It’s hard to believe, but in America alone, there may be as many as 5,000 religious groups preying upon the weak and vulnerable, and all in the name of God. Dr. Phil’s guests have warnings for you and your children.
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“Tell me what you’re thinking when you watch that,” Dr. Phil says to Seeta.
Seeta cries. “It makes me very angry,” she says.
“You tried to alert the authorities. You talked to all kinds of people, right?”
“I did,” she says. “Social services said it wasn’t their job. I needed to bring the evidence to them,” she says.
Ria’s criminal defense attorney, Steve Silverman, joins the discussion. Steve explains that Ria is currently in jail, charged with first-degree murder and child abuse.
“Are there other members of this organization imprisoned as well?” Dr. Phil asks.
“There are four other members that they have charged with first-degree murder, three of which are currently being held without bail,” Steve says. “The child evidently died about a year ago, and once the body was found in Philadelphia, in the suitcase, that was when charges were brought against my client, the mother, and the cult members.”
“Her defense is that she was brainwashed?” Dr. Phil asks.
“There’s no question she was brainwashed,” Steve says. “She loved her child. That is one of the reasons why she left the home, because she wanted, in her mind, the opportunity to be with her child 24 hours a day, seven days a week. What you have is an 18-year-old girl, a very gullible, naïve young lady who has the deepest religious convictions and commitment of anyone I’ve ever met in my life. And she was brought into this situation by people literally twice her age. The woman who ran this cult, her name is Queen Antionette, and she convinced Ria she was an apostle of God, that she spoke with God on a daily basis, that God is with her, in their house and giving her orders, and Ria bought this program hook, line and sinker. This starvation issue didn’t occur until months, and months and months of programming, until finally, one day, Queen Antionette was convinced the young child was possessed, and she convinced Ria that this child needed to be literally exorcised from the devil.”
“The reason why that wasn’t the case is that they brought the child in a suitcase with them to Philadelphia, and [kept it] for months, and months and months, for one reason and one reason only, and that’s because Queen Antionette told Ria that the child was going to be resurrected. I think that speaks volumes for her irrational commitment to this cult and following exactly what the leader said,” Steve says.
