WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.399 --> 00:00:10.039 That's the stars. He barning WAPs behe my eyes do 2 00:00:10.400 --> 00:00:19.839 eat talkers two fighting shoe. What's your bar. 3 00:00:22.359 --> 00:00:25.399 If you shoot stuff. 4 00:00:26.800 --> 00:00:29.679 The shoe shots or. 5 00:00:33.320 --> 00:00:36.079 Frost shop with the ship. 6 00:00:39.640 --> 00:00:46.039 The lebarning WAPs behmi eyes din me thingy talkers. 7 00:00:48.280 --> 00:00:55.520 Too short, fostah. 8 00:00:55.280 --> 00:01:00.039 Got the ship fo f cha ship the ship. 9 00:01:03.159 --> 00:01:08.959 The burn WAPs wraps by me through the darkness. 10 00:01:12.959 --> 00:01:22.040 Profetation of the ship, the ships show fat the ship. 11 00:01:23.959 --> 00:01:26.400 Felt you. 12 00:01:32.120 --> 00:01:37.239 Profisten the ship the ships. 13 00:01:36.959 --> 00:01:40.640 Or prof fish. 14 00:01:45.400 --> 00:01:57.359 Fish fires ship that's exposed to be proften ship ships. 15 00:01:57.719 --> 00:02:02.760 Look into the darkness, find the blazing store and where 16 00:02:02.799 --> 00:02:04.879 to become man clips. 17 00:02:08.080 --> 00:02:08.360 True. 18 00:02:33.000 --> 00:02:37.639 Welcome to the occult rejects. Tonight, I want to tell 19 00:02:37.680 --> 00:02:41.520 you a true story about a Christian puppeteer. His name 20 00:02:41.680 --> 00:02:44.960 was Ronald William Brown. He lived in Florida, and in 21 00:02:45.039 --> 00:02:49.159 the world people saw he was associated with puppets, church spaces, 22 00:02:49.879 --> 00:02:54.639 children's performances, and a kind of public presence that felt familiar, local, 23 00:02:55.000 --> 00:02:58.159 and easy to understand. This is where I want to 24 00:02:58.199 --> 00:03:01.479 begin with the man people knew, with the work he 25 00:03:01.599 --> 00:03:04.719 did with the spaces he moved through with the public 26 00:03:04.840 --> 00:03:09.520 life that on its surface seemed ordinary Puppetry is one 27 00:03:09.520 --> 00:03:12.639 of those arts that still feels handmade in the deepest sense. 28 00:03:13.280 --> 00:03:18.479 It belongs to church halls, school rooms, folding chairs, painted backdrops, 29 00:03:18.919 --> 00:03:23.919 bright fabrics, practiced voices, little stages, and the strange ability 30 00:03:24.080 --> 00:03:27.360 to make a child pay attention. It is playful, it 31 00:03:27.479 --> 00:03:30.800 is personal. It does not usually feel grand. It feels close. 32 00:03:31.520 --> 00:03:35.000 And that was part of Brown's world. He was known 33 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:38.719 as a puppeteer, a Christian performer, a man whose work 34 00:03:38.800 --> 00:03:43.000 placed him in spaces where entertainment, religion, and community often met. 35 00:03:43.759 --> 00:03:47.000 To the people around him, that was a complete enough introduction. 36 00:03:47.719 --> 00:03:49.879 It told them the role he played, the kind of 37 00:03:49.960 --> 00:03:52.439 world he belonged to, and the way he fit into 38 00:03:52.479 --> 00:03:54.919 the lives of other people. So that is how this 39 00:03:55.039 --> 00:03:58.159 story begins, with the man, his work and the public 40 00:03:58.280 --> 00:04:03.360 life people could see. Ronald William Brown was in public 41 00:04:03.479 --> 00:04:07.120 a puppeteer. That was the role he could understand immediately. 42 00:04:07.599 --> 00:04:09.639 It gave shape to him. It placed him inside a 43 00:04:09.719 --> 00:04:13.120 recognizable kind of life. Not the life of a celebrity, 44 00:04:13.639 --> 00:04:16.120 not the life of a major public figure, just the 45 00:04:16.240 --> 00:04:18.920 life of a local performer whose work moved through familiar 46 00:04:19.000 --> 00:04:23.720 settings and in familiar faces. He worked with puppets. He 47 00:04:23.839 --> 00:04:26.920 built part of his life around performance. He moved through 48 00:04:27.000 --> 00:04:29.519 Christian spaces where that kind of performance had a place. 