True Crime-Paranormal-Conspiracy Theories Stories Part V #Wattys2023

The Ant Hill Kids: Roch Theriault

Roch Thériault ([ʁɔk te.ʁjo];May 16, 1947 – February 26, 2011) was a Canadian cult leader andconvicted murderer. Thériault, a self-proclaimed prophet under thename Moïse [mɔ.iz], founded the Ant Hill Kids in 1977. They were adoomsday cult whose beliefs were based on Seventh-day AdventistChurch beliefs. In 1978, Thériault was removed from Seventh-dayAdventist Church. Thériault maintained multiple wives andconcubines, impregnating all female members as a religiousrequirement, and fathering 26 children. Thériault's followers,including 12 adults and 22 children, lived under his totalitarianrule at the commune and were subject to severe physical and sexualabuse.

Thériault was arrested for assault in1989, dissolving the cult, and was convicted for murder in 1993 forthe death of follower Solange Boilard. He had previously killed aninfant named Samuel Giguère, while two of his disciples, GeraldineGagné Auclair and Gabrielle Nadeau, died following homeopathictreatments administered to them by Thériault. Thériault received alife sentence, which he was serving when he was murdered atDorchester Penitentiary in 2011. Thériault, along with RobertPickton, Clifford Olson and Paul Bernardo, has been considered one ofCanada's most notorious criminals since the 1980s.

Early life

Roch Thériault was born on May 16,1947, in Saguenay, Quebec, Canada, into a French-Canadian family, andraised in Thetford Mines. As a child Thériault was considered to bevery intelligent, but dropped out of school in the seventh grade andbegan to teach himself the Old Testament of the Bible. Thériaultbelieved that the end of the world was near, and would be brought onby the war between good and evil. Thériault converted fromCatholicism to the Seventh-day Adventist Church, and began practicingthe denomination's regular holistic beliefs which encouraged ahealthy lifestyle free of unhealthy foods and tobacco.

Ant Hill Kids

In the mid-1970's, Thériault convinceda group of people to leave their jobs and homes to join him in areligious movement. Thériault formed the cult in 1977 inSainte-Marie, Quebec with the goal to form a commune where peoplecould freely listen to his motivational speeches, live in unity andequality, and be free of sin. He prohibited the group from remainingin contact with their families and with the Seventh-day AdventistChurch, as this was against his cult's values of freedom. Thériault'sfear of the end of the world grew, claiming that God had warned himthat it would come in February 1979, and used the commune to preparefor it. In 1978, in preparation, Thériault moved his commune byhiking to a mountainside he called "Eternal Mountain"in Saint-Jogues, in the sparsely populated Gaspé Peninsula, where heclaimed they could all be saved. There, Thériault made the communebuild their town while he relaxed, comparing them to ants working inan ant hill, naming the group the Ant Hill Kids. In February 1979,when the apocalypse did not occur, people started questioningThériault's wisdom, but he defended himself saying that time onEarth and in God's world were not parallel, and that therefore it wasa miscalculation. To expand the community as well as keep the membersdevoted, Thériault married and impregnated all of the women,fathering over 20 children with 9 female members of the group, and bythe 1980s there were nearly 40 members. Followers were made to wearidentical tunics to represent equality and their devotion to thecommune.

In 1984, the group relocated fromQuebec to a new site near Burnt River, a hamlet in Central Ontarionow part of the city of Kawartha Lakes.