0:05

Hi, this is Arshi Mann, host of comments.

0:07

We're on hiatus right now and we'll be

0:09

back soon. But in the meantime, I wanted

0:12

to share with you an episode of one

0:14

of our other shows that I think you'll

0:16

love. This episode is called

0:18

The Brethren, and it's the second chapter

0:20

of Ratfucker, a limited series by

0:22

Canada Land hosted by Jesse Brown and

0:25

Cherise Soutrin. It examines the

0:27

Plymouth Brethren Christian Church, a relatively small

0:29

but very politically connected Christian sect. I

0:31

don't want to give too much more

0:33

away because I really think you should

0:36

listen, but I can't think of a

0:38

better episode than this for anyone who's

0:40

enjoyed our series on cults. And if

0:42

you liked this episode, you can listen

0:45

to episodes one and three of Ratfucker

0:47

right now wherever you get your podcasts.

0:49

And if you're a supporter, you'll get

0:51

access to two bonus episodes about the

0:53

series as well. We'll leave the

0:56

links in our show notes for more details. And

0:58

thank you for listening. Where's

1:02

Marsh? He

1:06

said, all you got to do is give

1:08

us an address. That's it. You

1:10

don't have to physically touch him. You don't have to do

1:12

anything else. You just give us an address. I

1:15

can't. Nothing

1:17

good is going to happen. David

1:19

Wallace remembers the job that ruined everything.

1:22

The dirty trick that he just couldn't pull.

1:26

The target's name was Richard Marsh. All I had to

1:28

do was let him know where Marsh was. Now

1:30

keep in mind at this point, I'm pretty scared because they're

1:32

asking me if I don't turn over Marsh at this point.

1:34

Once I got here, Pullman's not going to pay me

1:36

no more. They're not going to give me back my expenses.

1:39

They're not going to give me nothing. Finding

1:42

Richard Marsh took some ingenuity. The

1:44

guy was good. Marsh, honestly, for an

1:47

amateur? Fucking brilliant. I

1:49

was amazed at some of the shit that he's

1:51

been able to pull intuitively. This

1:53

guy's a seasoned, seasoned skipper.

1:56

I don't know where he learned this stuff, but

1:59

fuck is he sharp. His double

2:01

downs and his false trails that he would

2:03

leave out, his misdirection, the way he played

2:05

the private investigators. I mean, he's brilliant. He's

2:08

a brilliant guy. I mean, he's better than

2:10

some professionals, I know. Mitchell had

2:12

let slip that they'd spent a half a

2:14

million dollars trying to track this guy down

2:16

for nothing. But Wallace

2:19

found him. He just

2:21

couldn't bring himself to hand him over. If

2:24

they're not going to do anything bad, then why do they need the address

2:27

so bad? Why? Send him a love

2:29

letter? Send him more legal

2:31

documents? Bullshit. I

2:34

couldn't do it. Because they

2:36

were not going to stop. They're big players.

2:38

They're big enemies. David

2:41

Wallace's big enemies, he says,

2:43

started out as his big

2:46

clients. He met them

2:48

through his growing network of customers in

2:50

the world of conservative politics. These

2:53

clients were different from the strategists and

2:55

candidates he'd done dirty tricks for throughout

2:57

his career. These

2:59

clients came from a church. A

3:02

little known evangelical sect called

3:05

the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church.

3:09

I'm Jesse Brown. I'm Shrei

3:11

Sutran. And this is RepBucker. My name is Richard Marsh.

3:13

I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer.

3:16

I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm

3:18

a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm

3:20

a lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a

3:22

lawyer. I'm a lawyer. I'm a lawyer.

3:26

I'm a lawyer. Richard Marsh, I'm an ex-member

3:29

of the Plymouth Brethren Christian

3:31

Church. I was born

3:33

into the church and left

3:36

at the age of 46. And

3:40

I'm currently in Canada. Richard

3:43

Marsh would become a key player in

3:45

the Klondike Papers story. But

3:47

before all of that, he was

3:49

a person born into the Brethren, a

3:52

religious group that David Wallace says he

3:55

wants to take down. I

3:57

mean, I hope that old church burns to the ground. organization.

