Speaker 1: In the last episode, we began discussing the extensive story
Speaker 1: known as the Curum Case, so be sure to check
Speaker 1: out part one of that story before listening to today's
Speaker 1: part two. With that being said, my name's Ben.
Speaker 2: I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and Grim.
Speaker 1: A true crime podcast. The following material, intended for matial
Speaker 1: audience listener discretion is advised. Are you ready for the
Speaker 1: rest of the case, Let's do it?
Speaker 2: I think so.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people were a little bit
Speaker 1: upset that we left off where we did.
Speaker 2: I think, well, honestly, the last few Part two is
Speaker 2: people have been like, okay, like pretty chill about it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, this one, people were like, you drop part
Speaker 2: two right now.
Speaker 1: Don't worry. The weight will be worth it. I've got
Speaker 1: a lot to go over, so we'll be talking about it,
Speaker 1: and of course, I mean, first and foremost, I do
Speaker 1: have a recap to do. But even before that, I
Speaker 1: have some amazing patrons to think. So people who signed
Speaker 1: up over in Patreon this week include Jenna McCreery, Alicia Kimmitt,
Speaker 1: Jay Hernandez, Maddie Wade, and Samantha Schroeder. So thank you
Speaker 1: very much. To you amazing people for signing up and
Speaker 1: supporting our show. We appreciate you, we do.
Speaker 2: You're the best. You are the best, the bestest of
Speaker 2: the best.
Speaker 1: And with that being said, you ready for the recap?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I do need a good recap.
Speaker 1: I do need a good recap. Okay. So before police
Speaker 1: ever found Andre in that cupboard, the situation inside the
Speaker 1: Morova family's home had been spiral for years. It started
Speaker 1: when Clara took in a girl she believed was a
Speaker 1: traumatized thirteen year old girl named Anka, not realizing that
Speaker 1: this teenager was actually a grown woman named Barbara Skerlova
Speaker 1: pretending to be a child. So, with help from fake
Speaker 1: messages written by a so called doctor, Clara slowly isolated
Speaker 1: her sons and began following harmful instructions that pushed her
Speaker 1: towards harsher discipline. Things escalated further at a remote cottage,
Speaker 1: where they orchestrated months of structured abuse, confinement, and psychological
Speaker 1: manipulation against both of her two young boys. When the
Speaker 1: family moved back to Kurum, Andre was kept in a
Speaker 1: locked cupboard under the stairs and watched through a hidden
Speaker 1: security camera. Now that camera's signal accidentally leaked and appeared
Speaker 1: on a neighbor's baby monitor, leading police to the house,
Speaker 1: rescuing the boys, arresting the adults, and unknowingly placing Barbara,
Speaker 1: which was you know, Anika, this child into protective care
Speaker 1: as if she were just another one of the child
Speaker 1: victims of the home. And that is where we left off. Okay,
Speaker 1: ring a bell, you got it, it does.
Speaker 2: Yeah that it all came flooding back to me in
Speaker 2: not a good way, fair, because that was shit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right. So, when eight year old Andre and
Speaker 1: ten year old Jacob were finally pulled from the Minerva home,
Speaker 1: authorities transferred them, along with Anica, to a child's shelter
Speaker 1: in Bruno. Staff, of course, assumed they were dealing with
Speaker 1: three different traumatized miners from the same household, each requiring
Speaker 1: urgent psychological attension, well and physical attention too. And Andrea, well,
Speaker 1: he was in the worst condition. His weight, injuries, and
Speaker 1: mental state made it clear he had lived in confinement
Speaker 1: for far longer than anyone initially realized. Within a day,
Speaker 1: he began showing symptoms of acute stress, like panic attacks,
Speaker 1: uncontrollable shaking, and dissociation. Doctors moved him back into the
Speaker 1: hospital for stabilization.
Speaker 2: That poor boy right.
Speaker 1: Now, Jacob, being older, physically stronger, and not singled out
Speaker 1: like his younger brother, was coped a little more quietly.