49 00:04:30.319 --> 00:04:34.360 In many churches, especially in children's ministry, puppetry filled the 50 00:04:34.480 --> 00:04:39.680 very specific need. It could entertain, teach, keep attention, soften 51 00:04:39.720 --> 00:04:43.240 a room, deliver a lesson, create a little laughter, and 52 00:04:43.319 --> 00:04:47.199 make a gathering feel warm. Instead of formal, it was theatrical, 53 00:04:47.319 --> 00:04:51.639 but not distant. It was performative but not intimate. That 54 00:04:51.800 --> 00:04:54.720 kind of work tends to create a particular impression on people. 55 00:04:55.439 --> 00:04:58.439 A puppeteer is remembered less as an abstract artist and 56 00:04:58.560 --> 00:05:01.839 more as a presence. The children remember the puppet, The 57 00:05:01.920 --> 00:05:05.480 adults remember the atmosphere. The room remembers the voice, the 58 00:05:05.560 --> 00:05:09.279 small stage, the momentary sense that a simple object came 59 00:05:09.319 --> 00:05:12.800 alive because someone knew how to move it, speak through it, 60 00:05:13.199 --> 00:05:16.800 and give it a personality. For someone like Brown, puppetry 61 00:05:16.959 --> 00:05:19.079 was not just a hobby in the background. It was 62 00:05:19.240 --> 00:05:22.759 central to how people understood him. It gave him a role, 63 00:05:23.160 --> 00:05:25.879 It gave him a language. He gave other people a 64 00:05:25.959 --> 00:05:29.079 way to place him quickly. The work itself suggested a 65 00:05:29.199 --> 00:05:35.199 certain kind of temperament, expressive, practiced, comfortable, round children familiar 66 00:05:35.240 --> 00:05:38.439 and religious in community settings, able to step into a 67 00:05:38.560 --> 00:05:40.759 room and make it feel more animated than it had 68 00:05:40.879 --> 00:05:45.319 a moment before. To understand Ronald William Brown as people 69 00:05:45.360 --> 00:05:48.199 would have understood him in everyday life, it helps to 70 00:05:48.279 --> 00:05:51.399 understand the world around him. This was not the world 71 00:05:51.480 --> 00:05:54.600 of major television studios and national celebrities. It was a 72 00:05:54.680 --> 00:05:58.120 small world than that, closer to the ground, shaped by 73 00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:05.839 local familiarity. Church spaces, community events, children's programming, family friendly performance, 74 00:06:06.199 --> 00:06:08.560 the kind of places where people saw each other more 75 00:06:08.680 --> 00:06:12.360 than once, where faces became familiar, where a role could 76 00:06:12.399 --> 00:06:16.319 become part of the texture of ordinary life. In worlds 77 00:06:16.399 --> 00:06:19.639 like that, a puppeteer is not just an entertainer. He 78 00:06:19.759 --> 00:06:22.720 becomes part of the atmosphere. He belongs to the room, 79 00:06:23.160 --> 00:06:25.759 he belongs to the event, He belongs to the shared 80 00:06:25.839 --> 00:06:30.120 memory people carry away afterward. Children remember the puppet itself, 81 00:06:30.319 --> 00:06:33.639 the voice, the little bits of humor, the expressions, the movement. 