Duggar Family: The Institutional Framework Behind the Pattern

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2:04for you at the Hidden Killers podcast and True Crime Today. This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brusky and Robin Dree. Before the Dugger arrests and the federal convictions, the Institute in Basic Life Principles, the IBLP, Tothat Fathers had complete authority over their families and used religion to say that being silent meant being obedient. To understand what's happening with this family now, it helps us look at the system that influenced them. And we are going to do just that today in a very long conversation about the IBLP and the Duggers and everything in the ecosystem that surrounds it. And to do just that, one of our favorite guests of Robin and myself, Shavan Scott is with this psychotherapist and author to help us break all of this down. You have such a unique insight

3:08into a world like this because you grew up in a fundamentalist religious system. And by the way, if you want to learn about Shavan's experiences in that, here's your book, Nightbird. Very, very powerful and very raw. I do highly suggest checking that out. When you look at what the IBLP was actually teaching the total parental authority, the submission doctrine, and you heard the news this week of these new charges that have come out. What came to your mind? What do you recognize, Shavan, when you hear these stories that most people watching this are missingly, just doesn't come to their mind? It's an extreme cult. I heard about it when I was a kid growing up. And the particular faiths, churches that I was involved in were extreme and were cult-like. But this was above and beyond, you know, the homeschooling, the dressing kids alike, this television show,

4:10which I never watched because, frankly, all this stuff just made my skin crawl. But it's a cult, with total psychological control, obedience equals holiness, it's black and white thinking, you know, you either do it our way or you're on Satan's side. And so it's based upon fear, raising kids in this really restrictive environment where they have no voice, they never question authority, thinking is dangerous, and the outside world is they're completely cut off from it. So it's incredibly disruptive to normal child development. You know, Shavan, you brought up a really powerful word there that a few of our listeners tuned into the last couple of days. And that's the homeschooling aspect of it. And I'd love for you to kind of talk about the homeschooling aspect because there's homeschooling, then there's indoctrination. And that's what this is really, so could you explore for us what kind of homeschooling slash indoctrination that was kind of being exposed to here and also, you know, maybe in your own

5:14experience as well? And I want to caveat real quick, we're not, we're not, you know, pooing homeschooling as a whole. That's why I want people to say that's why I want you to go down this road so different between homeschooling. There's a big difference in education and then indoctrination and big difference between education and indoctrination. That's an excellent point because when my kids were little in California, a lot of people were homeschooling and it was looked at as a way to give kids a more customized experience. People still took their kids to activities, to museums. They got together with other families. So it wasn't this motivation to keep them pure and to keep them obedient. And so yes, you're talking about entirely different families with entirely different motives. It can be done in a very benign, even healthy way. But in this case, I guarantee you, the kids were drilled on the Bible, the Bible, the Bible. And there's a whole curriculum put out for Christian homeschoolers, which may have something called science, but it's

6:19basically just regurgitating the Bible and calling it science. Everything is based upon their interpretation of scripture. So very different. I want to, you know, when people watch this, this television show, the 19 kids encountering or whatever incarnation of it, it was in its season when it ran for 10 years on TLC. So many people watch this show and they found it, they found something warm and fuzzy about it. I think a lot of us were like, it was nails on a jog board. It was creepy. It was weird. It felt odd. It felt off. But for so many people and I remember watching like good-hearted people, people that were not, were not cult members that were not abusive to their families that were not horrible individuals, they looked at it. And the way it was portrayed, obviously, we saw the very best version of them on the television show. There wasn't like, and now what's going on behind those doors? It was, it was very much, you know, this is, look at this. This

7:20isn't this cute. Just like sometimes when people, you know, stop at the Amish pie stand, isn't this cute? Is it this lovely? You have no, you have zero control over your own life, but these pies are delicious. It felt like that to a certain extent. Why do you think it is? Why did so many people eat up the doggers and what was clearly very much a coercively controlled lifestyle? People found it as being very, very homie and colloquial. It really is a mystery to me. I should find some of these episodes and go back and do an analysis of the careful editing that went on because we know, I mean, lots of evidence. Kids raised in fear where their ability to think is stamped out. They do not develop normally, and they end up with a lot of anxiety and depression and relationship problems, but obviously that was hidden. And if this was presented as some kind

