Other New religious movements Burnt River and Coboconk, Ontario, Canada · 1993

Roch Thériault and the Ant Hill Kids: murder and aggravated-assault convictions

Record class

Separate register

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

See cited record

Organization

No organization assigned

Spiritual nexus

Contemporaneous court reporting records Roch Thériault's 1989 guilty pleas to aggravated assault and unlawfully causing bodily harm, a twelve-year sentence, and his 1993 guilty plea to second-degree murder with a life sentence. The Ant Hill Kids were an isolated apocalyptic commune in which Thériault styled himself as 'Moses' and exercised religious and communal authority. This dossier avoids unnecessary graphic detail, distinguishes the separately convicted followers, and does not attribute the group's conduct to the Seventh-day Adventist Church or apocalyptic Christianity generally.

Primary record

Sources

Maryboro Lodge Museum / Kawartha Virtual Museum, 'Cult Leader Roch Theriault on Trial' (archival excerpts from the Lindsay Daily Post, 1989-1993).: The local museum reproduces contemporaneous court reports recording the guilty pleas, the twelve-year assault sentence, the later second-degree-murder plea and life sentence, and Thériault's authority as the commune's self-styled 'Moses.'
Reuters / Los Angeles Times, 'Canadian Cult's Leader Sentenced in Maiming Case' (Oct. 12, 1989).: Contemporaneous international reporting records Thériault's and three followers' guilty pleas to assault charges and his twelve-year sentence.
The Canadian Press / Global News, 'Man gets 25 years for killing cult leader Roch Theriault in prison fight' (Mar. 5, 2012).: The Canadian Press retrospective records that Thériault was serving a life sentence imposed in 1993 for the murder of a commune member.

Related record

Related cases · New religious movements

← Explore all cases