~ canada has cults too
Roch Thériault (pronounced "Rosh Terry-o") was born in the Saguenay Valley of Québec on May 16, 1947, to Hyacinthe and Pierrette Thériault, the second of seven children and the eldest boy. At the age of six, the family of this boy who would later say he played with wild bears moved the family to the community of Thetford Mines, in the Eastern Townships. The town's local school went up to the seventh grade, and none of the Thériault kids went any further – not even young Roch, who was bright, outgoing, and seemed to enjoy learning. Although Roch would later describe his parents, particularly his father, as abusive, Hyacinthe denies ever having beaten the boy, and even in his youth Roch himself almost never complained about his home situation.
Hyacinthe, a labourer, was devoutly religious and a member of the «Union des Electeurs» (Union of Electors, also known as «Berets blancs» or "White Berets" on account of their signature mission uniform), a Catholic fascist offshoot of the Depression-era «Créditiste» movement. Between Mass and his father's forced door-to-door White Beret literature distribution campaigns, Roch developed an abiding hatred for Catholicism in particular and organized religion in general.
Roch was given little to complain about as a child, passing a relatively uneventful adolescence in Thetford Mines; but as he grew older, he discovered that complaining about his childhood was a great way to get sympathy. Between this, and his interest in a number of topics that gave the illusion of a penetrating intelligence for which he was often praised (even by psychiatric evaluators after his ultimate arrest), he came to crave attention. This desire was readily satisfied by his physical presence and by his penchant for showmanship. He also found that spirituality was very attractive.
On November 11, 1967, he married Francine Grenier, a girl from the next town over. They moved to Montréal, and over the next three years, she gave him two sons: Roch Sylvain (Roch jr) and François. During this time, Roch sr developed some severe ulcers, which had to be excised surgically, and later developed complications from the surgery. The persistent discomfort of his digestive system fostered a certain irritability on Thériault's part; he also became obsessed with medicine, and taught himself a great deal about anatomy. He also moved his family back to Thetford Mines and began developing his skills with woodworking. He became involved in municipal politics, and joined «le Club Aramis,» the French analogue to the Shriners, which he suborned for use as his personal platform for a parody of Catholicism, despite the Catholic roots of all the other members. He also acquired a new interest in sex and sexuality – one which was not entirely appreciated by his wife or his inlaws.
He also took to drinking.
Heavily.
He was using his amateur wood sculpting sales as an excuse to go out of Thetford Mines for Québec City on the weekends to carry on trysts with women he met there. "Gisèle" was one such a woman. Eventually, Thériault's finances gave way, and the local credit union repossessed his Thetford Mines residence; Francine washed her hands of Roch, and Roch took up with Gisèle. Although he was having sexual congress with her on a regular basis, to keep up appearances he made a bed in the back of his truck, so that it would appear that his scruples forbade him from sleeping with a woman to whom he was not married.
It was around this time that Roch Thériault discovered the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
The Adventists, ministered by a Guadaloupean named Pierre Zita, met in a local motel room every Saturday. Roch was their most devoted follower; he began following Adventist nutritional strictures, and quit drinking. In fact, his "enthusiasm" for God's work began to unsettle the other Adventists, and his boastfulness irritated those who knew of his limited education. Roch became fascinated with the Old Testament, with its strict codes of masculine authority; he was also fascinated with Apocalypse, with its message of violent retribution for sin in the end times and the division of the human race into the elect and the reprobate.
To make money, Thériault began selling Adventist literature door-to-door. When he proved himself quite capable in this enterprise, Zita began giving him workshops on quitting smoking for Thériault to run – a traditional gateway for Adventist evangelism. He soon proved to excel at this. By 1977 he had amassed to himself a number of followers:
- Solange Boilard (21)
- Chantal Labrie (19)
- Francine Laflamme (18)
- Nicole Ruel (20)
- "Marise" (18)
- Josée Pelletier (20)
- Jacques Fiset (mid-twenties)
- Claude Ouellette (24)
- Jacques Giguère (24), his wife Maryse Grenier (23), and their six-month-old baby girl
All of these people, plus Roch, began hanging around at Gisèle's apartment. Though most of the girls still living with their parents, the whole group would often spend the weekend crashing at Gisèle's – on the couch, on the floor, wherever there was space. Thériault encouraged them all to drop out of college; after all, Christ was coming soon, so there wasn't much point to learning skills to get by in a world that was already doomed. Sometimes Gisèle would become jealous of the attention the girls lavished on Roch; but as he had expressed interest in becoming a priest, and had committed to total sobriety, she came to regard this as absurd – even if she realized it wouldn't take much for Thériault to seduce any one of them. And Roch's Adventist ministers began to fear that this group of disaffected youth were more attracted to Thériault personally than they were to the Church.