4:01

We wanted to find out why and

4:04

we wanted to find out who this group

4:06

is. Some basic research

4:08

will tell you that the Plymouth Brethren are evangelical

4:11

Christians who live in communities

4:13

in Australia, England, New

4:15

Zealand, and Canada. There

4:18

are various types of brethren but

4:20

the group Richard Marsh belonged to

4:22

are a very specific sect, the

4:25

Plymouth Brethren Christian Church. When

4:28

we refer to the Plymouth Brethren in

4:30

this podcast that's who we'll be talking

4:32

about. Not any of the other brethren,

4:35

just the PBCC, a

4:37

group of about 50,000 globally

4:40

who are known for their

4:42

extreme interpretation of separation

4:45

from evil. We

4:48

wanted to know what that meant and

4:50

who they really are and why

4:52

their members might have ended up hiring

4:54

a guy like David Wallace to hunt

4:56

down one of their own. I

4:58

reached Marsh over Zoom at his home

5:01

in an undisclosed location in Ontario. Marsh

5:04

has been in hiding for years. The

5:06

man staring back at me over Zoom

5:08

is an unassuming-looking middle-aged British man with

5:11

a polite, quiet demeanor and

5:13

what he told me was that for him all this

5:16

started with his upbringing in the Plymouth Brethren

5:18

Christian Church. Well,

5:21

being born into the brethren in

5:24

your early years you don't really realize

5:26

that there is anything outside

5:30

of it. You're not allowed to

5:32

watch television, you're not allowed to

5:34

go to the sex education lessons,

5:36

you're not allowed to do extracurricular

5:39

activities, you're not allowed to dance,

5:41

you're not allowed to do a

5:43

whole list of things. Marsh

5:45

married another church member and together

5:47

they had five children. four,

6:00

you are, you know,

6:02

it's kind of considered there's something wrong with you. We had

6:05

only spoken for about five minutes

6:08

before we got engaged. I spoke

6:10

to her very briefly at one

6:13

of the Bible readings. She

6:15

was from an adjacent meeting. Marsh,

6:17

like many other members, took a job

6:20

with a brethren-owned business. He

6:22

says the church later moved his family from

6:24

the UK to another small brethren enclave

6:26

in Regina, the Plymouth.

6:28

Moving families around, according to Marsh,

6:31

was a part of the church's way of building

6:33

up communities around the world. So

6:36

who are the Plymouth brethren? Here's

6:38

how they describe themselves on their

6:40

YouTube channel. The

6:43

Plymouth brethren are a very caring

6:45

society, and it's very

6:47

impressive they not only look after themselves,

6:49

but also reach out to community and

6:51

touch lives in so many ways. We

6:54

sent questions to the Plymouth brethren church about

6:56

everything you're going to hear on this episode.

7:00

In their response, church spokesman

7:02

Merrick Grimshaw said that the Plymouth

7:04

brethren are not a cult. Grimshaw

7:07

confirmed the brethren members can only

7:09

marry other brethren members. Grimshaw

7:12

said that members do not vote or make

7:14

political donations, but said that

7:16

they do use mobile phones, play sports,

7:18

and dance. Grimshaw said

7:21

the brethren have no formal hierarchy,

7:23

no centralized control, and no paid

7:25

clergy. In fact, Grimshaw

7:27

said that the church has no employees

7:29

at all. Journalist Marcie

7:32

McDonald might know more about the brethren than anyone

7:34

else outside of the sect. She

7:36

wrote a book called The Armageddon Factor

7:38

about fundamentalist Christian movements in Canada. She

7:41

says the brethren first broke off

7:43

from other groups with their hard-line

7:45

stance on not socializing at all

7:47

with outsiders, and then changed again

7:49

in 1959 when one specific family

7:52

took over. The leadership

7:55

ended up in Australia and first

7:58

with a gentleman named John

8:00

Hales, who founded an office

8:02

supply and equipment company that is

8:06

huge. And he died in 2002,

8:09

and his son Bruce

8:11

Hales is now the current man

8:14

of God or elected vessel, the leader

8:16

of the brethren. And

8:18

he's based in Sydney, Australia. But

8:21

according to former members, living

8:23

inside the brethren means living

8:25

in an almost totally exclusive

8:27

society, separated from secular

8:29

society and even from other

8:32

evangelical Christian communities.

8:34

Former members say that they had to live in

8:36

brethren-only communities, socialize with

8:38

and marry only other brethren members,

8:42

and work only for brethren-owned

8:44

businesses. There are

8:46

over 3,000 brethren-linked businesses across the world

8:48

and a variety of industries. Ex-members

8:50

say that brethren are encouraged to do

8:53

their shopping at a brethren-owned grocery store,

8:55

the supermarket chain Campus & Co., with

8:57

over 200 stores globally. Over

8:59

the last 40 years, many brethren

9:01

have set up their own businesses.

9:04

Typically, these are family-owned enterprises

9:06

employing many from outside the

9:09

brethren community. The

9:11

brethren also run their own private

9:13

school system, called One School, which

9:15

they describe to us as one

9:17

of the largest schooling systems in

9:19

the world. Since the early

9:21

1990s, the brethren have established their

9:23

own schools. Each school

9:25

is registered and accredited by

9:27

the relevant educational authorities. According

9:35

to former brethren members, some of

9:37

whom have just launched their own podcast, the

9:40

church and its many companies control

9:42

every aspect of followers' lives,

9:46

all for the benefit of their global

9:48

leader in Australia, Bruce Hales.

