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

Colvin MS, Rod

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1886039429 ISBN 13: 9781886039421

Publisher: Addicus Books, 1999

Synopsis

On a peaceful August morning in 1985, grim-faced FBI agents led a dawn raid on an eighty-acre farm outside Rulo, Nebraska, said to be occupied by a group of religious survivalists led by the charismatic Mike Ryan. What they found on the farm shocked even experienced investigators. For months Ryan's Nebraska neighbors spoke in whispers of gunfire in the night, the disappearance of women and children, neo-Nazis and white supremacists. But little did the locals know what was happening to those Mike Ryan decided to punish for their “sins.” In Evil Harvest, Rod Colvin re-creates a chilling story of torture, hate, and perversion, and how good, ordinary people could be pulled into a destructive, religious cult—a cult that committed unthinkable acts in the name of God.

About this title

About the Author:

Rod Colvin is also the author of numerous magazine articles and of First Heroes: The POWS Left Behind in Vietnam and Prescription Drug Addiction: The Hidden Epidemic. He lives in the Midwest.

From Kirkus Reviews:

A dramatic glimpse into the mad world of a divine-right cult leader and mass murderer. Colvin (Prescription Drug Abuse, not reviewed) was a broadcast journalist in Nebraska when the shocking story broke. He opens with the FBI's 1985 raid on a Nebraska farm. The ramshackle commune was raising nothing but white supremacy and a survivalist, charismatic Christian cult, and the officers unearthed two victims of apocalyptical holy man Mike Ryan. Colvin's intimate research and dramatic writing offer preDavid Koresh insights into the later dynamics of the Branch Davidian and Aryan Nation phenomena. He brings us to neo-Nazi meetings of the Midwest farmers who blame foreclosures on the Satanic Jews running Washington and the world's economy. Truth and logic are no match for the fearful anger of the white Christian. Twisted gospels prove non-whites are ``an impure race . . . Jesus came for the true Israelites, the white Anglo-Saxons.'' The chosen delusion is fostered by Ryan's mentor, Rev. James Wickstrom, through paramilitary groups like the Posse Comitatus. Fortified by his Vietnam experiences, Ryan commits sadistic depravities on God's direct orders. Reading about his elaborate tortures requires a strong stomach. Enraged by paranoia, Ryan shoots one follower's fingertips off, skins him alive, then sends him to eternal hellfire: ``Ryan jumped on James' chest, stomping the life out of him.'' For good measure, the disciple is also raped with a shovel handle. Another victim is forced to fornicate with a goat. Finally, Ryan rapes a married woman to get God's grandson. Eight pages of photos display several of Ryans victims, some of the supplies the cult amassed for the Battle of Armageddon, and the bearded messiah before and after his sentencing to the electric chair. A frightening picture of what wacko, Waco-style cults have done and what Jim Jones wannabes could do in the coming millennial year. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

About this edition

• Publisher: Addicus Books
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 1886039429
• ISBN 13: 9781886039421
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 364