Rod Colvin - Evil Harvest: The True Story of Cult Murder in the American Heartland

An Addicus Nonfiction Book

Copyright 2000 by Rod Colvin. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopied, recorded, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For information, write Addicus Books, Inc., P.O. Box 45327, Omaha, Nebraska 68145.

ISBN# 1-886039-42-9

Cover design by Darcy Lijoodi
Cover photo Pierre Arsenault / Masterfile

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Colvin, Rod

Evil Harvest : the true story of cult murder in the American heartland / Rod Colvin.

p. cm.

ISBN 1-886039-42-9 (alk. paper)

1. MurderNebraskaRuloCase studies.

2. CultsNebraskaRulo-Case studies.

3. Posse Comitatus (Group)

I. Title.

HV6534.R85C65 1999 99-39530

364.152309782282-dc21 CIP

Addicus Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 45327
Omaha, Nebraska 68145
Web site: http://www.AddicusBooks.com

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

To the memory of
my brother, Randy

Y ears have passed since Rulo, Nebraska, made national news when members of a survivalist cult were arrested and were charged with murder. If the story shocked a national audience, it stunned the local folks. Brutal murder is not the kind of thing that is supposed to happen in small towns, where folks are friendly and everyone pretty much knows everyone else. But unfortunately weve learned in recent years that we live in a much different world. Tragedies can happen to any of uswhether were from small towns or big cities. It happened in Rulo in 1985.

I first became interested in this story in 1986, when, as a reporter in Omaha, Nebraska, I covered portions of the seven-week trial for two of the defendants. As a journalist should, I listened to sometimes gruesome testimony with objectivity. However, after I began digging into the story behind the crime and interviewing former cult members and survivors of the deceased, I was struck by the shocking reality of what had transpired on the Rulo farm. To me, this was no longer just a news story with a list of names. It became a real story about real people.

In this book, I have attempted to tell that storyto answer the question: how did these individuals get pulled into this cult? And, once they were therewhat happened to make things go so terribly wrong? In order to recreate these events, I have conducted considerable research that has taken me across the states of Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri. I have culled through more than two thousand pages of court transcripts, depositions, exhibits, personal letters, investigative reports, press accounts, video and audio tapes.

I interviewed several dozen individuals, including former members of the Rulo cult, friends and relatives of the cult members, area farmers, former members of the Posse Comitatus, cult experts, theologians, and law enforcement officerslocal, state and federal. The identities of only a few peripheral characters have been altered. The names Janet Carter, Ted Stone, and Bob Kelley are fictitious, as are the names Elizabeth, Eric, Josh, Brian, and Heather.

I had only two interviews with Mike Ryan, the leader of the cult. After the first interview, Ryan wrote to me, saying hed asked his god, Yahweh, about doing a second interview and that hed been instructed by his god to say no. When I suggested that he ask again, he did, and I was granted a second interview. However, thereafter, Ryans god instructed him not to speak with me. In a letter to me, Ryan said he felt that Yahweh would not like the outcome if he spoke with me again.

Finally, I would like to thank the many people who helped make this book possible. Many of you invited me into your homes and shared your personal stories. I wish to extend a special thanks to Terry Becker, former investigator for the Nebraska State Patrol; Rob Hendricks, former Brown County Sheriff, former FBI agent John Evans, and Cory McNabb, former Richardson County Sheriff. They provided much help as I shaped this story. I also wish to express my gratitude to family and friends whose support make this book possible. A special note to thanks to friends Susan, Rosalea, Betty, and Jack for their ongoing support and inspiration.

The tissue of the Life to be

We weave with colors all our own,

And in the field of Destiny

We reap as we have sown

John Greenleaf Whittier

AUGUST 18, 1985

T he soft pastel dawning of another seemingly peaceful summer day was at hand in rural Rulo, Nebraska. But outside Ruloon a once productive farm which had for months been the centerpiece of unsettling and often menacing rumorsworst suspicions were about to be confirmed.

Promptly at six oclock on that August morning, grim-faced men of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Nebraska State Patrol SWAT team, and lawmen from surrounding counties, began arriving at the eighty-acre farm. A trail of dust streamed behind the caravan of official vehicles rumbling down the gravel road to the farm. A hand-lettered sign POSITIVELY NO TRESPASSINGVIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED was tacked to the padlocked gate. Officers cut the lock and moved with purpose onto the premises. Altogether, sixty law enforcement officers were involved in the action.

What had brought them to this once serene and unlikely destination in the timbered hills of southeast Nebraska was a tip from a reliable informant who claimed two bodies were buried in unmarked graves in one of the farms pastures. And now, reports had surfaced of a torture-slaying.

Everyone in Rulo knew the farm was a paramilitary encampment and the home of a religious cult led by survivalist Mike Ryan; it was the talk of the town. Law enforcement officials had known it, too. A year earlier local officers had checked out the farm on complaints from neighboring farmers.

Often these neighbors had heard the sharp whine and crackle of gunfire from the woods; and young men attired in the greens and browns of camouflage clothingguns slung over their shouldershad been seen running across the fertile pastures, as if engaged in a sinister and deadly military game. This was not the stuff of rural Nebraska with its limitless blue horizons, endless acres of golden summer wheat, and friendly socials. Neighboring farmers had every right to feel alarm. It wasnt against the law to form a survivalist group, law enforcement officials had told them; neither was it against the law to own guns. But with the informants tip, a concerted action had been initiated immediately.

Now investigators in navy blue jackets with F-B-I in tall yellow letters on their backs, along with officers from the state patrol and neighboring county sheriffs departments, fanned out over the farm to make sure it was secure for investigation. Nebraska State Patrol Investigator Terry Becker stepped through the gate. As if in search of encouragement, he scanned the large open field that extended past the house and outbuildings. But Becker would soon learn what had transpired on the farm was to be, overall, a chilling memoir in madness.

Just beyond the rusty gate with its no-trespass warning, a yellow Jeep Wagoneer was parked on the gravel driveway. Written in the thick dust of the Jeeps rear window were the letters YHVH. In days to come, investigators would learn that the letters were the cults name for God.

The living quarters were about a hundred yards beyond the entrance gate. The main houseor north house, as it came to be knownwas once a mobile home. It spoke of a future gone awry and promises unfulfilled.