9:51

This is Lane Admiral, who left the church

9:53

at age 18. Then

9:55

they have one school which handles all

9:58

the entire church is schooling from

10:00

kindergarten right up to high school. And of course, they're

10:02

not allowed to go on from there. Then

10:05

they have community trade links. That's literally their

10:07

version of Kachichi for members to buy and

10:09

sell stuff on. Then they

10:12

have this lame attempt at

10:14

Spotify called Rope, where

10:16

it's only PBCC music allowed. And

10:19

all of it has to be

10:21

pre-approved. Wow, I bet

10:23

it's really fun, great music on

10:25

there. So they have all these

10:27

things running their entire lives, their

10:29

business, their food, what they see

10:32

on their TV, their internet. Absolutely

10:34

everything is controlled. I

10:37

don't remember Jesus doing anything like this. And

10:40

it goes further than that because

10:42

they also have their own health

10:44

insurance company. Basically, Bruce Hales' aim

10:46

is to capture the entire revenue

10:49

stream of 55,000 people globally and

10:54

make a profit on it. You get

10:56

your generous wages working for your resident

10:58

business, but then every penny you

11:00

spend, you're actually spending it with the

11:02

church. So he claims it all back.

11:06

The Brethren Church denies that its members

11:08

are under any obligation to use those

11:10

services. And they deny that the church

11:12

or Bruce Hales profits from them. They

11:15

also deny that they have a formal hierarchy. However,

11:18

their website lists Bruce Hales as

11:20

the church's most senior leader. According

11:23

to media reports and investigations into

11:25

the Brethren, Hales is a multimillionaire

11:28

who is known by other titles

11:30

within the church, including Supreme Leader,

11:33

Man of God, and Elect

11:36

Vessel. Former

11:38

members of the Brethren talk about

11:40

practices called shutting up and

11:43

withdrawing from in

11:45

which members are shunned. Shunning

11:49

is a kind of punishment that many

11:51

former brethren say is the cruelest part

11:53

of the church. Shun

11:55

it's a precursor to being kicked out of the flock.

11:58

Other times, shunned members. members leave of

12:00

their own will. The

12:02

Brethren Church denies having anything to do with it.

12:05

They say it's up to individual families to

12:07

decide if they want to communicate with members

12:09

who have left and that the church itself

12:11

would never stand in the way. They

12:14

didn't answer our question about whether

12:16

members are ever instructed to shun

12:18

members who still live within the

12:20

community. Former

12:22

members say that can happen for many

12:25

reasons. For example, if

12:27

you are a victim of a terrible accident, that

12:30

can be taken as a sign that

12:32

God is punishing you for your sins.

12:34

And as a result, your own family

12:36

members may be required to shun you,

12:39

even while living with you in the same house. Once

12:42

again, journalist Marcy McDonald. Once

12:44

you are shunned, you are as dead.

12:47

And so this has caused

12:49

breakdowns and in some cases,

12:52

apparently, I don't know

12:54

of this personally, but I have read many

12:56

a case of suicides

12:58

because they are unprepared for

13:00

the real world. So it

13:02

has caused for those

13:04

who have been shown such a trauma. And

13:07

if they've spoken out, they've been hunted

13:09

down. And

13:11

lawsuits have been launched

13:13

to either force them into bankruptcy

13:16

or certainly to shut them up. So

13:19

that there's an example being set

13:21

also, if you dare speak out

13:24

against us, let alone leave

13:26

our fold, you will be severely

13:28

punished. In March

13:30

2022, five former members of

13:33

the church were featured in a documentary

13:35

called Breaking Brethren, detailing allegations

13:37

of psychological harm, abuse,

13:41

and even surveillance from the church. If

13:44

you leave the brethren, you're totally cut

13:46

off from your family, your friends, everything.

13:50

They want you ruined, so you crawl back

13:52

to them. I think if that's

13:54

a brother, it's a cult. reasons

14:00

why people have left the brethren is

14:02

because of alleged abuse. And

14:05

a warning to listeners, this part of

14:07

our story deals with allegations of the

14:09

sexual abuse of minors. In

14:12

the spring of 2022, a woman

14:14

named Cheryl Hope walked into an

14:17

RCMP detachment. She filed a

14:19

report about what happened to her as a

14:21

child growing up in the

14:23

Plymouth brethren community in Maple Creek, Saskatchewan.