8:26of an ideal, people must have been inspired to copy aspects of it or at least try. And I think that's insidious. Yeah, the fear factor is major because, so I've just about finished a book that Jill Dugger wrote as well as the Shiny Happy People series on Amazon Prime. And there's some really striking things in here about the education system about like, and again, this is just quoting from this. It's not my opinion. These are just quotes from people that are in that system saying that the largest amount of math they were taught was fractions because that's the only thing they needed to be taught in order to cook was fractions. And then Jill herself and others, the fear they had of creating a sin as defined by IBLP, they had nightmares of burning in hell. I mean, the fear factor was so massive at such a young age for that control because it is really a control

9:26aspect of absolutely everything. And I identify with that one as a child. I remember by age five, I had definitely an anxiety disorder from all of it and laying awake at night imagining hell and I had terrible insomnia and stuff that I was kind of wired for anxiety and it still affects me to this day. How do you, how do you talk yourself out of this automatic thinking that you go into that there's this force that's going to punish you by that? It's horrible for kids. I hear you. You obviously grew up in a much more extreme religious environment than I did. I grew up in a religious environment as well. I grew up Lutheran. They're good people. Yeah, for the most part, they're harmless. They make fish in the basement of the church and they're, I mean, they're really for the most part not bad, but there are in any group of religious folks or some that are more extreme than others. But there's also a lot of things that go on and I don't know that

10:28this is what is going on today in the Wisconsin Synod or Missouri Synod Lutheran churches. Those are the two that I had been part of as a child. But there were so many things that that were just second nature that they just did with the kids. They just told the kids that were part of the teachings, the Sunday schools, the daily lessons, all that that were just, well, this is what we teach. And nobody thought anything weird of it. I mean, I remember coloring books. I would love to try and get my hands on some of the coloring books from the 70s and 80s that they gave kids and these things. I remember like drawing Saul's wife turning into a pillar of salt as they ran away from Sodom and Gomorrah and you're like literally drawing the fire and like, can I borrow the blue? I think like kind of a light blue might be appropriate for Saul's wife that just turned into a pillar of salt. Why did she turn? Because she looked back. She had the horrible sin of looking back at the destruction that they were running from. And because God said, don't, well, guess what?

11:30You're a salt lick now. I mean, this is the shit that they taught children. I mean, I know it's in the Bible that way. But the indoctrination of this fear in kind of a happy, go lucky way because you're coloring this. And then five minutes later, oh, animal cracker time. Well, they weaponized religion. Yes, completely. And it's not just the extreme groups, like the IBLP that do these sort of things. This was, this was just mainstream little Lutheran church in the neighborhood that, you know, and nobody thought anything weird of it. The parents didn't think anything weird of it. And I don't blame them because everybody would be indoctrinated into this sort of a world. But it's like every religion to a certain extended center, every version of whatever you have, they, they go to the death and destruction and the fear of factors so earlier, at least they used to it for a long time with the young children. The damage that, that must do. Can you speak to that? Well, the, the one that

12:31used to torment me was Jacob. I may get the Old Testament names mixed up, even though at one time I could have told you all of them. I get, I get a mix of no two. Jacob, who, who was, she proved his love by God by murdering, sacrificing his son. Oh, yeah, that's a, I've done that coloring page on that. Yeah. And the altar laid him down on the altar and had the knife ready and then the angel stopped them and said, okay, you don't have to do it. You've proven your loyalty here. I was like, who could I kill? What if I were in that position? What if, you know, I were the one that was going to be sacrificed and that just horrified me. Talk about, I mean, if they would just stick with Jesus in the New Testament, right? Well, what, what kind of, I mean, if you're an adult and you're trying to understand the, the story and, and the, the greater bigger 10,000 foot or 100,000 foot overview lesson of these parables, an adult mind can understand, I mean, even though a lot of it's pretty wonky, you can kind of get, oh, okay, I kind of get the

13:34point they're trying to make here. But it's seven. You're just like, oh, he's going to kill his kid and he's waiting for the angel to say, stop. You know, it's, the kids aren't going to get it. But they seem to miss that children aren't going to understand this shit and they take it all way too literal or they doing it on purpose because again, it goes to control and fear, which becomes a part of the indoctrination. You know, what was really striking, you know, in the series learning about this was the authority and how that authority works in that. And, you know, Tony put up the graphic for a number of days, you know, the umbrellas of authority. But the infallibility of authority is where they gain their control. And because I was really thinking about this. So here's Jill, the oldest daughter in the Dougher family. How did she come to break from this? And so this is going to be this leading to my question for Shivon. She was able to break, again, no cycle analyst on my side. But what had happened was she saw a chink in her father's armor when he