In 1977, he and his followers attended an Adventist retreat on Lake Rosseau, in the woods of Muskoka, Ontario. Here, he met Gabrielle Lavallée (from Québec) and Yolande Guinnebert (from France), who joined his retinue. The natural scenery of Lake Rosseau apparently made a huge impression on Roch. In fact, at one point during the retreat, Thériault went hiking by himself, and climbed up on a rocky outrcopping. He said he had a vision in which the sky was lit up with a white radiance, and the voice of God told him that the outcropping on which Roch was about to kneel was a holy place.
This was the first incident of what would become the ruling element in the lives of those people who had taken to following Thériault.
~ healthy living
With an entourage of eight live-in followers (Gisèle, Solange, Chantal, Francine, Nicole, Gabrielle, Jacques Fiset, and Claude), a growing reputation as a "healer," and sympathetic connections with the Seventh Day Adventist health food and mission literature suppliers, Thériault decided it was time to move his motley band from Thetford Mines. He established them in Sainte-Marie, in the Beauce region, about 65km south of Québec City. Here, they opened the "Healthy Living Clinic," an alternative medicine venue where you could get organic foods and holistic literature to help you cure any ailment – cash up front, of course. Thériault insisted they all wear a uniform: an ankle-length pull-over tunic, green for the women and beige for the men, with Roch wearing a dark brown robe of similar cut.
Not only was he making money in this enterprise, he was also attracting followers. Several of the Clinic's patrons volunteered time or financial donations – including one, Léo Marc Faucher, who sold his worldly possessions to fund the Clinic and move in with his wife and child. Jacques Giguère and Maryse Grenier did likewise, and "Marise" and Josée Pelletier rejoined the group. A strange dynamic took hold of the group, with all the women (except Maryse Grenier, who hated being with the commune) competing for Rock's attention. Eventually, Gisèle became very concerned that she might lose Roch to one of the other girls, and took the initiative to propose to him herself. A week later he agreed, and they were married on January 8, 1978, at an Adventist church in Montréal. There was no honeymoon; the group piled back in the van for the five-hour trip home, Thériault joking with the other girls all the way home. Gisèle cried on a matress in the back, increasingly convinced that it had all been a way to cement his relationship with the Adventists with a display of sincerity.
The Adventists weren't convinced. Pierre Zita tried approaching the parents of many of the girls, and tried to convince Gisèle to leave Roch. But Thériault's place in the hearts of his followers was much too deep for family or friends to displace. Even when the police came, at the behest of the families of some of the girls, they refused to speak. Thériault was their elected face to the outside world. Even when local businessmen began filing in to the police station to complain about Thériault's inability to pay outstanding bills, the police's hands were tied.
In March of 1978, Geraldine Gagné Auclair was admitted to the Healthy Living Clinic. She had been undergoing treatment for leukemia in Québec City, and things seemed to be going well. But Auclair's husband fell in with Thériault. Roch convinced M Auclair to let him visit Geraldine in the hospital, where Roch got in a loud argument with the doctors over the matter of Geraldine's treatment – particularly the amount of drugs they were giving her. Roch convinced M Auclair to check the 38-year-old cancer patient Geraldine out of the hospital and into the Healthy Living Clinic, where even Geraldine's own father was not permitted to visit.
Roch Thériault's treatment for leukemia was grape juice and organic foods. Geraldine Gagné Auclair died in the Clinic. Thériault told his followers that he had gone into her room and kissed her, and she awakened from death – but that, in the end, "You know, when God wants people, he takes them. It was Geraldine's time."
During the same period of the Clinic's existence, the parents of 19-year-old multiple sclerosis victim Gabrielle Nadeau placed her under the care of Thériault, who they had met at an anti-smoking workshop.