82 00:06:34.240 --> 00:06:37.600 Adults remember that the room worked, that the children paid attention, 83 00:06:38.000 --> 00:06:40.959 that the event had energy, that the person performing seemed 84 00:06:41.000 --> 00:06:44.839 to know what they were doing. In Christian spaces, in particular, 85 00:06:45.079 --> 00:06:48.519 have long made room for that kind of performer. Churches 86 00:06:48.600 --> 00:06:52.120 have always relied on people who can translate attention into engagement, 87 00:06:52.639 --> 00:06:58.399 especially where children are involved. Music, storytelling, skits, object lessons, puppets, 88 00:06:58.439 --> 00:07:01.839 and visual aids all become ways of making religious space 89 00:07:02.199 --> 00:07:06.399 feel welcoming instead of distant. A puppeteer fits naturally into 90 00:07:06.439 --> 00:07:08.920 that setting because the craft is built around making something 91 00:07:08.959 --> 00:07:13.879 feel warm, animated, and alive. There is something particular about 92 00:07:13.879 --> 00:07:16.680 puppetry that makes it different from other forms of performance. 93 00:07:17.519 --> 00:07:20.240 A singer stands in front of an audience as himself. 94 00:07:21.040 --> 00:07:24.319 A speaker uses his own face, his own body, his 95 00:07:24.480 --> 00:07:27.240 own voice in a direct way, but as a puppeteer 96 00:07:27.319 --> 00:07:31.399 works through his second presence. He creates personality through something made, 97 00:07:31.920 --> 00:07:36.480 something shaped, something brought to life by movement, rhythm, timing, 98 00:07:36.759 --> 00:07:40.319 and sound. The audience is looking at the puppet, but 99 00:07:40.439 --> 00:07:43.600 the person behind it is guiding every reaction to the room. 100 00:07:44.720 --> 00:07:48.879 That takes more skill than people sometimes realize. A puppeteer 101 00:07:48.959 --> 00:07:52.160 has to divide attention into two directions at once. He 102 00:07:52.279 --> 00:07:55.240 has to maintain the illusion of the character while also 103 00:07:55.439 --> 00:07:58.360 reading the room. He has to know when to speed up, 104 00:07:58.600 --> 00:08:01.199 when to pause, when to let joke land, and when 105 00:08:01.279 --> 00:08:04.279 to soften a voice, when to lift energy and when 106 00:08:04.360 --> 00:08:07.639 to bring it back down. It is a craft built 107 00:08:07.680 --> 00:08:11.720 out of control, but it cannot feel controlling. If it works, 108 00:08:11.879 --> 00:08:14.959 it feels easy, It feels natural. It feels like the 109 00:08:15.040 --> 00:08:18.000 room is simply moving with the performance, rather than being 110 00:08:18.120 --> 00:08:21.399 managed by it. And because of that, the person doing 111 00:08:21.480 --> 00:08:24.279 the work becomes associated with a certain kind of atmosphere. 112 00:08:25.000 --> 00:08:29.240 Not just entertainment, but ease, not just performance but familiarity. 113 00:08:29.720 --> 00:08:32.879 A good puppeteer does not only present characters. He creates 114 00:08:32.919 --> 00:08:36.000 a mood around himself. He becomes linked in the minds 115 00:08:36.000 --> 00:08:40.519 of other people with patience, creativity, humor, and the ability 116 00:08:40.600 --> 00:08:43.759 to keep children engaged without strain. That kind of presence 117 00:08:43.799 --> 00:08:47.879 can become a public identity all on its own. By 118 00:08:47.879 --> 00:08:50.240 the time a person has spent enough years moving through 119 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:53.080 the same kind of spaces, he stops feeling new to 120 00:08:53.159 --> 00:08:55.799 the people around him. He becomes part of the scenery 121 00:08:55.879 --> 00:09:01.320 of community life. Not invisible exactly, but settled, familiar, the 122 00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:03.639 kind of person people can picture in a certain setting 123 00:09:03.679 --> 00:09:06.799 without effort. Some people are known for their job, some 124 00:09:07.000 --> 00:09:09.399 for their family, some for the places they show up, 125 00:09:09.799 --> 00:09:12.320 some for the roles they always play, or they always 126 00:09:12.320 --> 00:09:15.320 seem to play. Whenever a gathering needs a particular kind 127 00:09:15.360 --> 00:09:18.799 of energy. For Ronald William Brown, puppetry was one of 128 00:09:18.879 --> 00:09:21.279 those roles that made him easy to remember in easy 129 00:09:21.320 --> 00:09:24.960 to place. That is often how local public identity works. 