To the outside world, they appeared as nothing more than an eccentric group selling baked goods for their church. Yet behind their gaunt eyes, dirty clothes, and visible scars lay a hidden nightmare of unimaginable suffering under the control of a sadistic leader named Roch Thériault.
The Rise of a False Prophet
Born in 1947 from an incestuous rape, Roch Thériault was shunned by his family and endured a troubled upbringing. After dropping out of school, he drifted through homeless shelters and odd jobs before finding a semblance of structure with the Seventh-Day Adventist Church. It was here he began crafting his own twisted interpretation of scripture, eventually forming his own group, the Ant Hill Kids, in Sainte-Marie, Quebec, in 1977.
Thériault, who renamed himself 'Moses', poached followers from the Adventists, promising a life free from sin. He convinced them to abandon their families and jobs, only to then sever all outside contact. He prophesied that Armageddon would arrive in February 1979, moving his commune to a remote area dubbed 'Eternal Mountain' to prepare. When the apocalyptic date passed uneventfully, he blamed a celestial timekeeping error, but his authority began to wane.
A Descent into Sadistic Control and Torture
To maintain his grip, Thériault employed horrific coercion. He married and impregnated all his female followers, fathering nearly two dozen children to tether them to the commune. He forbade private conversations and consensual sex, enforcing rules through a regime of extreme violence he claimed was divinely sanctioned.
The punishments inflicted on the Ant Hill Kids were medieval in their cruelty. Followers were beaten with hammers and belts, suspended from ceilings, and had their hair ripped out. In acts of twisted devotion, they were forced to break their own legs with sledgehammers, shoot each other, sit on lit stoves, and even consume dead mice and human waste.
Thériault's depravity extended to the children, who were sexually abused, held over fires, and nailed to trees for other children to stone. The horror drove one concubine, Gabrielle Lavallée, to leave her newborn to die in the freezing cold rather than let it suffer the same fate.
Amateur Surgery and Murder
Hypocritically, while preaching against vices, Thériault developed a severe drinking problem. His god-complex led him to perform barbaric, unqualified surgeries. He injected poisonous ethanol solutions into followers' stomachs and conducted unnecessary circumcisions.
The ultimate atrocity occurred in 1989. When follower Solange Boilard complained of a stomach ache, Thériault laid her naked on a table, beat her abdomen, and forced a tube into her rectum. He then cut her open with a knife, tore out her intestines with his bare hands, and ordered another member to stitch the wound. Boilard died the next day. Thériault then sawed off the top of her skull in a vile attempt at 'resurrection' before burying her near the commune.
The Final Reckoning
Authorities had long been suspicious, but the commune's status as a church hampered investigations. In 1987, social workers removed 17 children, but no criminal charges followed. The cult's downfall began when Gabrielle Lavallée finally escaped and reported Thériault for assault, leading to a 12-year sentence. This opened the door for a full investigation, resulting in a life sentence for the murder of Solange Boilard.
Even in prison, his influence persisted; he fathered four more children with ex-members during conjugal visits. His reign of terror ended not with the Armageddon he prophesied, but in 2011 when his cellmate, convicted murderer Matthew Gerrard MacDonald, stabbed him to death with a shiv.
The story of the Ant Hill Kids remains a chilling testament to the depths of human cruelty and the devastating power of a charismatic, psychopathic leader over vulnerable followers.