14:26

After filing her police report, Cheryl

14:28

Hope told her story on the Black Ball

14:30

podcast and later spoke to us as well. It

14:33

was not uncommon for you just to be

14:35

dropped off at somebody's house. Well, he started

14:37

very young with me, so he always was

14:39

this person that I knew I needed to

14:41

please. And if I didn't, please, I knew

14:44

I would pay for it. Cheryl accuses

14:46

two brethren men in Maple Creek

14:48

of repeatedly abusing her throughout her

14:50

childhood. One of them, she

14:52

says, was particularly brutal. He was the one

14:54

that had it out for me. As

14:57

soon as I became kind of of the

14:59

age to explore, he pounced on me. And

15:02

there's things that I've never even been able to tell

15:04

my parents. She says that most Sundays,

15:06

when brethren were required to go to church

15:08

meeting six times a day, she

15:11

was shipped around to different members' houses. And

15:14

the things that happened there, she's

15:16

kept secret for a long time. And

15:19

that day, I was

15:22

given something. I thought it was a candy.

15:24

And I just remember that it

15:27

made me not be able to swallow. And

15:30

I remember like my mouth going really dry.

15:33

I remember being laid on

15:35

this blanket on a table. And

15:37

I just remember staring at these two ashtrays

15:39

and the drool coming out of my mouth.

15:43

And after everything was done that day, I

15:45

remember standing at

15:47

the front door. And I remember

15:50

them handing him money. Well,

15:52

why didn't she go to the police? Why

15:55

didn't she go to the police? Because

15:57

she was too scared to. Cheryl

16:03

Hope finally left the church at 17 and

16:05

has since married and had children. She

16:08

recently decided that it was time to go public

16:10

about her story, out of concern for

16:12

her nieces still in the church. The

16:15

Plymouth Brethren Christian Church told us that

16:17

sexual abuse is a crime which they

16:20

do not tolerate. I

16:22

reached out to the RCMP. And

16:25

in Main Creek RCMP, how can I help you? Hi,

16:28

I am a reporter and

16:30

I am tracking a story.

16:33

They confirmed to me that in the summer of 2022, Saskatchewan

16:36

police received allegations of historical

16:39

sexual assaults involving members of

16:41

the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church,

16:44

which they are now investigating. The

16:46

Brethren Church says that to their

16:48

knowledge, no church member in Maple Creek

16:50

has been contacted by any law

16:52

enforcement authority about allegations of

16:55

sexual abuse. Since leaving the

16:57

church 30 years ago, Cheryl Hope

16:59

has lost contact with her parents and everyone

17:01

she knew in Maple Creek, with the

17:04

exception of a few people who left

17:06

the church like her. One

17:08

of those people is Carmen Drever. Drever

17:11

hailed from North Dakota but moved to Maple Creek at

17:13

the age of 18 after marrying a man from that

17:15

community. But she's been living

17:17

in Tennessee for the past two decades after

17:20

deciding to leave the Plymouth Brethren. That

17:23

decision to leave didn't come easily. It

17:25

started when she was in Maple Creek. And

17:28

while I was having the babies and taking care

17:30

of the kids and walking around with my own

17:32

family, I was watching kids

17:34

like Cheryl. Like Cheryl was one of

17:36

them. And watching

17:39

how they were so unhappy. Slowly,

17:42

Drever says she noticed that kids

17:44

and young adults were leaving the

17:46

community and they weren't doing so

17:48

willingly. And then the longer I

17:50

was there and the more kids I was

17:53

watching leave, I was realizing, wait

17:55

a minute, it's not that these kids

17:57

want to leave home. And

18:00

here what I was realizing is these

18:03

kids were being the target

18:06

of two or three different leaders

18:08

and they would gradually beat them down and

18:10

beat them down. And then the

18:13

kids didn't want to obey the parents. They

18:15

would start by attacking them in the

18:17

meeting and then attacking the parents and

18:22

turn the kids against the parents, the parents against

18:24

the kids. And then

18:27

eventually they would go to the parents and

18:29

say, your child is being disobedient. We're going

18:31

to have to put them in a position

18:34

of discipline, which would mean they would shut

18:36

the kids up, take all the rest

18:38

of the family out of the house, and

18:40

the kids would be at home with the parents. And

18:43

they couldn't eat with each other and

18:45

they couldn't talk to each other. And

18:48

sometimes they would leave them in that position for a

18:50

week or two or a month or two. And

18:53

then the next thing they would come back to them and

18:56

if they hadn't changed their mind or if they hadn't promised that they

18:58

were going to be a good kid, they

19:01

would excommunicate them. And

19:04

that would force the parents to make a

19:06

decision. So how old were these

19:08

kids? I saw one case where a

19:10

child was as young as 13 years old. And

19:13

so where would that child go? In some cases

19:15

they went out on the street. It

19:17

was the most horrific thing I had ever

19:19

seen. You

19:22

know, especially raising young children myself.

