February 16, 1947 - Roch Thériault
His hold over the Ant Hill Kids — a commune he controlled through escalating abuse, surgical procedures performed without training, and complete psychological domination — illustrated how charismatic authority can be turned into a mechanism of prolonged harm against a small, isolated group. The murder conviction represented only the most legally prosecutable dimension of what his followers endured over more than a decade.
From Wikipedia
Roch Thériault ([ʁɔk te.ʁjo]; May 16, 1947 – February 26, 2011) was a Canadian cult leader and convicted murderer. Thériault, a self-proclaimed prophet under the name Moïse [mɔ.iz] (French for "Moses"), founded the Ant Hill Kids in 1977. They were a doomsday cult whose beliefs were based on those of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In April 1978, Thériault was removed from the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He maintained multiple wives and concubines, impregnating all female members as a religious requirement, and fathering 26 children. Thériault's followers, including 12 adults and 22 children, lived under his totalitarian rule in a commune and were subject to severe physical and sexual abuse.
Thériault was arrested for assault in 1989, dissolving the cult. In 1993, he was convicted for the murder of follower Solange Boilard.
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