Sister Susan's Cult

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Dean Klaus Junior and Tina Lynn had
the whirlwind romance that most of us only

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read about him books or see on
the Hallmark Channel during the holidays. In

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nineteen seventy eight New Smyrna Beach,
Florida. Dean was nineteen and Tina was

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fifteen years old when they stepped into
each other's lives and changed them forever.

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Less than a year later, the
young couple rushed to the Lucia County Courthouse

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and officially tied the knot, becoming
mister and Missus Klaus. Nine months after

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that, a honeymoon baby made the
family complete. Little Holly Marie was born

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on January twenty fourth, nineteen eighty, and even though they were only young

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parents themselves, both Dean and Tina
were determined to do everything they could to

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give Holly the life they thought she
deserved. They loved her, and those

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around them described Dean and Tina as
deeply devoted parents, but they were just

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starting out in life and there wasn't
much to go around to make inns meet.

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The young family moved in with Tina's
sister, Sherry Lynne, but it

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was only that summer that opportunity came
a knockin' Dean was a talented cabinet maker,

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and he also sensed an opportunity.
Dallas, Fort Worth, and Texas

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was developing quickly with a huge boom
in the construction industry. There there was

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bound to be a need for cabinet
makers, especially one that could churn out

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high quality items. The young Klouses
made the decision to move to Texas.

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Dean borrowed his mother's car and the
family moved to Lewisville in the hopes that

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they were about to make a very
comfortable life for themselves. Dean found work

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with a home building company, and
the family moved in to live with Dean's

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cousin as they saved up money to
find their own place. There was a

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good thing for them to wait too. They had only just moved and work

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wasn't always steady. Sometimes the money
flowed, and sometimes there was barely enough

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to go around, but the young
couple never seemed to feel like they were

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going without, and despite their financial
situation, Dean and Tina seemed to be

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ginning on better than ever. That
was one of the reasons why their families

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were so shocked and confused when they
suddenly disappeared around October of that year,

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only a few short months after moving
to Texas. After months of trying to

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reach them, Dean's mother reported them
as missing, only to get a lackluster

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response from law enforcement. The police
argued that Dean and Tina were young adults

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and if they cut off ties with
their families back home, it was probably

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because they wanted to. Time dragged
on, and still there was no word

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from neither of them. In a
desperate attempt to pick up any traces of

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their missing family members, both families
continued to spread the news around their communities

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and even asked the Salvation Army to
keep an eye out for them in their

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databases. All leeds came to a
dead end, and difficult, hard hitting

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questions went unanswered for decades. Fast
forward to the year twenty twenty. Over

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forty years later, things began to
change. Forensic genealogists Misty Gillis and Alison

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Peacock were given the herculean task of
identifying the over forty thousand unidentified remains within

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the cold case system of the US, and with that came some startling discoveries.

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Within days of testing samples taken from
John and Jane Doe, known within

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the department as Romeo and Juliet,
Misty and Allison, found themselves on a

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world wind journey of their own.
The young couple had been found in northern

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Harris County, Texas, back on
January twelfth, nineteen eighty one. It

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looked like the two had been the
victims of foul play out in the secluded

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marshy woodland, and even the discovery
of the remains had been the result of

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a truly gruesome turn of events.
A man out walking his dog that winter

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in nineteen eighty one let his dog
off the leash and the dog darted into

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the forest, but when it came
back, it was carrying the decomposing remains

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of a human arm The man immediately
alerted the police, who came down to

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the area, only to find that
there was so much more. A young

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man and a young woman had been
brutally killed out in the wilderness, and

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it looked like the male victim had
been the last to go. From the

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evidence that was left at the scene, investigators were able to piece together that

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the woman had been strangled to death. The man had been bound, gagged,

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and beaten until he died too he'd
probably been beaten because he'd been trying

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to protect and save the woman.
Both victims had died at the scene,

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and their remains had been left to
slowly decompose only a few feet away from

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each other, and autopsy revealed that
they had probably been killed somewhere between a

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week to a few months before they
had been discovered. Attempts to identify the

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couple, including through facial reconstructions,
came back empty handed, and it was

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only forty years later that the truth
was finally revealed. Dean and Tina Claus

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had died in the forests of Harris
County back in nineteen eighty, and they

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had been too new to the community
for anyone to know them or even noticed

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that they were gone. They were
buried as John and Jane Doe in Harris

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County Cemetery. It was only when
DNA tests of their remains came back with

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some hits decades later that the fate
of this young couple came closer to the

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light. Dean Klaus's DNA was a
close match to several others within the forensic

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databases in Kentucky following the family tree, Misty Gillis and Alison Peacock then made

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a call to Debbie Brooks and asked
if she had any family members go missing

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back in the eighties. It turned
out that Debbie Brooks was Dean's sister.