19:24

I just sat there in shock. Dreever

19:27

decided that she couldn't let this happen to her

19:29

own kids. So she left, taking

19:31

her family to Winnipeg to another brethren

19:33

community. But she said that

19:35

when similar things happened there, she

19:38

and her husband decided to leave the church

19:40

completely and move to the US where her mother

19:42

lived. As far as I can

19:44

tell, the sexual assault investigation the RCMP

19:46

has opened is the first time

19:48

Canadian police have looked into abuse

19:51

allegations against brethren members. So

19:54

far, no charges have been laid. But

19:57

what about Richard Marsh? Why did he

19:59

leave the branch? his job, his

20:01

wife, his five children, and

20:04

the only life he'd ever known. And

20:07

why was he later hunted? His

20:09

falling out with the church began one day, he

20:11

says, when he was in a car crash.

20:14

That's when things began to go downhill. And

20:17

I blacked out while I was driving,

20:19

this is when I was living in Saskatchewan,

20:22

and went straight over a

20:24

crossroads and it was a

20:26

T-bone collision. And tragically,

20:29

the person in the other vehicle

20:31

died on the scene. And

20:35

I was hurt, but I

20:37

wasn't badly hurt. The

20:40

way the brethren mentality or

20:42

religion works is that

20:44

they read into everything that happens to

20:46

you. So if something good happens to

20:48

you, well, God's blessing you, if something

20:51

bad happens to you, then God is

20:55

disciplining you, God punishing you. So

20:58

his fellow brethren punished him too, he

21:00

says, by having him shunned.

21:04

Mark says he was not allowed to speak to his

21:06

kids or wife, and they were forbidden to speak to

21:08

him, even as they continued to live

21:10

together in the same home. Eventually,

21:13

Mark says he and his family were sent back to

21:15

the UK. Mark

21:17

believes this was the church's way of keeping

21:19

a closer eye on him. He

21:22

was set up with a job at another brethren business.

21:25

But there, things got worse. I

21:28

was having too much contact with

21:30

my children and my wife. I

21:33

had to move out of the house. So I

21:35

moved into my business premises, slept

21:37

on a pile of cardboard boxes in the back

21:39

of my business premises. Mark was

21:41

working for a company that tested medical equipment

21:44

called Specialist Hygiene Solutions Limited,

21:47

owned by another brethren member. And

21:49

I found to my absolute

21:52

horror, having worked there for a few

21:54

weeks, that they were running an enormous

21:56

fraud on the National Health Service in

21:58

the UK. It

22:00

was a medical disinfection device that

22:02

didn't work as described. It didn't

22:05

give anything like the stated level

22:07

of disinfection. And

22:11

I contacted a number

22:13

of their customers being various National

22:16

Health Service hospitals and

22:18

I contacted the health and safety

22:20

executive and government bodies. So

22:23

knowing I was signing my death warrant, I

22:25

wrote several page reports and sent

22:27

it to the office and

22:29

I simultaneously CCD

22:31

it to brethren members. Marsh

22:34

blew the whistle on hygiene solutions and

22:37

for the church, he says this

22:39

was the final straw. And

22:42

of course that precipitated the

22:44

end of my relationship with the brethren

22:46

because you know you

22:48

don't do that. If someone's doing something wrong,

22:51

they deal with it internally. You do not

22:53

turn members of the sect into

22:55

the authorities even if they have broken the law.

22:58

The church denies this and tells us

23:00

that they encourage members to report any

23:02

illegal activity to the proper authorities.

23:05

So I

23:07

left the brethren in disgust that they were going

23:10

to cover this thing up rather than put it

23:12

right. And then I published

23:14

a whole load of you know very

23:16

unwisely and very naively. I published all

23:19

my findings quite extensively on a Facebook

23:21

page and a website. Marsh

23:23

was sued by its CEO for libel.

23:25

Now the libel case

23:28

wasn't for anything I've said about the

23:30

equipment. So they succeeded in securing a

23:32

civil libel case against me and damages

23:34

of 55,000 pounds. Hygiene

23:39

solutions denied the allegations and also

23:41

sued Marsh. They settled

23:43

the suit on the terms that Marsh

23:45

would not repeat his allegations. He

23:48

broke those terms and was convicted of

23:50

contempt of court. Marsh

23:52

was now out. Out

23:55

of the brethren and out of the UK. Instead

23:58

of paying his debts, he fled to

24:00

Canada. And because he's

24:02

no longer a brethren, his wife and his

24:05

five children haven't spoken to him since. That

24:08

was seven years ago. Eventually,

24:12

he got into online dating, met a

24:14

woman from Jamaica, and they got married

24:17

and began a new life together. He

24:19

took a job working in a bakery

24:21

in Scarborough, Ontario. We

24:23

asked the church detailed questions about

24:25

the story Richard Marsh just told. We

24:29

asked if he was indeed shunned, driven

24:31

out of the church, and then harassed

24:33

and persecuted. They

24:35

did not deny any of

24:37

it directly, saying instead those

24:39

are not matters for the

24:41

Plymouth Brethren Christian Church. Once

24:44

he was out, Marsh found other

24:47

former brethren members, ex-brethren

24:49

including Cheryl, Carmen, and

24:51

Richard are now connected online

24:53

where they lend each other support and

24:55

work together to document what they see

24:58

as the rampant abuses of the church.