Speaker 1: He answered staff questions in short, flat sentences and avoided
Speaker 1: eye contact. The first evening, he lingered in the doorway
Speaker 1: of every single room in that facility before ever stepping
Speaker 1: beyond the threshold inside of a room. It was an
Speaker 1: instinct that was left over from months of not knowing
Speaker 1: what was waiting behind a door in the room if
Speaker 1: he enters, what's going to be in their waiting form?
Speaker 1: What punishment, what abuse? That sort of thing?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: Will he even be locked in? Who knows? Oh?
Speaker 2: Man?
Speaker 1: Okay, So it was a lingering form of trauma like
Speaker 1: a PTSD almost like just entering a room even that people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you wouldn't even think like anyone else, You wouldn't
Speaker 2: think twice about that, correct? But and then he literally
Speaker 2: a doorway is like a pause for him exactly. Oh. Now.
Speaker 1: Anica meanwhile behaved exactly as one would expect from a
Speaker 1: frightened teenage girl rescued from a chaotic home. She spoke softly,
Speaker 1: kept to herself, and asked repeatedly whether Clara was angry
Speaker 1: with her. Now Clara is the mother of the two boys.
Speaker 1: Staff interpreted this as attachment trauma. She was supposedly the
Speaker 1: adopted daughter, right, so they did what they could to
Speaker 1: encourage her, you know, basically rest and reassure that she's safe.
Speaker 1: Nothing appeared unusual, But the next night the shelter staff
Speaker 1: began noticing some inconsistencies. Anica didn't act like a typical
Speaker 1: thirteen year old, not in posture, not in her conversational patterns,
Speaker 1: not even in the way she moved around the room.
Speaker 1: When asked about school or hobbies, she deflected or claimed
Speaker 1: she couldn't remember. Her emotional responses didn't quite match the
Speaker 1: situations she was in, and while her file indicated she
Speaker 1: was frail and ill, she managed to climb onto her
Speaker 1: bunk bed with surprising ease. Still, none of these details
Speaker 1: were alarming enough on their own. Staff simply know them
Speaker 1: for psychologists to review in the morning. But the morning, well,
Speaker 1: the reviews they never came, because during the shelter's nightly rounds,
Speaker 1: workers checked every room. Jacob slept curled near the wall
Speaker 1: as usual, his breathing shallow and uneasy, but the bed
Speaker 1: beside him Anica's. It was empty, and a window in
Speaker 1: the room stood wide open. It wasn't a window a
Speaker 1: child could open alone. It was heavy, stiff, and fitted
Speaker 1: with a catch that required some significant strength to lift it.
Speaker 1: Every door was locked, the building was under supervision, Yet
Speaker 1: Onnica still managed to disappear without waking anyone. So, considering
Speaker 1: the situation, authorities launched an immediate search, assuming she'd had
Speaker 1: actually been kidnapped by someone connected to the abuse case,
Speaker 1: since it must have been an adult who'd opened the
Speaker 1: window to get her out.
Speaker 2: See, I'm just on the edge of my seat, like,
Speaker 2: how are they going to They gotta figure this out
Speaker 2: sooner or later, because this is it's just its part
Speaker 2: just pisses me off.
Speaker 1: It's a wild ride through all this coercion masquerading and
Speaker 1: basically like horror cause play, it's not play, but you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, it's a wild ride. So yeah,
Speaker 1: just buckle up.
Speaker 2: Who the fuck does she think she is? Basically is
Speaker 2: all that is going through my mind.