In April of 1978, Thériault was voted out of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, on Zita's initiative. This didn't phase Thériault one bit, and his next move was to marry some of his followers together, in spite of the fact that, not only did he lack any authority to perform marriages whatsoever, his followers had actually not expressed any interest in getting married whatsoever – at least not to the men Roch decided they were to marry. Claude Ouellette was paired with Solange Boilard, and Jacques Fiset with Nicole Ruel. Solange invited her parents to the ceremony, and on advice from their priest they decided to attend, if only to show Solange that they still loved her. They reported that Roch's wedding ceremony was not what they expected, to say the least – Thériault's rambling speech stressed the woman's role of subservience to the man. Some of the women in Solange's family wept – and not for joy.
That spring, Gisèle, pregnant and feeling rejected by the lack of attention Roch gave her since their marriage, gave her new husband an ultimatum: either he break the commune and encourage his followers to find new homes, or she would move back in with her father. Thériault's answer was to smash her in the mouth and forbid her to leave the room for two days.
~ "moïse"
In June, 1978, in spite of its financial success, the Healthy Living Clinic faced some serious problems. First, there was the outstanding debts. Second, the constant police surveillance to which they had been subjected since Auclair's death. Third, the cutting-off of health food and missionary literature supplies from their former friends, the Seventh Day Adventists. Prognosis: negative. Recommended treatment: Move.
Thériault loaded the band into their vehicles and set out. They wandered from town to town, down the Fleuve Saint-Laurent, for a month. In July, they found themselves in the wilderness of the Gaspé Peninsula. It was here that Thériault disclosed to the group his vision of the future. Thériault told the group that the world would end on February 17, 1979, amid a storm of boulder-sized hail, earthquakes, and lightening. They, the commune, would become God's chosen, but only if they made a righteous life for themselves in the scrub of these Appalacian foothills. Thériault, of course, would be their guide.
The group set out on foot into the hills from the village of Saint-Jogues, on July 9, 1978. They hiked for two days until they found an isolated hill beside a small body of water called Lac Sec ("Dry Lake"). Thériault named the diminutive mound "Eternal Mountain," and it was here that the group made their home. They erected a tent-town, spent a week retrieving tools from the cars, and then began construction on a large communal cabin. They worked at least seventeen hours a day clearing the land, and occasionally getting supplies from the village. Jacques Fiset and Claude hacked at the ground with a shovel and pickaxe where the center of the cabin would be, working all summer to dig a well; when they finally reached the water-table, Roch declared it a miracle. They worked in their tunics, and when tripping over these became inconvenient and dangerous, Roch commissioned new uniforms: dark blue wrap-around short shrifts. Thériault rationed the food, and if anyone complained about anything (like hunger), he would punish them by restricting their rations.
Of course, Thériault's stomach pains and "cancer" prevented him from participating in the labour. His role was much more important for their spiritual salvation: impressing upon his followers that everyone in the outside world, most especially their families, were active oppressors of the righteous, who were doomed to lie dead for all eternity for the unforgivable harm they had inflicted upon these poor, innocent souls.
For some, this was all too much. Yolande Guinnebert, who had joined the group with her friend Gabrielle Lavallée at the resort at Lake Rosseau, headed back to France, claiming that her passport had expired. Léo Marc Faucher, who had joined the Healthy Living Clinic with his wife and child and who had given Thériault all of their money, loaded his meagre possessions and his family into a wagon and headed back for civilization. Roch did nothing to stop them, but made it clear that Faucher was evil in the eyes of God.
When it was all done in September, the cabin consisted of a single open room with a floor made of pounded wooden rounds and with the well in the center, a ceiling made of mossy, twiggy bark-covered logs, and rooms consisting only of metre-high partitions and bedsheets hung as curtains. This was to be their home until God began his thousand-year reign on Earth. It was also a place of merriment, where Thériault would organize skits and songs. To commemorate their new life, Thériault gave them all new names from the Old Testament. He himself became "Moïse," or Moses, leader of the exodus from the depraved modern world. He was their Papy; his wife Gisèle was their Mamy, and with the collective welfare checks of everyone in the group, they had a monthly budget of $1 400 Canadian.