25:01

Richard Marsh became especially active

25:03

in exposing the Plymouth Brethren.

25:06

In fact, he may have become their most

25:08

dedicated critic in the world, digging

25:11

up every Brethren expose that he could

25:13

find and putting it all online, along

25:15

with his own allegations against them. Eventually,

25:18

David Wallace was hired to find

25:21

him. First

25:31

time I heard the name Plymouth Brethren was from Alan

25:34

Hallman. I was told that I was

25:36

going to get a call from his lawyer, Gerald Chippor, and

25:39

that Gerald had a new contract for

25:41

me, a new potential job. One thing

25:43

the Plymouth Brethren have in common with

25:45

the Conservative Party of Canada, former Prime

25:47

Minister Stephen Harper, and many

25:49

other prominent Conservatives is that all of

25:51

them have had the same Calgary lawyer,

25:54

Gerald Chippor. Alan

25:56

Hallman, the high-level Conservative

25:58

strategist who had David Wallace. on

26:00

Retainer, and whose son Chad worked with

26:03

Wallace on the plot to trap Calgary Mayor

26:05

Nahid Nenshi, is an old friend

26:07

of Shapiro's. The brethren is

26:10

a client of Jerry's on many different levels

26:12

from what I gather, but I don't pretend

26:14

to know all of them. Jerry's a very

26:16

good friend of mine. So,

26:18

yeah, the brethren is a client of Jerry's. When

26:21

Gerald Shapiro needed help hunting down Richard

26:23

Marsh, Holman says Shapiro

26:26

asked him for recommendation. And

26:28

so then Jerry asked me if I know a PI.

26:31

And I said, yeah, I do. And so it was

26:33

the same time that David was in my life. And

26:35

so then I get David and Jerry to get together

26:37

on that to find them. Apparently,

26:39

I've been looking for him for a long

26:42

time. Wallace was used to working

26:44

political jobs, but having religious

26:46

clients. That was new for him. They

26:49

didn't identify themselves as members of a

26:51

church. The words they

26:53

used is community. That we're

26:55

members of a community. We have a lot of

26:57

family-run businesses. Wallace says that they

26:59

hired him for what's called a skip

27:01

tracing job, finding someone

27:04

who does not want to be found. This

27:06

individual is slandering us. That's how we sold it to

27:08

me. I was told that they

27:10

had warrants on this guy, that he was

27:12

a fugitive from justice in Saskatchewan. That's

27:15

what they told me, that he killed somebody in a

27:17

drunk driving accident and that he

27:19

was a fugitive from justice in the U.K. Marsh's

27:22

former employer confirmed that Wallace was

27:24

retained to find Marsh, but

27:27

did not answer our questions about

27:29

who retained him. Wallace

27:32

says he was told that there were warrants

27:34

out for Richard Marsh's arrest. He

27:36

also learned that he wasn't the first guy hired to track

27:38

Marsh down. His new clients

27:40

had been looking for Marsh for years. They'd

27:43

even hired a different investigator to find

27:45

him, but no luck. They

27:47

handed Wallace that other private investigator's

27:50

report. Somehow, this

27:52

other detective had obtained private phone

27:54

logs that showed every phone call

27:56

placed from a residence where Marsh

27:59

was suspected. to reside. But

28:02

that PI ultimately concluded that Marsh didn't

28:04

live there anymore. David

28:07

Wallace was not so sure. Now

28:09

they didn't think Richard was there. They'd staked it out

28:11

for months. His wife was going

28:13

to school nearby. I noticed

28:16

that there were several different food deliveries and

28:18

the timing said to me that

28:20

these deliveries were taking place while the woman was

28:22

in school. Wallace thought he now knew

28:24

where Marsh liked to order his pizza from. So

28:27

instead of bugging Marsh, he bugged

28:29

a local pizza place. So I

28:31

put a little jack on his

28:33

phone. Actually not his phone, the pizza pizza

28:35

that they delivered from that they were doing all

28:37

the orders. So I bugged

28:39

that line. And during

28:41

the course of that delivery, I knew when a

28:43

pizza was going to be delivered. One kid was

28:45

going to deliver a pizza one evening. I gave

28:47

him a $50 bribe and I delivered the pizza.