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After forty years and only ten days
of DNA investigation, Romeo had been identified

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as Dean Klaus, and it was
very shortly after that that Juliette was found

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to be his wife Tina. Their
families came out to Harris County, both

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to visit Dean and Tina's grave and
to see the place where they had been

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murdered. It was only then that
Dean's mother gave up hope that her son

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was still alive. Now with their
victims finally identified, a new investigation was

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opened with the hopes of finally Dean
and Tina's killers, but the detectives quickly

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hit a snack. Still riding the
high of providing a family who had gone

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with nothing for over forty years with
answers, Alison Peacock found herself stumped when

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Debbie Brooks asked if anyone had found
the baby what baby, Alison asked back.

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It was only then that the authorities
found out about Holly, and with

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that came a fresh batch of startling
and chilling questions. Whoever had killed her

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parents killed Holly as well? Had
her body maybe been snatched away and eaten

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by wildlife in the forest. Has
she been kidnapped and trafficked and lived the

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life of misery and exploitation for the
last forty years. A widespread effort and

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search was put into place to find
Holly. If she was still alive,

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chances are that she would have no
idea who she really was, or that

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she had a family out there that
were looking for her. Against all odds,

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On June seventh, twenty twenty two, on Dean's birthday, Holly was

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found. She was alive and well, and had been this whole time.

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One of the clues came when the
investigation was refused the right to see Holly's

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birth certificate because she'd been adopted,
which then led them to a church in

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Oklahoma where Holly had been dropped off
all those years ago. The pastor,

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who would later turn out to be
the man who'd adopted Holly, remembers two

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young women barefoot and wearing white dresses, leaving Holly at the church that day

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with her actual birth certificate. They
also had with them signed documentation where Dean

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had allegedly given over his parental rights, meaning that Holly was free to be

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adopted. There was a similar story
of women in white dresses abandoning a child

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at a laundrymat as well. Holly
had lived her life not knowing how the

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women in the white dresses obtained her
that day. But Dean's family had an

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inkling. When Dean had been a
teenager, he was interested in religious groups

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colts more than likely being the more
appropriate term. His mother had even come

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home one time to find Dean sitting
in the kitchen talking to two bearded men

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in white robes who referred to each
other as brothers. Sometimes Dean would go

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off with these brothers, who supposedly
belonged to a nomadic religious group who believed

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in male female separation and vegetarianism,
amongst other things. But the point was

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that Dean always came home afterwards,
and when Dean met Tina, he'd stop

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going out with the brothers altogether.
But back in December nineteen eighty, right

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before Dean's mother reported the young family
as missing, a woman calling herself sister

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Susan reached out to Dean's family and
said that she wanted to meet with them.

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The meeting came with a lot of
conditions. They were only to meet

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at night, and even though there
were several members in white robes present,

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the family could only speak with Sister
Susan. It was there that Sister Susan

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told Dean's family that Dean and Tina
had joined their religious group and they were

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cutting ties with their worldly families.
They wouldn't be reaching out again, and

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if the family ever tried to contact
either of them, they wouldn't be getting

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an answer. To prove that Dean
and Tina were serious about not wanting to

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ever see their families again, they
were returning the car that Dean had borrowed

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from his mother. Both families were
unconvinced and made several attempts to get law

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enforcement to look into the situation more
seriously, including trying to file missing persons

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reports. It was decades later,
on her biological father's birthday, that Holly

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sat down on Zoom to speak with
the people who had been holding on hope

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of one day finding her. She
has her mother's smile and her voice to

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the tea. She's soft, yeah, very soft spoken. Dean's mother,

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Donna, later told the press,
I just wanted to get up and hug

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her so bad. Holly and her
remaining family got their wish a year later,

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after fundraising efforts were able to sponsor
trip down to Florida for Holly to

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meet everyone in person. That's ten
Minute Murder for today brief and bingeable true

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crime. My name is Joe.
I'm the host, and thank you so

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much for taking the time to listen
to ten Minute Murder. If you're a

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brand new listener wherever you're listening right
now, hit the subscribe button. That's

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going to more easily help you catch
up on all the back episodes and help

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you find the podcast in the future. You can check the episode notes here

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find the places where you can locate
the podcast on social media. Also send

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me an email Joe at ten minute
Murder dot com. And I've gotten a

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couple of emails recently basically asking the
same question, and it's not exactly a

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normal question, so it makes me
think they're probably from the same person on

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a couple of different accounts, which
is cool. Might mean that they don't

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want their identity to be mentioned here, so I'm not going to say it,

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but they asked if they happened to
see me out in public somewhere.

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Is it cool to come up to
me and say hello? Now, Like

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I said, it's not really a
normal question because my instinct is like,

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yeah, of course, come say
hi. However, because of the subject

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matter of this podcast, that might
make me a little nervous. I talk

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about murders here, and who knows
who I've pissed off in the process of

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doing that. So I'll say yes, but with this caveat, approach me

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like you would a stray animal,
very slowly and low key. I might

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get skittish and run off in the
woods if you come in hot. If

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I did a podcast talking about nearly
anything else, it would be cool,

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but no offense to any weirdos listening. There are some weirdos out there.

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You just never know who's approaching you. So that's going to do it.

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That's your episode for today. Thank
you for listening to ten minute Murder,

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and maybe have like a snack or
something, a cup of coffee, that'd

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be great.