130 00:09:25.440 --> 00:09:28.919 It is built less from grand achievements than from repetition. 131 00:09:29.960 --> 00:09:32.200 A person appears in the same kind of rooms, in 132 00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:35.519 the same kind of contexts, doing the same kind of work, 133 00:09:35.840 --> 00:09:39.679 and over time that repetition becomes its own form of recognition. 134 00:09:40.759 --> 00:09:43.559 People may not know every detail of his life, but 135 00:09:43.679 --> 00:09:45.440 they know enough to say they know who he is, 136 00:09:46.200 --> 00:09:48.240 They know what he does, They know the kind of 137 00:09:48.279 --> 00:09:51.120 place they expect to see him. They know the impression 138 00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:54.559 he leaves behind. A man who performs for children's spaces 139 00:09:54.639 --> 00:09:57.399 does not have to introduce himself from the ground up. 140 00:09:57.519 --> 00:10:00.759 Every time he enters a room. The role arrives with him. 141 00:10:01.480 --> 00:10:04.840 The context does some of the work. People recognize the 142 00:10:04.919 --> 00:10:08.200 type before they know the individual. They know the rhythm 143 00:10:08.240 --> 00:10:10.679 of the setting, they know what the performance is for, 144 00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:13.440 they know what part of the social world that person 145 00:10:13.559 --> 00:10:16.200 seems to occupy. By that point, a person is no 146 00:10:16.360 --> 00:10:21.440 longer simply introduced. He is recognized, and Ronald William Brown 147 00:10:21.480 --> 00:10:24.840 appears to have been recognized in exactly that way. As 148 00:10:24.919 --> 00:10:28.799 a Christian puppeteer whose work moved naturally through the spaces 149 00:10:28.840 --> 00:10:34.200 where families, churches, children, and performance met. He was part 150 00:10:34.240 --> 00:10:37.320 of a local world where those categories overlapped easily enough 151 00:10:37.399 --> 00:10:42.039 that they seemed to form one continuous identity. By that point, 152 00:10:42.159 --> 00:10:45.039 a person is not just known, he is settled in 153 00:10:45.120 --> 00:10:50.039 the imagination of a community. For a while, Ronald William 154 00:10:50.080 --> 00:10:52.960 Brown's life appears to have moved along in that familiar 155 00:10:53.039 --> 00:10:56.279 public shape. He was known through the roles people could see, 156 00:10:56.679 --> 00:11:00.720 through performance, through church spaces, through children's program, through the 157 00:11:00.879 --> 00:11:04.039 ordinary repetition that makes a person feel established in a community. 158 00:11:05.000 --> 00:11:09.919 And then in July of twenty twelve, that ordinary public 159 00:11:10.120 --> 00:11:15.759 story ended. Federal agents searched Brown's home in Largo, Florida. 160 00:11:16.399 --> 00:11:18.919 He was arrested, and that was the point where the 161 00:11:18.960 --> 00:11:22.639 man people knew as a Christian puppeteer stopped being the 162 00:11:22.679 --> 00:11:26.240 only version of him the public could see. Brown was 163 00:11:26.360 --> 00:11:30.279 arrested in a federal child pornography case and later pleaded 164 00:11:30.320 --> 00:11:33.720 guilty to three counts of possession and five counts of receipt. 