28:51

Now I was instructions were to

28:53

leave it at the front door because it was prepaid.

28:56

And so I did. And then I went around to the

28:58

backyard and I waited for Mr. Marsh to come out and

29:00

take a look around and then go up the front and

29:02

collect the pizza. You said I was confused

29:04

by one point. You put a bug in

29:06

the phone. Yeah, there was outside box. You

29:08

put what's known as a carry on on

29:11

it. Basically it's down and dirty. It's simple.

29:13

If you got a hard phone line, it's

29:16

easy to bug. Just a landline.

29:18

This is like analog. Easy, easy,

29:21

easy, easy. Wallace waited

29:23

to see if Marsh would be the person

29:25

to step outside and claim the pizza sitting

29:27

on the doorstep. And then jackpot.

29:30

David Wallace had found his target. Now

29:33

it was time to hand him over. But

29:35

he didn't. He says something was holding

29:37

him back. He says he

29:39

was worried about what might happen to

29:41

Marsh once his whereabouts were known. I

29:44

read about the guy. I mean, I got it. They were

29:46

following his wife on a bus. They were doing things when

29:49

people don't know what they're doing, don't

29:51

know what they're doing, start doing things like that.

29:54

Inevitably somebody gets hurt. There's

29:59

no. reason or purpose to

30:02

stalk somebody like they were stalking him. Maybe

30:04

if you don't initiate it, he

30:06

catches you, there's going to be violence. They had

30:08

a team and a number and

30:10

that if I get in close proximity to

30:12

call this team, right, this

30:15

is even before serving them with any

30:17

papers or grabbing them, call this team.

30:19

And then he started talking about the guy's hard drive. You

30:23

don't have to tell me you're going to break in or rob the

30:25

guy. I mean, I can see where this is going.

30:27

And then I'm on the line because my name's all over everything.

30:30

So you're worried about your own liability there? Of

30:32

course. I was just worried. I mean, demonstrably, if

30:34

anything happens to this guy at that point, I'm

30:37

complicit. Warwick Penteman, Marsh's

30:39

old boss and the CEO

30:42

of Hygiene Solutions, responded to

30:44

our questions in an email. He

30:46

said that a suggestion that there was

30:48

a plan to turn over Marsh to

30:50

the brethren is entirely false. He

30:53

said that all that was wanted

30:55

was Marsh's address so that he could

30:57

be served with legal papers. But

31:00

David Wallace feared that the real

31:02

intentions were much worse. So

31:05

instead of handing Marsh over, Wallace

31:07

sent him a warning through

31:09

an intermediary. Wallace reached

31:11

out to a friend of Marsh's, a

31:13

doctor in Alberta named Keirat Singh, who

31:16

not only confirmed to us that this happened, but

31:19

who happened to have recorded the original call.

31:21

You know, these are not normal people. And

31:23

I'm doing all this research and it leads

31:25

back to these wacko religious Greeks. Once

31:27

again, the church's spokesperson tells us that what

31:29

happened to Richard Marsh was not a matter

31:32

for the Plymouth Brethren Christian Church. They're telling me that

31:34

I've been engaged for the job that I took to

31:36

deposit and I have to finish it. I'm not finishing

31:38

a job with these people. I told them I'll give

31:40

them their money, but I don't want nothing to do

31:42

it. Uh-huh. on

32:00

top of it. I mean how much

32:02

are they over a year? They said I got a blank checkbook to

32:04

find this guy and they told me if I could find him within

32:06

a month they'll give me a 150 000 bonus. That's that's

32:11

insane for a guy who's a nuisance

32:14

that that don't add up. They want

32:16

more from this guy. He

32:19

must have the goods on them and sell the fears.

32:23

Why doesn't he go to a long

32:25

course or something? There's got to be

32:27

somewhere he can go. What's the last two

32:29

payments in the bank? I want to give him

32:32

their money back. I don't want to

32:34

do this. Like this is

32:36

too heavy for me. I don't

32:38

do this sort of stuff. I do certain fixes but

32:40

I don't do anything to do with book. There

32:42

are cops out there and they got a claim or

32:44

something against this guy. That's one thing but that's not

32:47

what this is about. What

32:55

Wallace didn't know was that he was being recorded

32:58

which is ironic given how much secret recording

33:00

Wallace has done of others. And

33:03

then Marsh posted it to YouTube

33:06

where his clients were able to hear

33:08

exactly what you just heard. Their own

33:10

detective flipping sides and making allies with

33:12

his prey. Making serious

33:14

allegations about them that were now out

33:17

there for the whole world to hear.

