Episode 162: The Children of the Attleboro Cult
The cult, referred to as “The Body”, is a Christian fundamentalist group that rejects modern medicine, government and essentially science as a whole. Based in southeastern Massachusetts on the Rhode Island border and made up mostly of two large families, the cult was started in 1978 by a man named Roland Robidoux after he decided to leave the group “The World Wide Church of God”. He had joined them in the early 70’s, but had grown to feel as though their rules and Christian belief systems were too strict. When he left, he had the goal to establish his own church that would truly serve God.
Roland Robidoux and his family formed Bible study groups out of their home that they did weekly. Roland became convinced that God Himself was calling him to form his own church and lead the way in practicing faith, and the group at their peak had 70 members. As Roland gained power and the trust of his followers, he became more and more controlling over them and what they should do to worship God. He told his followers to cut ties with anyone in their lives who didn’t share the same faith, even if those people were family members, he began telling his followers to change their diets and he felt that traditional religious worship music wasn’t good enough, so the group composed their own.
At one point, Roland came across a book, "Born in Zion” by Carol Balizet, a former nurse who became a spiritual midwife. Her book stressed the importance of completely withdrawing from society because society was dominated by “Satan's seven counterfeit systems of education, medicine, commerce, banking, entertainment, schools, and government.” Roland began invoking these beliefs into the group, causing things to escalate. In the late 1990’s, members began what they called "leadings," or direct communications with God, which became a huge part of the cult’s framework. Examples of these “leadings” that members received from God were that glasses were a sin and to stop using them, to throw away books, DVD’s and movies and even photographs, and that women should only wear dresses.
Roland’s son, Jacques Robidoux, married Karen, the daughter of his dad’s best friend Roger Daneau, in 1996. Karen had two children, ages 12 and 10, with different fathers. Over the years, Jacques and Karen welcomed three children of their own: 5-year-old Jollie, 3-year-old Caleb, and a new baby they named Samuel. Jacques soon became an "elder" of the cult, making him a leader alongside his father and the cult’s founder Roland.
It was not too long after this that Jacques’ sister, Michelle Mingo, told him that she had had a “leading”, or a vision, about baby Samuel. The vision was that God wanted Karen to drink a gallon of almond milk a day and to feed Samuel, who was 10-months-old and eating solid food, only water and breast milk, specifically for 20 minutes every hour. Karen was pregnant at this time and was unable to produce the amount of breast milk Samuel needed, but she tried to do as the group told her. After 52 days of slow starvation and just 3 days shy of his first birthday, on April 26th, 1999, Samuel was found dead.
In July, three months after Samuel's death, another one of Jacques’ sisters named Rebecca Corneau and her husband David had a baby named Jeremiah that was sadly stillborn. In October, members of the cult took a trip up to Baxter State Park in Maine, roughly six and a half hours away, for a religious celebration called the Feast of Tabernacles. The body of Samuel Robidoux and the body of his infant cousin Jeremiah Corneau were buried at the state park. While most of the group was away, a former cult member named Dennis Mingo made a surprise appearance. He had stumbled across a handwritten account, over 10 pages long, about Samuel’s death. Deeply disturbed by this, Dennis turned this over to police and met with them in person in early November.
On November 8th, 1999, police knocked on one of the doors of the homes in the cult’s commune. They soon came to the realization that not only was Samuel dead and his body nowhere to be found, but there was another baby, Jeremiah Corneau, who was stillborn. Two days later on November 10th, police arrested Jacques Robidoux, who was later found in contempt of court for refusing to cooperate.
When police began investigating further, the adult members of the cult refused to cooperate, but police were able to work with information from the children of the cult. Police found 19 children on the cult’s grounds, and 11 children, all under the age of 10, were quickly removed from the cult and placed in the custody of the Massachusetts Department of Social Services. One of the children told police that Jeremiah had been born “without a breath,” and that Samuel “wasn't feeding,” and had died in the spring. The child also told police that the bodies had been trucked up to central Maine and buried by four male members on a camping trip in the park. Other children all shared memories of watching cult elders cry and pray over Samuel’s body. The search for the bodies spanned across Rhode Island, Massachusetts and up into Maine to Baxter State Park based on the tips they received, but they didn’t find the bodies.
David Corneau, Jeremiah’s father, told police that his baby “never had a breath of life, the Lord never give it to him.” David refused to tell police where he buried the baby, just that Jesus told him to bury him. Karen Robidoux also admitted to investigators that her son died, but she also wouldn't say where he was buried. Jacques, from his jail cell, also continued to refuse to disclose the whereabouts of the burial sites.
In late April, Jacques Robidoux appeared in court as his own attorney. He told Judge Kenneth Nasif: “Regardless of what the state believes, I have to do what's right between me and God.” Jacques argued that Samuel was a member of a “sovereign nation” without a U.S. Social Security number and, therefore, he or his death cannot be investigated by the state. As for Karen, she had invoked her Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination in the case. Prosecutors felt that Karen was cracking as she was very disturbed by watching her baby suffer and cry from hunger over the almost two months he starved.
On May 20th, over 100 searchers and 20 dog teams from Maine, along with a trio of Massachusetts investigators, were expected to focus on a 15-mile section of the Freeze Out Trail inside Maine's Baxter State Park to search for the bodies. The search was unsuccessful but gave investigators a better idea of where else to focus and look during their searches.
By the end of June, eight cult members were behind bars, 13 children were taken by the state, and just five remaining adult members were free.
On August 17th, 2000, baby Samuel was officially ruled dead. The day before, Judge Nasif stripped Karen of her parental rights, and the day after on August 18th, all of the parents in the cult officially lost custody over their children.
David and Rebecca Corneau eventually agreed to cooperate with police in exchange for immunity. On October 25th, 2000, using a compass and landmarks he recalled, David led police to the bodies of his son Jeremiah and baby Samuel. They were buried in wooden boxes.
On November 13th, Jacques and Karen Robidoux and Michelle Mingo were all indicted for Samuel’s death. Jacques was charged with first-degree murder, Karen with second-degree murder, and Michelle with being an accessory to assault and battery on a child, a crime punishable by up to five years in jail.
Samuel’s death was ruled a homicide. Dr. Margaret Greenwald, the chief medical examiner in Maine, ruled that he died of severe malnutrition due to starvation. She had to go almost exclusively off of Samuel’s skeleton as there was not much else left, but based on this she could see that the baby's bones had grown less dense after losing minerals, as in osteoporosis, as a result of malnutrition. She reported that based on the development and appearance of his teeth, Samuel was fed adequately for most of his life until the end of his life. A lack of healing of the damage to his bones also showed that the starvation was immediately before his death and probably uninterrupted. It was also reported that it was likely he had scurvy and other vitamin deficiency diseases as a result of the starvation. In court, she testified that his skeleton was so tiny that they had to use an x-ray scanner used on mice.
On June 14th, 2002, after six-and-a-half hours of deliberation over two days, the jury found Jacques Robidoux guilty of first-degree murder. This was a mandatory life sentence.
After extensive therapy and living in a group home in Massachusetts for people who have fled high-control level cults, Karen stood trial. On February 3rd, 2004, Karen Robidoux was acquitted of the murder of her son Samuel. She was found guilty of assault and was sentenced to two and a half years in prison, but was credited with serving the three years in prison she had done, so she was released.
Michelle Mingo pled guilty to the charges of accessory to assault and battery on a child and was released in 2004, going back to live with the remaining cult members.
Image sources:
misandryangie.wordpress.com - “The Attleboro Sect 1/5”
thesunchronicle.com - “Attleboro’s Tom Carroll remembered for seeking justice for abused children”