Speaker 1: No kidding. So the working theory was that a person
Speaker 1: involved in the whole cottage situation or the Curum house
Speaker 1: had broken in to remove her, possibly fearing that she
Speaker 1: might talk and become a witness in later trials. Police
Speaker 1: patrolled bus stations and searched wooded areas. A helicopter with
Speaker 1: thermal imaging even swept nearby forests. Within twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: national media picked up the story. There was a possible
Speaker 1: missing teenage girl out there who was frail, sick, and
Speaker 1: she was possibly abducted by the same network of individuals
Speaker 1: that had harmed these two young boys. It was an
Speaker 1: all out search. But then in the thick of it all,
Speaker 1: something happened. Letters arrived. Three handwritten envelopes appeared in different locations,
Speaker 1: the bernou On Budsman Office, a national newspaper, and the
Speaker 1: office of the President of the Czech Republic. Each contained
Speaker 1: the same nine page message, written in an oddly formal
Speaker 1: style and signed Onika Merova at the end the letters,
Speaker 1: though I couldn't find exact copies online of exactly what
Speaker 1: they said, but I did find information on you know,
Speaker 1: summing it up, The letters insisted that Clara was a
Speaker 1: loving mother who had been simply misunderstood. They also claimed
Speaker 1: that Andre had lied to save himself and had often
Speaker 1: hurt her Onica when no one was watching. Onnica pleaded
Speaker 1: in the letters for forgiveness on Clara's behalf and said
Speaker 1: that she had run away because she couldn't bear to
Speaker 1: see her mother for it all. Experts who examined the
Speaker 1: letters immediately doubted that they came from a child. The
Speaker 1: well formed sentences, the phrasing and structure of it all
Speaker 1: suggested an adult with a high degree of emotional awareness
Speaker 1: was actually the one behind them. So they didn't believe
Speaker 1: this was actually written by Anica. They believed it was
Speaker 1: written by whoever had taken her.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, I just have to say to anyone who
Speaker 2: saw what kind of state the one boy was in
Speaker 2: would know that he wasn't like, really capable of hurting
Speaker 2: anyone else.
Speaker 1: Well, exactly why they think it's coming from one of
Speaker 1: the adults, right, So it's an adult lying. They don't
Speaker 1: think this is actually Honica's writing. So the structure, the
Speaker 1: way it's written, it doesn't sound like a child because
Speaker 1: they at this point they.
Speaker 2: Still think still think she's a child.
Speaker 1: They still think she's a child, So they think, okay, well,
Speaker 1: Honica clearly didn't write this. This boy is clearly a victim,
Speaker 1: so it's clearly lying it's someone who's taken her, who's
Speaker 1: written this framing and trying to you know, save their
Speaker 1: own skin. Okay, So like the biggest clue of it all, honestly,
Speaker 1: was that tone. It didn't sound like a frightened girl.
Speaker 1: It was yeah, okay, something else is going on here.
Speaker 1: Someone trying to manage a narrative, trying to manipulate the situation.
Speaker 1: And most likely that would be yeah, an adult, well.
Speaker 2: Someone walking into this case too. It would sure be
Speaker 2: quite confusing for them, hey, Like it just would make
Speaker 2: no sense. Yeah, and the different ways that you would
Speaker 2: be going and stuff. For us sitting here's like, well,
Speaker 2: she's a child, but you would just have no idea.
Speaker 2: It would be quite a hard case to solve.
Speaker 1: I feel like, literally the next thing I've written is
Speaker 1: police didn't really know what to make of it.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: All they knew though, like honestly, is that they needed
Speaker 1: to find her. That's the biggest thing. They don't know
Speaker 1: really what the hell to make of these letters. They're confusing,
Speaker 1: and they're just like, Okay, well she's still out there,
Speaker 1: and in their mind she's still a victim, so they
Speaker 1: need to keep pursuing and looking so the search for
Speaker 1: Anica intensified as days passed with outsidings. Posters were spread
Speaker 1: across Bruno and police they combed through forests and apartments
Speaker 1: linked to the Merova family, trying to see if they
Speaker 1: could find any clue of her. News anchors continued to
Speaker 1: describe her as a fragile, thirteen year old girl in
Speaker 1: need of medical care, likely terrified in hiding after witnessing
Speaker 1: the abuse of her brothers. But inside the children's shelter,
Speaker 1: forensic teams were examining the room Anica had stayed in.
Speaker 1: They expected to find evidence of whoever had taken her.
Speaker 1: That's what they were looking for, you know, fingerprints on
Speaker 1: the windowsill, footprints, traces of anything. But instead they found
Speaker 1: something odd, something stranger, something they didn't expect to find.