14:35deceived her. Intentionally, the day before she got married and she and he connived her into signing the contract that obligated her in her entire life, photographs of the birth, the delivery, wedding, everything without compensation, except to the father for five years. And so he deceived her. And so when she finally, this comes to light and discovers this, that's the chink that said, oh my god, she didn't think this consciously, but that's where the chink happened. The authority is valuable. And then the whole thing started crumbling. So without that, how does someone recognize internally, if they even can, that this system is broken? Yeah. Yeah. At some point, many people who are raised under this kind of religious system, they start to develop critical thinking skills. And a light bulb comes on. Something goes too far for them. Now, that doesn't happen for everybody. And some people just grow up and replicate the pattern.

15:38But I know for me, the light bulb started coming on for me at about 18. And that was the group I was involved in was big into face healing. And if you had faith, you would be healed. If you didn't have faith, you wouldn't. So if somebody died or had a child that died, it was their fault. And this started to not add up to me. That was a line that went too far. And then of course, my mother, when I was 16, died of cancer. And we were all praying. We were doing all the right things. We called the 700 club helpline. They were praying. She's been healed. Well, she wasn't healed. And she died. And that was a real blow for me that I think made the light bulb come on. You know, this stuff just doesn't work. And there was another case where a child had leukemia, little boy at age five. And of course, they were praying. And he was going to be healed. And he wasn't. He died. And then they said, they took it to, well, don't to the parents. Don't get the

16:40body involved and involved because God is going to raise him up at the funeral. And he's going to come back to life and be resurrected. Well, guess what? That didn't happen. He was no zombie. Yeah, so what I let down. No, no, no. And I will throw though, though, there are, you know, whether it's prayer or the positive energy, there actually are studies where where the amount of positive energy groups and organizations put out through meditation actually can affect things. So I will throw there is some, some pseudo science on that out there. I have not read anything scientific that impressed me on it. It's interesting. So Joseph Spenza in his works, Dr. Joseph Spenza, what the hell's the name? Becoming supernatural actually talks a lot about what he found through the studies of that. Actually, anyway, I digress on this thing. I just, I don't want to discount people's faith in their, in their prayers, what I'm trying to do. And this is just my, my position, right? Coming from my angle. A lot of people find prayer soothing. If it, if it helps them,

17:41it's meditative, it helps them cope. It can serve a psychological purpose for them. I have a dear friend who's a therapist and she said, you know, I don't really believe in God, but I still pray because it makes me feel better. If it makes you feel better, do it. And, and I do not have all knowledge. And I can't say that there's never effect, an effect from it. But certainly in my growing experience, I believed in it. I was taught that. But I, I saw that it did not fit with reality. And fortunately, I was, I was reading a lot. And I was open to new ideas. I went to the library all the time. And of course, if you've read my book, you know, I was married in a mother at 16 because of the face. And I was breaking free by developing the ability to think my own thoughts. And at some point, something happens for people, whatever it may be, where as you say, they see a, chink in the armor and thinking starts to kick in. And once they start to develop their own

18:45ability to critical think, they can look back on the whole thing and make an assessment of it. And that's often where people say, you know, I don't, I don't swallow this anymore. It's step away. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that damn thinking, they don't like it when you say, they're not, they don't, you're out. I mean, you start. Yeah. You become the black sheep when you start asking questions. Yeah. And they just kind of know, well, we lost one. This one. And you get shunned. Yeah. You do. I mean, you really do. You start to get looked at as like, oh, well, maybe the kids shouldn't play with that one because that one thinks. And you know, what they do. And the land. So, you know, in the homage culture, they shun you, which is very powerful thing. You're cut off. And what they did in IBLP, you know, and, you know, Jim Bob said, it's all time. You will no longer be under the protective umbrella. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so they, they, they, they shamed you with fear of no longer being protected. Again, that fear, fear, fear, fear. I mean, they, they love their umbrellas in IBLP. I mean, that's their whole damn