In October, the six-months-pregnant "Mamy" Gisèle went to "Moïse." She said that the women who had not been married were lonely. Thériault relayed this insight to the other girls, thus giving them the impression that Mamy had been the first to think of it. A few nights later, Nicole Ruel (whom Roch had married to the uninterested Jacques Fiset) confided that she and Moïse had had intercourse while everyone else was working. This hurt Gisèle immeasurably and she fled from the cabin, but an enraged Thériault pulled her down and squeezed his hands around her throat. Cowed and afraid for her life, Gisèle agreed to return to the compound.
Moïse declared all commune marriages, other than the one between himself and Gisèle, void. He then began marrying the women to himself – including Gabrielle Nadeau, the twenty-year-old multiple sclerosis invalid, though apparently didn't try to have intercourse with her. He did have sex with his other "wives;" the rebellious Solange was the last to fall to his wiles. The one exception was Maryse Grenier, the outsider.
When the Jonestown Massacre occurred on November 18, 1978, Thériault followed the story with keen interest – he even claimed to have had a vision of the event a year before. But they now had a very pressing problem. Doomsday cults were now a household concern, and the families of Thériault's followers renewed their attempts to disrupt the group. The police wanted to take him into custody, but lacked evidence that he was a danger to himself or others; nevertheless, Thériault went willingly with them and underwent psychological evaluation. He claimed that he wasn't the "leader" of the group; that the commune was a democracy and that they lived "in peace and without any promiscuity." He conveniently left out the parts about food rationing, abuse, or his polygamous harem. The authorities realized he was a delusional crank, but without any proof he was a dangerous delusional crank, they released him under his own recognizance.
Thériault abandoned the Adventist diet. He began eating meat and junk food. He prostituted Gabrielle to a local grocer for some milk, meat, and cheese. He also started drinking again after two years sober – first communion wine, then beer and cognac. He began to deliver long, rambling, drunken sermons. If anyone fell asleep, he'd smack their head with a four inch thick club. When Maryse Grenier, pregnant, ate two more pancakes than Thériault had allocated to her, he punched her in the side and broke two of her ribs. A favourite punishment would be to force someone to strip naked and stand in the snow for a few hours. No one would fight back; it would be like raising a hand against God himself.
Jacques Fiset left; Thériault told the others he had been taken by the Devil. As for the others, all of this served only to make them more obsequious. They would write letters like this:
Hello Papy!
I am writing about what you said on the subject of nutrition. It is very true that I nibble, a damnable fault which I will never again repeat. The thought of ingesting such a large quantity of food in so little time discourages me, even if I work outside the entire day without eating. I ask that you forgive me. If it is stealing, I did not realize it.
It is this fault which causes my plumpness. I do not want to be a fat and plump servant. That is too ugly next to the man that you are.
I don't know what to think about everything and the meaning of my actions. I only know that I will not repeat them. And I don't speak lightly.
I wish to be a true servant to you, my Master. Alert, vigorous, with a clear and lively spirit and well-balanced to serve you every moment of my life.
I have a long way to go.
Thank you Papy,
I love you,
Hogla
[Francine Laflamme]
Maryse Grenier began to talk about leaving. Thériault instructed Jacques Giguère, Maryse's husband in the eyes of the law (though not in the eyes of "Moïse") to cut off one of her toes with an axe as punishment. When Giguère balked, Thériault began to taunt him: "What are you, a faggot? Don't you have any balls? If you want to be a man, you have to learn how to teach your woman a lesson." When Giguère began to cry, Thériault grabbed the axe and threatened to cut off all of Maryse's toes himself. Reluctantly, Giguère took the axe and severed one of Maryse's small toes. After that, Giguère became "Moïse's" main enforcer.
The prophecied day, February 17, came and went without any Second Coming. According to Thériault, divining exact dates from the messages of God was a difficult business for mortals, as time passes differently for Him than for them. To the shock and horror of the families of Thériault's followers, this was enough to keep the group together; after all, the end could come any day now. Chantal Labrie's parents obtained a court order for a round of psychiatric tests for their daughter. When two police officers showed up at the compound, however, Thériault repelled them.
