make love, not war”. In time society changed, and so did we. But abused? Not a chance. The way Ricky expressed it to me in our conversations on the subject of his upbringing, if anything he considered himself lucky, but definitely not abused. He certainly was an intelligent, well-adjusted young man–a completely different person than the hate-and-profanity filled killer bragging about his weapon of choice for torture on the video that he made before he took his life. What changed him from a nice guy into the kind of person who could kill someone like Angela Smith, someone who never did anyone any harm and who was about the most gentle and kind person anyone ever knew? I do know one thing–he wasn’t like that in the Family, and it wasn’t his upbringing that caused it. I hold those who filled him with their own bitterness and hatred and tried to use him as a “poster boy” for their campaign against the Family at least partly to blame for his sad transformation.

Four of my seven brothers have left the Family and chosen other careers, and I wish them all the best in whatever path they choose, and hope they excel as model citizens. I have respect for those who choose a different path than mine, and who do it with enough conviction that they don’t have to make excuses for or justify their decision. Those people have a life. In my opinion, the start of Ricky’s downfall was that when he left, as evidenced through his communications at the time, he very much struggled with the fact that he had turned his back on his upbringing, and instead of moving on, he decided to justify his decision both to himself and to former members whom he came into contact with. As time went on, his reasons became increasingly difficult to prop up with fact and reason, and there was no recourse but to reinvent history and his perspective on his past in order to justify his decision. The sad thing is that there was no need for him to justify himself–either to himself or to those of us who knew and loved him, or even his mom. But once down that path, it’s hard to stop, until one must to convince himself that what he now expresses is the truth because otherwise one can’t live with himself. The end result can be suicide, as happened to poor Ricky. It’s a series of events that unfortunately occurs elsewhere in society as well.

I was sad to hear of Ricky’s death, but angry to hear that he had first taken the life of a dear friend of mine. Sadness and anger have now turned to disgust at the media’s awful coverage of the event. They seem to have forgotten that Ricky was the perpetrator and Angela the victim. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised though, since murder-suicide-with-sex-allegations-mixed-in is just the kind of sick story that a desensitized-to-violence and sexually-obsessed American public loves to read about. On today’s TV, footage of a mentally disturbed killer talking about his planned murder is just the thing to keep the ratings up. Fits in there nicely between Jerry Springer and CSI. After all, nowadays the media has to compete for the attention of a public that listens to Eminem rap about raping his mother, as kids re-enact gunning down bystanders while playing Postal on their PC.

But since mainstream news media at least professes to be fair (as long as it doesn’t negatively impact ratings, naturally), then maybe they’ll take a minute to hear from one of those people, who according to what I read in the papers, was supposedly “horribly abused” and “raised by cultists”. So here’s my statement: I have never been abused, nor have I ever witnessed any abuse, nor was I raised in a cult. I was raised by missionary parents who truly loved and cared for me and who generously laid down their lives to help others. I’ve lived all over the world, received the best real-life education a kid could ask for, learned to speak five languages, am better versed in world affairs, social and business matters than most college graduates my age, and consider myself a well-adjusted person, a volunteer missionary who likes to devote his time to helping others (rather than hurting or killing them, as some of our bitter enemies profess as their goal). I have had a great upbringing, I’m living a fulfilled life, and I’m proud of who I am and of being raised in the Family. And no effort by bitter apostates to use these recent tragic events to stir up the media through sensational lies and twisted renditions of history in an effort to destroy my Christian religion and service to Christ and mankind, will deter me from what I know is the truth. So help me God!

I hold those who have bitter and hateful stated intentions of harming the Family, such as Daniel Roselle and others, as responsible in part for Angela Smith’s death, and Ricky’s suicide, by inciting Ricky to turn on those who he knew and loved. They’re obviously twisting this tragedy to pursue their own personal vendettas, and unsubstantiated claims of “abuse” are an easy flag to wave about these days to get attention. And the nice thing about the media is that unlike a court of law, it doesn’t need to be true–anyone can make up whatever they want and who’s to say otherwise? How convenient. And yet folks like Daniel are the ones that rational and allegedly fair-minded journalists are listening to and quoting as some kind of authority on the Family, Ricky or Angela? What about those of us who actually lived with Ricky and Angela? And what about talking to the thousands of young adults who grew up in the Family, are still part of it today, and are happy, well-adjusted and productive members of society? Have they been consulted? Or do we not count somehow? Is it that if you’re a member of a small religious movement, you are less “equal” than those who are not? Unfortunately in America today, that’s one truth that is no longer self-evident.

Michael Mullen is a second generation member of the Family International.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 28th, 2005 and is filed under Speaking Out, By Age, Where From, Featured Posts, Those who knew them, 25 to 35, Archived, Unspecified. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.