19:50thing. I want to take it back for a second. We're talking about, um, Jim Bob, you know, allegedly deceiving her, essentially, with that contract on her, I believe it was her wedding. Now, for the birth, writing was, was day before the wedding day before the wedding, where it was basically sign off everything. And, you know, you're thinking your father has your best interest at heart. I mean, this is what you've been raised to believe. And she signs the damn thing and, and it being, um, deceptive. And, and depending how you're looking at it, one could go, oh, Jim Bob is sitting there in the corner going, I'm going to deceive her. I'm going to go sneak this in. And hopefully she doesn't realize what she's signing. I don't know that he's sitting there thinking that, you know, because, because I think, in my opinion, they're, he's seeing it as normal. He's saying, this is just the modality. This is how it works. I don't think he's, he's not over in the corner being evil. Oh, how can I deceive my children? That, that's not, I mean, I just, that's not, and that's why I think when, when they're confronted with these

20:53realities and these challenges from society, saying, this isn't okay. This is, this was pretty shitty what you did over here. That's not how they saw it all when they were doing it. And, and, and they're, they're also unable to do a whole lot of, uh, introspectively looking at their actions and go, hey, maybe I should see it from a different way. Luckily, the girls did and they, they for a long time just saw it the same way that, that Jim Bob allegedly sees it as, I'm looking out for my children. It's part of the umbrella. It's part of the system. They are breaking the system. If they want to get out from the umbrella, and if they're going to do that, well, then according to my belief system, then well, good luck to them. This is why you get the stories where, well, your inheritance is going to be reduced and threats and this and that. But, again, they're not looking at it as a threat or, or, or necessarily, it is 1,000 percent control, but they don't see it as that because they've redefined it in their mind as something else, as love, as, as the direction, as, as they're the shepherd guiding the flock. It's also done by God.

21:58Also done by God. Yeah. That's who said it. That's who, you know, when you look at their website and go to their videos on authority, that's exactly what happens is they talk about the authority, authority of God, and God, God made this hierarchy and structure, and you must obey to it because if you don't, well, then you're going to burn in hell. Again, the fear factor comes in. Yeah, exactly. Then you add words in like, well, it's witchcraft, if you look at something other than, than what I'm saying. Let's talk about this because this obviously, I'm going to say, I'm going to go on in a limb here and, and say, it seems the Dugger family doesn't quite understand contraceptives. They don't seem to either believe in them or understand their use. And they have deliberately kept sex education out of their homeschool curriculum. They even went on the 19 kids and counting when the, when Josh got married. There was that, that cute little segment where they fumbled through the idea of sex. And I think I kind of know what

22:59I'm talking about dad, even though he's already did all the sisters and we all, and Jim Bob knew that. But for TV, it's like, oh, he said, he knows nothing about this. Let's talk about that a little bit because they keep the education out of their curriculum. But clearly, in this family, some of the boys figured it out pretty early of what their parts did or what they were interested in. What does that specific deprivation do to a developing young adults when you're not going to educate them and you're going to keep them completely isolated from society where they might be able to pick pieces up here and there? It really stunts their development because they don't know what normal is. They don't have boundaries. And particularly for the daughters, how do they even have a language to report what's happened? Right? Because secrecy is a virtue. And girls typically in these kinds of systems have no power. They have no voice. They are diminished. They, they're not as

24:06valuable as the boys. And it's something that really sets them up. Boys don't know what normal, do they understand what masturbation is? Do they even have a clue on who it's okay to touch and who it isn't okay to touch? You know, they don't have the information and the knowledge. So they really are handicapped. And it's just, it's just a petri dish for awful things to happen sexually. We talked about this before the show even started this non-correcting doctrine that people have. And the author Noah Havari, who I've quoted a few times, he wrote the book Sapiens in Homo Deus and then the last book is Nexus. And that's how human beings communicate. Systems that actually are self-correcting systems that can evolve both documentary as well as spoken and everything are healthy systems. But when you have a system like this one that is not self-correcting, these things happen. But it still blows my mind and so Shavon, how is it that a

25:12father can now have two sons that have done horrendous things to their sisters and others, most likely cause because of this system, this non-correcting system of education. And yet he still doubles down on that non-correcting system. He is still involved with the church. He is still doing these things, yet it is completely wrecked lives. How is it that someone does not see that and correct and move on and grow? It's amazing the ability that some people have to delude themselves and to not see reality. Some people are really good at it. And the ways that people will rationalize their kids' horrendous behavior and their own horrendous behavior. And the other thing that's occurred to me, we know about a certain amount of abuse, there could be lots more abuse that went on that we don't know about. Because often in these

