Description
Crudely carved and signed walking stick by notorious Canadian killer and doomsday cult leader Moïse. The walking stick was bartered in trade to the owner of a general store and friend who supplied groceries and sundries to Moïse and his Ant Hill Kids oblivious to the atrocities being committed within the commune. It’s extremely difficult and rare to acquire anything related to this infamous murderer.
Roch Thériault (May 16, 1947 – February 26, 2011) was a Canadian cult leader and convicted murderer. Thériault, a self-proclaimed prophet under the name Moïse (French for ‘Moses’), founded the Ant Hill Kids in 1977. They were a doomsday cult whose beliefs were based on those of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In April 1978, Thériault was removed from the Seventh-day Adventist Church. He maintained multiple wives and concubines, impregnating all female members as a religious requirement, and fathering 26 children. Thériault’s followers, including 12 adults and 22 children, lived under his totalitarian rule in a commune and were subject to severe physical and sexual abuse.
Thériault was arrested for assault in 1989, dissolving the cult, and in 1993 was convicted for the murder of follower Solange Boilard. He had previously killed an infant named Samuel Giguère, while two of his disciples, Geraldine Gagné Auclair and Gabrielle Nadeau, died following homeopathic treatments administered to them by Thériault. Thériault received a life sentence, which he was serving when he was murdered at Dorchester Penitentiary in 2011. Thériault was stabbed in neck with a shiv in Dorchester Penitentiary by his cellmate, Matthew Gerrard MacDonald.
On February 26, 2011, at age 63, Thériault was found dead near his cell at Dorchester Penitentiary. His death is believed to be the result of an altercation with his cellmate, Matthew Gerrard MacDonald, a 60-year-old convicted murderer from Port au Port, Newfoundland and Labrador, who was charged with the killing. MacDonald pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison, having already been serving a life sentence for a previous murder charge. MacDonald had stabbed Thériault in the neck with a shiv, walked to the guards’ station, handed them the weapon, and proclaimed “That piece of shit is down on the range. Here’s the knife, I’ve sliced him up.” Thériault, along with Robert Pickton, Clifford Olson and Paul Bernardo and Karla Leanne Homolka, are considered Canada’s most notorious criminals since the 1980s.
38 inches