33:19

That was betrayal and that meant

33:21

trouble. And it

33:23

was under these circumstances that a

33:25

desperate David Wallace finally came

33:28

to speak to Richard Marsh directly.

33:31

Dr. Singh helped to set up the call. Yeah

33:34

hello David it's Richard here. Hi, are

33:36

you the guy who put that video

33:38

up last night? Well

33:40

not me personally, no.

33:43

There's a whole

33:45

organisation of former

33:47

members of the exclusive brethren who have

33:49

been suffering from this kind of thing

33:52

for 50 years

33:54

now I suppose. So there's

33:56

generations of us

33:59

and this is the battle we've been fighting for a

34:01

long time. Look,

34:04

I got to tell you, I

34:06

had no idea about any of this stuff when

34:08

I took this job. You were somebody

34:11

who skipped out on a judgment, who they

34:13

wanted to serve papers who they said is

34:15

impossible to serve. That's

34:17

the job I took. Yes,

34:19

yeah, I cover story. Yeah. And

34:22

then I did my own research. And that's when I said

34:24

I want the hell out of this. No,

34:27

no, I quite understand. I mean, they, I mean,

34:29

I haven't skipped any judgment that I'm

34:31

aware of, at least I haven't been

34:34

notified of any judgment that

34:36

I skipped. So I imagine that's just a

34:39

kind of a cover story they put up

34:41

to, you know, obviously,

34:44

if they try to engage a PI

34:47

blatantly with the intention of harming someone,

34:49

no one's gonna take the job. The

34:52

thing though, I'm not a PI. That's what I would

34:54

try to tell your friend, Karan, I'm not a PI.

34:57

Trying to hire a guy like

34:59

me to find you is like,

35:03

it's overkill. It's

35:05

mad love overkill, which put my radar up from

35:07

the first part. They talked for over an

35:09

hour. And they started planning ways

35:12

to get themselves both out of trouble. And

35:14

to tell the world about the Plymouth

35:17

Brethren, Christian Church. You got

35:19

to go to the cops, and you got to go to the media.

35:21

You got to do it in that order. Cops

35:23

first, maybe a second. Yeah. Yeah. But

35:26

not your media, real media where people will

35:28

see it. Right, right. Yeah.

35:30

That's how you do it. Then you got to get a lawyer

35:32

and you got to sue these motherfuckers in court. All

35:36

at once. Understand where I'm going with this. There

35:39

was no going back for David Wallace now. I'm

35:42

out. I'm going

35:44

to prison if this guy gets hurt. Anything

35:47

happens to this guy, I'm connected to it. I

35:50

had to protect him. I mean, my name

35:52

was on this. It was a

35:54

decision that would have consequences. The

35:57

moment I made the decision to call March, I

35:59

was finished. I was done. To

36:01

even do that, you know you're finished. You can't

36:03

be in or out. To

36:06

do that basically means that I broke

36:08

one of my own rules. He was

36:10

banished from his network of conservative political

36:12

strategists and their lawyers as

36:14

definitively as Richard Marsh was banished from

36:16

the Brethren. Flipping

36:19

sides, exposing your own clients on

36:21

the internet. Who would hire

36:23

him after that? His

36:25

monthly retainer payments disappeared. And

36:28

that's when he decided if it was

36:30

going down, he would take them

36:32

all down with him. He would

36:34

release everything he had. Everything

36:38

on everyone. This

36:40

was rat fucker suicide. Okay,

36:43

but why did he really do it? Do you believe this

36:45

story? Jesse, so much of this is hard

36:47

to believe. The Klondike Papers

36:49

are connecting all the dots. The

36:51

centerpieces are global. The murder for

36:53

hire plot against our own prime

36:55

minister. The Klondike Papers. These guys

36:58

were instrumental in sending people to

37:00

Ottawa for the convoy. Former lawyers

37:02

for the PC party. Possibly

37:04

fathering children who are running for the

37:06

party leadership. Like it's fucking out of

37:09

control. The truth about the

37:11

Klondike Papers conspiracy theory. That's

37:15

next time on the conclusion to

37:18

Rat Fucker. To

37:29

hear all of Rat Fucker

37:31

right now, including an extended

37:33

bonus interview with Richard Marsh,

37:35

all about what life is

37:37

like in the Plymouth Brethren,

37:39

support us at canadaland.com/join. Rat

37:42

Fucker is written and reported by me, Cherie

37:44

Sutran. And me, Jesse

37:47

Brown. Tristan Capacchione is our

37:49

audio editor and sound designer. Original

37:52

music by Nathan Burley. Editorial

37:55

support from Sarah Larnyuk. And Jesse

37:57

Brown is our executive producer. You

38:00

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