26:12families too, it's not only the girls that are molested, boys are molested by older brothers, you know. And that's something that people really feel a lot of shame about and tend not to talk about. Sometimes they never talk about it or they talk about it decades later as they're older. And they don't even know because they don't even have the words for it. It's some mind-blowing. They don't even equip them with words to understand it's a porn behavior. Yeah, it just blows your head. It's the magic of the IBLP. You know, I mean, it's just, it's nuts. There's so much more we're going to get into here. Be sure to press subscribe wherever you're downloading podcasts so you don't miss any of our conversation on this and weigh in on Substack and YouTube. We'd love for you to do just that. Want more on this case and others? Then press subscribe now and don't miss a moment of true crime coverage from Tony Brusky and the Hidden Killers podcast. This is Hidden Killers Live with Tony Brusky and Robin Drey.

27:19I want to step back from the specific charges for a minute and have a conversation that's bigger than the Duggers because the Duggers are a symptom of this greater disease and I'm going to call it a disease in my opinion or cult. It's a belief system called the Institute and Basic Life Principles. It has operated inside this country for 60 years. It's shaped hundreds of thousands of lives shaped. I think is maybe a real positive way of spinning it. It's probably more like scarred hundreds of thousands of families and largely avoided serious scrutiny because it wraps itself in scripture and calls itself a church. The Duggers didn't build that system. They just became the most famous face. What's coming out of that family right now, the charges of silence, the closed ranks, the denial from a prison cell. None of it is surprising when you understand what the system actually teaches and what is designed to do and who it's designed to do it to. That's what Robin and I are getting into today. The IBLP again. This is my opinion and then

28:20there's Robin's opinion. Alligations are the allegations that are out there. This is an opinion piece. And no expert on the church itself, just really what we've been researching and applying what we understand of the structure of what we've been reading about the Duggers and apply it to human nature on that. So there's that. That's Mormon. Yeah, Sam Martin put that in there and it's not Mormon. It's a Baptist offshoot. Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. I this weekend, somebody was talking to that made the comment of, well, it was five years ago since it happened. This little girl's coming up. Yeah, you mean like she was because sometimes you mean third grade? Yeah, I mean like third grade, meaning Joseph Dugger found it to be a great idea as a 20-some-year-old to go get a blanket and put it around him and a third grader that wasn't his own child and then have whatever the hell he's doing with his hands. Yeah, this is the folks we're talking about. Part of the IBLP, this is part of their religion. Okay, so let's talk about this because they

29:27have this teaching, the umbrella of authority that they invented, where essentially you have the church and then below that you have the fathers and then below that you have the wives and below the children. And basically it's as long as you're looking up to the closest umbrella to you, nothing can ever get at you, assuming the umbrella above you actually wants to protect you and not do horrible things to you. That's where the problem seems to arise when they seem to have a lot of these folks around that they have broken umbrellas to put it nicely. Right, but we're talking in the last segment about this a little bit where basically if there is an accusation or something horrible that comes out, take for example this the accusations of the 13 year old in Florida that Joseph has allegedly admitted to that happened when the girl was nine. They would not report this to the police because in their mind that's that's not something you do. You you go handle it internally with dad and then the then as long as dad says,

30:30I'm sorry, I guess everything's okay in according to them. If this were a business and this were like in the the handbook of don't report this shit, just go to HR. I think they'd be shut down pretty quick, but because we put the magical R word in front of it religion, it's like it's okay, it must work good. You said the word God in a sentence, didn't you? I guess he'll protect us from everything. Yeah, and the father the patriarch is the end all be all in this entire thing. They are the protector and what I found really interesting about this concept, you would think in situations where you have this kind of abuse being reported very accurately, very descriptively that they, but it looks like from the outside it's being covered up by this patriarch. But same time though, when when if law enforcement gets involved and comes in, they're they're telling and instructing everyone to be completely transparent, be completely open, be cooperative. Yet what's

31:33interesting is is that the children in these situations live in fear of disclosing because that goes against what they've been taught for their entire lives of honest parents. And so it's a so it can have that person that that impression from the outside of their cooperating, they're doing all these great things. But at the same time though, are they really because they're still honoring that the one thing the only person that matters is what the father thinks. And if I don't get the approval from the father, nothing else in life matters because that comes down to that. And I can guarantee they feel guilt as guilt is for coming forward and doing this because now they're blowing up this family and they're doing this. And I can I assure you there's passive aggressive shame that's going around the motivator. So shame and and and Jill even talk about our book. So remember, one of the greatest motivators is fear of human, you know, as fear is one of our motivators for action in the way we fear. The other one is shame. And so what they'll do is

