Elizabeth Phillips
👤 SpeakerAppearances Over Time
Podcast Appearances
And so anyways, Pete turns himself into the Taney County Sheriff's Department.
It should have been FBI from the beginning.
And it wasn't.
It was a Taney County Sheriff's Department investigation.
It was the local victims that put him away.
The prosecutor at the time, Jeff Merrill, he said there were 55-ish victims known at the time of sentencing, but he estimated a true victim count in the hundreds on Pete Newman alone.
Pete's now one of over 75 perpetrators associated with Kanakuk we know of now.
Through my investigation, we'll go into that, but... Can you say that again?
Pete's one of over 75 perpetrators affiliated with Kanakuk that we've uncovered to date.
with allegations dating back from 1958 to very recently.
So, that's Pete.
55 victims known at time of sentencing.
Prosecutor estimating true victim count in the hundreds.
Other experts would say thousands, just because he had unfettered access to children year-round for 14 years.
Add that to his, you know, moda operandi of, like, how he would abuse.
So, yeah, hundreds, thousands of victims, Pete Newman alone.
Right.
Yeah.
So Kanakuk's crisis PR strategy on all that was, well, we can't let one bad apple take down this ministry.
We've saved so many souls.