How Did Samuel Bateman Build A Cult From Nothing In Three Years?

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
This is The Big Breakdown, a long look back at some of the biggest stories we're covering for you at the Hidden Killers Podcast and True Crime Today.
This is Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski. Here now, Tony Brueski.

**Tony Brueski** (0:15)
Samuel Bateman thought the two outsiders at his table were gonna make him famous. He had no idea Christine Marie had fallen for a prophet once herself and could read every move he was making the second he made it. Christine is the woman at the center of the Netflix documentary, Trust Me, The False Prophet. She and her husband Tolga moved to Short Creek along the Utah Arizona border to make a different film. Then Bateman stepped out of the wreckage, Warren Jeffs left behind, declared himself the new prophet, started taking spiritual wives, some of them children, and let two outsiders with cameras into his house. It cost him 50 years in federal prison. This first segment is about how she got in, the cover story, the double life, the moment filmmaker quietly became mole. She joins myself and Robin Dreeke, retired FBI Special Agent and Chief of the Counterintelligence Behavioral Analysis Program to discuss her work.
In Short Creek, and the work you saw in the Netflix documentary, Trust Me, The False Prophet. Christine, let's start with this. You and Tolga came to Short Creek for something else entirely. You didn't necessarily show up there expecting to meet Samuel Bateman, not to chase a man like that. Let's back up before Sam even enters the picture.
What's your original project? What's your original inspiration to go to Short Creek before Sam even enters your life? What's your thoughts on what the next five to 10 years are going to look like for you before Sam?

**Christine Marie** (2:04)
Interesting question because we were living in Las Vegas. I was finishing my PhD, so I was at the point where I was working on my dissertation research and I could live wherever I wanted. And I wanted to move out of Las Vegas and help the people from Short Creek, believing that all of them were victims of some kind and some kind of religious trauma. And because I had experience with that and developed an expertise in that, I thought, you know, let me go and help the people who've left the FLDS understand what happened to them.
And then things unfolded from there.

**Tony Brueski** (2:44)
Did you go into that understanding how difficult it might be to reach someone who has gone through that? I know obviously you've had your own experiences and you are so uniquely qualified for everything that you did and everything that you went through. But having that experience for oneself and making those own realizations are very different than helping others necessarily get to that point.
What kind of wall did you face or what kind of hill did you climb? Was it as steep as you expected?

**Christine Marie** (3:22)
Oh my goodness. It was more complicated than I imagined because the FLDS at this time were very reclusive.
They would, you know, they were encouraged not to even talk to outsiders. So, I didn't expect that I would ever really have any FLDS friends. I was focusing on the ex-FLDS. But even then, they have this in-group, out-group bias that's been ingrained in them from birth. You know, either you're a member or you're a non-member, you're from a high status family or low status family. I mean, this us versus them thinking was very strong. So, even though I thought I will help, I will do my best to try to help the ex-FLDS, I was still an outsider to them. So, that was tough, and it took a lot for me to have any breakthrough at all.

**Tony Brueski** (4:18)
What is it like there in Short Creek? I mean, you came in as a complete outsider.
Is it, I mean, as an outsider coming into a very closed-knit community? Yet, you've stood out like a sore thumb, I would think. I mean, tell me about that, and how long were you trying to become part of the fabric of this community that is in a bit of chaos at the moment, prior to meeting Sam?

**Christine Marie** (4:49)
Well, I started trying to build trust with the community, actually, the year before I moved there, in 2015
And what I did was I decided that since the FLDS don't have Christmas, and since Warren Jeffs had apparently banned all the toys, now that there was a group of ex-FLDS, I needed to teach him about Christmas. So, I mean, so I-

**Robin Dreeke** (5:19)
You're just going against the burger meister, meister burger.