32:35if you don't adhere to the protocols, if you don't adhere to seeking forgiveness and more importantly, giving forgiveness shame. Yeah. And they they will avoid shame at all costs. And so you see the battle is going on internally here of these poor little children. They they're got to what a mess. Well, someone said to be fair describing or disclosing abuse is met with denial regardless of everything. Yeah, I mean, to a certain extent it is. But what we're talking about differently here, what I think is different. And I don't want to say just the IBL ass or whatever it's called the IBLP. It's true. I think a lot of religions have a very similar type structure. We're going to handle it here this way. There's just a lot more direct about it. They're just more like it's in the handbook. Here's how we handle this. I think a lot of other religions are kind of like a little more in the gray area of like, well, is there enough pressure that we're going to get a news story done about us or can we handle it over here? I mean, essentially, it's it's how much

33:38pressure do you have to put on the organization to do the right thing? They're going to stand there and be your moral authority all day on everything until you this is right. And that's not. And you got to do it this way in that way. But the only way that we're actually going to take a stand and do what we're supposed to be doing what we've been telling you all you need to be doing is if you threaten to expose us. And then if you're threatening to expose us, we're going to threaten you by going after, you know, your morality and you're going to be excommunicated in this. And then we're going to take away your inheritance. If you say anything negative about our family, let's sign a few NDAs. Jim Bob's good at that. I mean, it's just insane. It's insane control. And it's it's being executed by these people who are claiming they're just the moral authority because of their religion. And they seem to be completely tone deaf and blind to the actual actions that they're taking and how the rest of the world perceives them. But they've also been conditioned to not give a shit either. I mean, it's really this kind of magical cacophony of I don't care what anybody thinks about me. I'm going to be the moral authority. I'm going to do

34:39the exact opposite of what I'm telling everybody. But somehow I'm still justified if I just keep telling myself this and the few people around me just keep reinforcing my ways of thinking. Well, it's interesting. And also Robert Pickett said something about, you know, political parties in genders. Yeah. So I actually looked up the numbers on this cults. Religions make up 51% of the cults on average around the world as a as a pure definition of cult. And then political parties and all these other things make up the other 49% if we're just looking at numbers as Robyn does. And so sorry, Tony, I had another point. I'm based on that. I was riffing off. Oh, you said, I can't remember. How does anybody look at the picture of this family and go? There's not something really wrong going on because it's because it's not 1847 and we have birth control. Like, I mean, I mean, just like just looking at the family and just going. So, Tony, so I looked at this. So again, let's do our thought experiment. Remove the horrendousness that we've seen.

35:40Say you are in a world that you're not around or been exposed to a lot of really, really healthy people. You've been a world of cast because this I, you know, you think in terms of what inspires a family to start following this path? Well, say that you're in a world of chaos. And so the mom, Jim Bob's wife, she, you know, she, she originally was not part of this. You know, she got part of this because of her husband. And so here you are, you're in a world of cast. There's a lot of unhealthy things. There's a lot of maybe sex drugs and rock and roll going on. And then you have an opportunity to calm the chaos in your life. And you see a photo like that. And again, you're not looking unhealthy. You're looking at, wow, family, community, safety, guaranteed social networks, friends. So that's the attractiveness. I looked at this and what would attract someone in 2026 to want to voluntarily start from nothing and go into that. It's those things. It

36:44becomes attractive to people, not weak minded people, just people seeking some calmness, some serenity, some, some, some community. So that's, that's the attractiveness. And the, the sick part about, I mean, and I, I remember when the show was on TLC years ago, I never really watched it. I would watch trading spaces and I'd see the promos for it. And, and I remember, tax credits, I mean, tax credits go lower, I guess too. But I mean, and this is just the one that was, I mean, there's, there's tons of families like the doggers that are out there. They're just, these ones had a TV show, relying on the other kids to raise your kids is essentially what they ended up doing. They did, they had a buddy system and they talk about it. And it looks all lovely and neat in your, you know, three minute segment on 19 kids and counting or counting on or whatever. And it's always in this, this is enduring. Look, they're learning how to be grown ups and taking care of each other. Yeah, that's, that's all fine and well to a certain extent.