165 00:11:34.679 --> 00:11:36.039 That is the break in the story. 166 00:11:36.720 --> 00:11:38.960 Up to this point, everything belonged to the visible world, 167 00:11:39.120 --> 00:11:43.200 the performances, the church setting, the children's programming, the familiar 168 00:11:43.279 --> 00:11:47.080 public role. From this point forward, the story changes. It 169 00:11:47.200 --> 00:11:49.039 moves out of the world of persona and into the 170 00:11:49.120 --> 00:11:53.000 world of investigation, evidence, charges, and the hard language of 171 00:11:53.080 --> 00:11:56.720 the record. Because once the arrest happened, the image people 172 00:11:56.799 --> 00:11:59.799 had of Ronald William Brown could no longer stay intact. 173 00:12:01.120 --> 00:12:05.799 Once agents got into the devices and accounts, the case 174 00:12:05.919 --> 00:12:09.360 became darker than the public had yet understood and probably 175 00:12:09.480 --> 00:12:13.559 wish they didn't know. This is not only a story 176 00:12:13.600 --> 00:12:17.159 about illegal files sitting on a machine. According to the 177 00:12:17.240 --> 00:12:23.840 Eleventh Circuit, Brown's online communications included discussions of the abduction, murder, 178 00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:30.200 and cannibalization of children. The opinion says Brown and Michael 179 00:12:30.360 --> 00:12:35.639 Arnett discussed eating a boy from Brown's church. It also 180 00:12:35.720 --> 00:12:38.960 says Brown asked for pictures of dead boys, and in 181 00:12:39.080 --> 00:12:45.039 another exchange wrote, would love to snuff him. Prosecutors later 182 00:12:45.120 --> 00:12:47.799 submitted a marked up photograph of a boy from Brown's 183 00:12:47.879 --> 00:12:52.600 church showing how Brown imagined butchering him. That is where 184 00:12:52.679 --> 00:12:55.600 the case stops being merely a file case and becomes 185 00:12:55.720 --> 00:12:59.840 something much worse in the eyes of the court, because 186 00:13:00.120 --> 00:13:03.799 public knew a Christian puppeteer. The record showed a man 187 00:13:04.360 --> 00:13:09.240 talking about abducting children, killing them, butchering them and eating them. 188 00:13:10.240 --> 00:13:13.159 The same record also described books in his home about 189 00:13:13.240 --> 00:13:18.759 cannibalism and serial killers, along with seazed media containing hundreds 190 00:13:19.200 --> 00:13:23.799 of illicit images and other disturbing material. I would also 191 00:13:23.919 --> 00:13:26.399 like to add there's tons of conversation that I am 192 00:13:26.559 --> 00:13:30.480 not going to even repeat, but it is descriptive on 193 00:13:30.600 --> 00:13:35.320 how to obtain the children, preparation and cooking techniques, even 194 00:13:35.679 --> 00:13:41.039 the tastiest parts. That is why the chats mattered so much. 195 00:13:42.159 --> 00:13:45.000 They were not a media footnote, they became part of 196 00:13:45.080 --> 00:13:48.320 the backbone of sentencing. The Eleventh Circuit says the judge 197 00:13:48.360 --> 00:13:52.200 specifically relied on Brown's interest in the dead children, murder, 198 00:13:52.360 --> 00:13:56.000 and cannibalism when deciding that the normal guidelines range of 199 00:13:56.120 --> 00:13:59.159 seventy eight to ninety seven months did not come close 200 00:13:59.480 --> 00:14:04.120 to reflecting the seriousness of the case. Brown received two 201 00:14:04.240 --> 00:14:07.279 hundred and forty months in federal prison in twenty years, 202 00:14:07.879 --> 00:14:11.879 followed by lifetime supervised release, and that sentence was affirmed 203 00:14:12.000 --> 00:14:17.320 on