One month later, only four days after Québec City's Le Soleil published a story on the group entitled "They Are Happy And Free To Leave If They Wish" (which referred to Thériault as the group's "spiritual father," and which included quotes from an interview with fled member Jacques Fiset, in which he stated that the group was democratically run), ten police officers set a helicopter down on the Eternal Mountain. They arrested Thériault for obstruction of justice, and he was ordered by the court to undergo psychological evaluation at Québec City's l'Hôpitale Robert Giffard.
Gisèle maintained the morale (and isolation) of the commune during "Papy's" absence. When the family of other cult members tried to visit them to try to talk some sense into everyone, they were treated coldly and it was made clear they were unwelcome.
Meanwhile, Thériault was ingratiating himself to the doctors. He claimed that he had saved these kids from the self-dissolution of drugs and put them on the right track. The director of the hospital at which Thériault was confined began referring to the patient as "Moses," and expressed his scorn for the public that had reflexively assumed that just because Thériault had a different lifestyle and had been sent for evaluation, he was crazy. He was released from the hospital early, judged fit to stand trial for obstruction of justice, and given a one-year suspended sentence. The media began to portray him as a gentle mountain man that had run afoul of a prejudiced industrial society. In the eyes of his followers, this only proved that he was an emissary of God, just as he said he was; if psychiatric experts couldn't find anything wrong with him from their position of objectivity, how could they, his most intimate family?
~ samuel giguère
Gabrielle Nadeau went into a coma and died shortly thereafter. Thériault wanted to bury her at the foot of the "Eternal Mountain," but she was taken by the authorities for an autopsy. They found no signs of foul play, but Thériault swore that if anyone else died on the commune, their body would stay there.
In early November, 1980, Guy Veer joined the commune. He was the first new member of the group since the Healthy Living Clinic. He had undergone treatment for depression at l'Hôpitale Robert Giffard, the same hospital that had declared Thériault "mentally sound." After hearing about Thériault on television, Veer decided to head into the hills. After passing Gabrielle's examination, Veer was permitted to stay at the commune – in the storage shed, away from Thériault and his "family." He would get a small woodstove, a case of twenty-four bottles of home-brewed beer, two hens, a rooster, and one meal a day. Veer's job, in addition to his normal responsibilities of chopping wood, storing food rations for the winter, and continuing construction on "Moïse's" growing wood cabin palace, would be to babysit the group's three non-Thériault children: Samuel Giguère, age 2; Miriam Giguère, age 4; and Simon Ouellette, age 2, son of Solange and Claude during their brief "marriage." Thériault had three children of his own living at the commune (one by Gisèle, one by Solange and one by Nicole), but Veer was mentally unstable, and so was only fit to look after the "animals" – the children that weren't of Roch's seed.
On March 23, 1980, Thériault organized a party. His two sons from his marriage with Francine Grenier, Roch jr (12) and François (10), were coming to live with their father in the commune. Veer, of course, was not invited; his job was to look after those three outsider children.
There are two versions regarding what happened that night. The "official version" is the one that was given in court by Thériault, Guy Veer, and most of the commune members. According to this version, Samuel was crying that night and keeping Veer awake. Veer lost his temper, and started screaming at the child to be quiet. Then, picking the two-year-old up by the throat, he plunged his fist into the child's face five or six times. The next day, Thériault discovered what had happened, and placed Samuel under the care of Gabrielle, nurse for the group. Allegedly, baby Samuel's head was flopping around on his neck, and his penis had swelled up. Rock took a pair of scissors, and after sterilizing them in alcohol, he lanced Samuel's penis to permit urine to flow out. The next morning, Samuel was found dead. This is the account accepted by the courts.
According to Savage Messiah by Paul Kaihla and Ross Laver, Gisèle tells a different story. According to her, Samuel's face was bruised on the morning of the 24th of March, but there was nothing else wrong with him. However, Thériault decided that the child needed to be circumcized. He used the ninety-four percent ethanol solution to do more than sterilize the razor, though; he also poured some into a rubber bulb, which he squeezed into Samuel's mouth for use as an anaesthetic. This may have been enough to cause Samuel's death by alcohol poisoning.
After hearing about her baby's death, Maryse Grenier just went back to work. At supper, Thériault suggested they burn the baby's remains, as if they buried them birds or bears might get into them. Maryse and Jacques Giguère agreed. Claude Ouellette did the honours. Then life at the commune went back to "normal."