37:45But their kids raising kids at a certain extent. So is that part of the breakdown here? Because look, Josh was a kid raising kids. He was one of the older kids. So he had some sort of moral authority to a certain extent above the other kids. I'm wondering how much of that when you, when you get into this, these sort of dynamics where you have kids without reps who are teenagers, who are riddled with emotions and riddled with hormones and no life experience and, and very little guardrails and, or actually very strict guardrails, little education, I guess, appropriate ones. Yes, there's guardrails, but nobody knows why they're there or how they're there or what they do. And when they're not educated on any of these sort of things, and, and, then you end up with this nightmareish scenario that some of these, these kids went down and then end up going into adulthood, I guess, and finding a proclivity to enjoy it. I just think like that recipe right there, this idea of, well, okay, you're this moral mom and dad. You don't have the

38:51bandwidth to, to parent these kids. There's not enough of you to go around even if you tried. So the good percentage of the parenting comes from someone who's not that much more experience in the world than themselves. And God knows what other sort of misguided thoughts they may have as these boys. Clearly, there was an issue with, with at least one of the other boys who thought this was a good idea. And now there's a second one. So I'm going to guess, I don't know, the conversations amongst the boys maybe should have been a little more, I don't know, parented middle, I really wonder what was going on, what was being discussed, and how much was just looked at as, well, boys will be boys. And, and then this nightmare happened. I don't know, but I mean, I feel like when you, you put the authority to help raise other children in the hands of other children, you might get some bad outcomes. Yeah, it was children raising children. Again, this is just according to Jill. The parenting that was going on in the house. And she says her parents were extremely loving everything. But yeah, that night, the girls would be in their room,

39:54the boys would be in their room. And then dad was sitting in the middle and he would preach to them, they'd do their, their Bible study at night. And that was a parenting. But during a day, they had their buddy system just like the Navy Seals do, you don't care where that's your buddy. And so it was adolescents raising adolescents. Yeah. But again, how did they reinforce that? That was where they got their, that validation, that acceptance. So that's what they kept seeking was they kept seeking more responsibility as a sibling because that's where they got their attention from was the accolades they got from raising their siblings well. And the, and the guardrails, the rules, they put the rules in place. The only rule there was was exactly what the Bible says in my interpretation of. You just stay within these guardrails right here and you're fine. The problem that this manifested was when it came to sexuality, there was no, there was just, it was ignored. It was like suppressed ignored. You don't talk about it because that's a sin. You can't think, you can't even think bad thoughts because that's a sin. And so, and, and, which is insane because it's their brand.

41:02Their brand is effing like rabbits. But it's like we don't speak of this. We don't speak of how the sausage is made. It is, it's a, it's a control system put in place in an uncontrollable situation. It's just, it is. And, and, and, and it's just enough, they, they hit all the right points with all the people at the right moments in their lives to make them go along with it, to make them think, oh, this is warm and fuzzy and lovely. They had half the country bamboozled that was watching this shit show. And then they're all shocked when it all goes to hell. I mean, I, and it was also, and it was also homeschooling too. It was homeschooling, but not homeschooling from what the state put out as homeschooling. No, but it was actually the religious homeschooling that actually the church itself created the schooling program. Yeah. So it was, yeah, the, their books, their, their workbooks, they have like a handful of workbooks that they, they teach from. And it's a really sad excuse for education. And again, these are all things that

42:02have, if it was a business that was conducting this, it would be sued seven ways to Tuesday, and would be shut down, but because it was a religion by Bill Gothard who built his entire organization on this, who's been accused by more than 34 women of harassment and assault in his 91, still operating. He's never faced criminal charges. The organization he built is still running. And when you look at the dugger story and then look back at the man at the top of the system that shaped them, I mean, it's not shocking. It's none of this is shocking. And we're watching the show, like I said, back in the day before there was one charge against any of them. And I kind of had a feeling that, you know, 10, 20 years from now, we're going to be telling a very different story of this family. This is a recipe for something going sideways. Yes. Yeah. It really was. You know, I mean, if you look back at Ruby Frankie, and I know someone mentioned, you know, that that Kevin Frankie wasn't, well, he wasn't the patriarch in his family. You're right, Ruby was, but yeah, but she said he was. It's the same level of like just willful ignorance.