appeal. Brown's defense was that chats were fantasy, not action, 204 00:14:18.159 --> 00:14:21.720 But even with that argument. The sentencing court treated the conversations, 205 00:14:22.159 --> 00:14:25.720 seized materials, and broader digital record as proof that this 206 00:14:26.000 --> 00:14:29.320 was a far more dangerous and deprived case than the 207 00:14:29.399 --> 00:14:34.799 bear counts alone might suggest. Those conversations did not become 208 00:14:34.840 --> 00:14:38.600 their own separate final conviction, but they absolutely shaped how 209 00:14:38.639 --> 00:14:41.200 the court understood the man and why the punishment was 210 00:14:41.279 --> 00:14:45.919 so severe. This is where the story has to stay disciplined. 211 00:14:46.799 --> 00:14:50.000 Some of the earliest reporting focused on the most explosive allegation, 212 00:14:50.519 --> 00:14:54.320 conspiracy to kidnap a child, but Bay News nine later 213 00:14:54.440 --> 00:14:57.559 reported that prosecutors did not pursue the most serious charge, 214 00:14:57.960 --> 00:15:02.000 but remained was still devastating. Brown pleaded guilty to eight 215 00:15:02.120 --> 00:15:05.399 federal child pornography counts, and the court still used the 216 00:15:05.519 --> 00:15:10.120 chats and surrounding evidence to justify a much harsher sentence. 217 00:15:12.039 --> 00:15:15.399 That distinction matters because it keeps the story honest. Not 218 00:15:15.559 --> 00:15:18.679 every horrifying allegation in the early reporting became its own 219 00:15:18.759 --> 00:15:22.000 final conviction, but even after the case narrowed to the 220 00:15:22.080 --> 00:15:27.159 count's actually adjudicated, the documented conversations were still so violent 221 00:15:27.519 --> 00:15:31.159 and depraved that they remained central to sentencing and to 222 00:15:31.279 --> 00:15:35.879 how the court read the whole case and This is 223 00:15:35.919 --> 00:15:39.080 where the story stops being just about Ronald William Brown, 224 00:15:40.720 --> 00:15:42.960 Because for all the talk and religious culture about who 225 00:15:43.039 --> 00:15:45.679 is dark, who is corrupt, who is dangerous, and who 226 00:15:45.799 --> 00:15:49.120 is morally unclean, this story did not emerge from some 227 00:15:49.320 --> 00:15:55.159 underworld already marked as suspicious. It emerged from church familiarity, 228 00:15:55.679 --> 00:16:02.039 children's ministry, Christian television, and public trust. Brown's public life 229 00:16:02.279 --> 00:16:06.159 as reflected and reporting, and the appellate record moved through 230 00:16:06.279 --> 00:16:10.759 exactly those spaces. That is what gives this case its force. 231 00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:14.960 The lesson here is not that one religious tribe is 232 00:16:15.120 --> 00:16:19.759 uniquely evil. The lesson is moral branding is worthless as 233 00:16:19.879 --> 00:16:24.759 proof of character. Across a children's stage, a church room, 234 00:16:25.039 --> 00:16:28.919 a Christian television program, None of these things can tell 235 00:16:28.960 --> 00:16:31.840 you what a person is when no one is looking. 236 00:16:33.080 --> 00:16:36.440 And sometimes the people most eager to point at outsiders 237 00:16:36.480 --> 00:16:40.720 a hiding behind the strongest costumes of innocence. Some are 238 00:16:40.879 --> 00:16:43.600 even the most grimiest of people, hiding behind a cross 239 00:16:43.919 --> 00:16:48.519 keyboard and microphone. And the public knew a Christian puppeteer. 240 00:16:49.720 --> 00:16:54.320 The court record knows something else now, and that's the 241 00:16:54.440 --> 00:16:57.080 end of another occult to rejects till the next one.