For six months, everything went smoothly for the commune. But one night in September, a drunken Moïse became angry with Veer for some infraction, and decided that he should stand trial for his crime of the previous March. He appointed Jacques Giguère, the baby's father, to be the judge, "Mamy" Gisèle would be the prosecution, Claude Ouellette the lawyer for the defence. Gabrielle would act as coroner, and Roch's other six wives would act as jury. The trial lasted one hour, and the verdict was unanimous: Not guilty by reason of insanity.
But Thériault was not to be satisfied with this decision, and a couple of hours later he took Jacques aside and suggested that they castrate Veer. Giguère didn't like the idea, but Thériault called another vote anyway. Of a jury of ten, including Roch jr, only three voted against the new motion – Jacques Giguère, Maryse Grenier, and Gisèle. Everyone else was now strongly in favour.
Veer, who had stayed quiet through the whole evening, was obviously not keen to the idea, but Thériault actually talked him into it. He claimed it would cure Veer's headaches, as well as the excessive masturbation that was "causing" Veer's respiratory difficulties. He explained that in the hierarchy of the group, Veer was a slave, and that if he underwent the castration he would become a eunuch, which would be a step up. He asked Veer to write a letter of consent, and said that he wouldn't make Veer sign it if he didn't want to sign it. Veer signed it. Thériault had Veer lie on the kitchen table as Gabrielle fetched the medical instruments: an elastic band, a razor blade, a magnifying glass, a pair of tweezers, and the ethanol. The operation itself was painless, and the testicles were discarded in a Kleenex; although Veer's scrotum bled for a week, Gabrielle gave him a new salt-water compress every twenty minutes, and ensured he got plenty of iron in his diet.
Paul Veer never complained of another headache.
On the other hand, Thériault felt that now Veer was a security risk, and enjoyed tormenting him, beating him, and playing games in which he would instruct his followers to pierce Veer through the chest with knives and bleed him to death – only to call them off, like God called off Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, at the very last minute. But on November 5, Veer escaped to the village of Saint-Jogues, where he told the villagers that a baby had died after being kicked by a horse. The police raided the compound, arrested Thériault and Samuel's parents, and relocated the seven children to foster homes. They found the child's remains, and the commune members told the story of Veer beating the child. They also found Veer's letter of "consent" to the castration operation, and even the ballots that had been used for the vote. No one questioned by the police was at all upset or even embarrassed of what had happened, or of having involved a twelve-year-old boy in the decision process.
After the coroner determined that the group was criminally responsible for the death of Samuel Giguère, the police made the following charges. Roch Thériault, Jacques Giguère, Maryse Grenier, Gabrielle Lavallée and Guy Veer were all charged with criminal negligence causing bodily harm to Samuel Giguère. Claude Ouellette (who burned the body) was charged with obstruction of justice. Jacques and Maryse were charged with neglect towards their oldest daughter, now five, and Claude and Solange Boilard were similarly charged for their treatment of Simon Ouellette, now three. Thériault and Lavallée were also charged with bodily harm with intent to mutilate Guy Veer. All of the accused pleaded not guilty. Jacques, Maryse, Claude, Solange, and Guy Veer were released on their own recognizance on the condition they not return to the cabin; Thériault and Lavallée were denied bail as they were held to be a danger to society.
At the end of the nine-month trial, during which the commune members moved to the town of New Carlisle, where the trial was held, all parties were found guilty of all charges. Maryse and Solange got three years probation. Jacques Giguère and Claude Ouellette received six months in prison and three years probation for child abandonment. Guy Veer was sentenced but later acquitted for mental incompetence and was returned to l'Hôpital Robert Giffard. Gabrielle Lavallée was sentenced to nine months in jail and three years probation.
Roch Thériault was sentenced to two years less a day in prison, and three years probation, on each of two charges, to be served concurrently. He was transferred to the Orsainville Detention Centre in Québec City.
The members of the group distributed themselves between four apartments in Québec City, to be near their leader. The police razed their cabin on the Gaspé to the ground, and bulldozed the ashes. Thériault began to assemble notes for a book (L'Affaire Moïse, published in Québec City in November of 1983). The whole thing seemed to be over.
It was only getting started.