43:09At a certain point where it's like, well, my religion says I shouldn't step up and be a human being and care for my children. And Ruby's whole motivation too is the same motivation I'm using here. She could constantly seek an approval from her mom. And they end up putting someone in a place of religious authority that then overrides actual authority or just moral judgment. And then you have to follow the authority. In that case, Ruby Frankie was the authority. In the cases over here, it's who's ever saying we're not going to the police. I was watching the doc last night, the shiny happy people. It was one of the friends, a very close friend of the Dugger family of Jim Bob that sat down in the doc and said, you know, Jim Bob, everything you're running on here for Senate and all these, you know, real moral principles you're trying to stand on involving people who do these sort of things to children by your own campaign, by your own standards, he would be in prison. And then that, then they sat down and thought, whoa, maybe we should go turn

44:14them in. And they did. And they brought them in. So, but it took, it took somebody catching it. And I think that's just the real shitty part about the Duggers and the whole IBLP and all of it. It's like, okay, once you catch them, they're like, oh, you got me. But it takes somebody to go and say, hey, wait a second here. Then it's like, oh, you got me. But until then they don't have the seem to have or they've not demonstrated the moral authority to stand up on their own and say, I screwed up. I, not that people are anywhere really turn themselves in. But the fact that they're, they're able to do these things and just kind of treat like a game of cat and mouse. It's like, hope I don't get caught. No matter how horrible the shit is that they've done. Again, I, it's just their level of forgiveness. Um, you know, that's why it was their ghetto jail free card. As long as I, as long as I admit it and seek forgiveness, you have to give me my forgiveness, you know, meanwhile. Um, and so, and then when that happens and you don't

45:16as, as an adult, as the only adults here, the mom and the dad don't understand. It's like, just because you forgive your son doesn't mean he's going to change his behavior. Just because you sent him to a work camp, you know, with a neighbor for a, for a couple months doesn't mean he's going to change his behavior. There was no belief in, in counseling, you know, rehabilitation if they're in, but you can't in those situations anyway, or letting law enforcement know, or anyone, I just, it's just a disaster. And, and so the other, you know, they, they are, they will definitely tell you their Christian, their fundamental Christians, and it is Baptist, as well as an offshoot of one of the questions in the comments there. Yeah, uh, in horror. Yeah, I know it doesn't, yeah, forget this does not negate consequences. Mark Fry, you're right. But to accord to them, it does. According to them, that seems to be how it functions quite often. Um, and, and yeah, it's, it's, it's not shocking. I mean, it's not shocking. And there's, I feel like there's far more to come here. Well, and who's the guy that, you know, again, I can't believe, I'm for the, the,

46:22the name is skimmed. The church? Yeah, who started the church? Bill gothard. And how many charges, how many accusations have been against him? Well, quite a few. I believe 30, 30 something, but he's never been criminally charged with anything. He's maintained his innocence on everything. 34 women have come forward with charges of harassment and assault. He's 91 now. And he's, and he's another guy where when you, you know, there's so many preachers. You can watch on television and stuff. And there's several that are just creepy as shit. There's, there, I mean, in my opinion, there is a level of creepiness to him, but he's very soft spoken. And he, of all of them, he's really not the type that you're going, oh, I wonder what's going on behind the scenes here. But apparently, there, there's a lot of accusations that have been there. But again, never been charged. Maintains his innocence. Um, but I mean, 34 doesn't come out of a vacuum either. That's just kind of like, it's like, is that, you know, in the, in the, you know, again, 51% of the cases we see of cults, 51% are, are, are religious offshoot. I'll call it a

47:25religious offshoot, not religious mainstream, because this is a religious offshoot. Yeah. Is, is typically created by someone that is taking something that they can use of an infrastructure that's always already in place. They can then manipulate it in a way to serve their own issues. Mm hmm. Just saying. Yeah. No, I mean, it's like almost any time I hear the words, oh, we're an offshoot like it's run. Just run an offshoot, eh? Like, oh, an offshoot. So somebody had an idea that the original, the original extreme church said you're too extreme for us. But over here, it's all fine and dandy. That seems to be how so much of it works. Um, anyway, your thoughts in the, uh, in the comment section on substack and YouTube, we'd love to, uh, to get your thoughts. There's a lot more to come on this case. Want more on this case and others? Then press subscribe now and don't miss a moment of true crime coverage from Tony Brusky and the Hidden Killers podcast.

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