Speaker 1: DNA swabbed from the surfaces around the bed did not
Speaker 1: match Clara or Katerina or any staff member either, and
Speaker 1: it didn't match Anica, whose samples they had on file
Speaker 1: from the adoption process. So this DNA was of someone
Speaker 1: they had no clue who it would be. What this
Speaker 1: DNA did match, at least though was partially, was a
Speaker 1: man named Han Scurl. Now remember last episode in part one,
Speaker 1: during the whole cottage time, I did mention that there
Speaker 1: were adults, quote unquote who took part in the abuse.
Speaker 1: You remember that. Yeah, so there were more than just
Speaker 1: the two sisters and the onnica which Barbara. There was
Speaker 1: more than that. Hence why I said the adults end. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll be getting into them in this part.
Speaker 2: Too, Okay, because things are kind of coming together. Because
Speaker 2: even when you were talking about anaka being taken and
Speaker 2: you were saying, like the network of people, and I
Speaker 2: was like, who else was involved in this shit? But okay,
Speaker 2: here we go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so this was the DNA that partially matched Han
Speaker 1: Skirl he was arrested in the connection with that cottage abuse.
Speaker 1: And now the DNA, as I mentioned, it's a partial match.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, it wasn't his. It was only
Speaker 1: a partial match, so it means that it belongs to
Speaker 1: a close relative, and in this case, it was a
Speaker 1: close female relative and the only one that fit was
Speaker 1: his older sister, Barbara Scarlova.
Speaker 2: What the shit? This was already freaking confusing and messed up.
Speaker 1: It is a little bit, which is exactly why I
Speaker 1: brought this into part two, because it needs that time
Speaker 1: to explain. There was a So Barbara is a thirty
Speaker 1: something year a woman that we already know, and she
Speaker 1: had worked at Katerina's youth center for years. So when
Speaker 1: she initially was there as this child that Katerina brought
Speaker 1: home to her sister Clara, right as this you know,
Speaker 1: frail child, she was actually working there. She had taught
Speaker 1: at this youth center. Barbara had attended staff functions, she
Speaker 1: had walked the hallways as an adult woman there, not
Speaker 1: initially as a child. Now, when staff from that Bruno
Speaker 1: youth center looked at the photograph that the media were
Speaker 1: circulating as Anica, that's when the stars started to align.
Speaker 1: They realized, wait, that's Barbara. They realized they hadn't recognized
Speaker 1: her at first because when she was presenting herself as
Speaker 1: a child at this place, she had this downward gaze glasses,
Speaker 1: you know, she was often with her soft posture, her
Speaker 1: now shaved head, oversized clothes, and it all was presenting
Speaker 1: this Onnica and they never looked close enough to see Barbara.
Speaker 1: But now that they had the photo in front of them,
Speaker 1: they realized, that's that's Barbara. She looked younger, thinner, and
Speaker 1: styled different, Yes, and pasted as a teenager. But as
Speaker 1: one employee remembered, that's not a girl, quote, that's Barbara,
Speaker 1: and they called police immediately.
Speaker 2: Okay, is that not super odd that she would be
Speaker 2: doing this at this same center? You think that you
Speaker 2: would pick a center you didn't also had previously worked at,
Speaker 2: because the chances of someone recognizing you and stuff you
Speaker 2: know or higher. You're right, it's amazing she got away
Speaker 2: with it, really.
Speaker 1: Definitely, But I don't know if she really walked the
Speaker 1: halls as a child too much. It was more so
Speaker 1: some of the people working there that she was presenting to. Okay,
Speaker 1: So I'm sure she was there at times, yes, and
Speaker 1: she made herself very scarce to some of these other employees,
Speaker 1: but it was targeting certain individuals, like Katerina for example.
Speaker 2: Hmm, okay.
Speaker 1: Well, so the revelation hit the case like an absolute shockwave.
Speaker 1: It was a sudden, clear moment that the child they've
Speaker 1: been trying to adopt, protect and search for had never
Speaker 1: actually been a child at all, and the focus of
Speaker 1: the investigation shifted as they began piecing together what they
Speaker 1: could of Barbara's life now that they had her name.
Speaker 1: So she Barbara had struggled with physical and developmental conditions
Speaker 1: since childhood, which kept her stature small and her features
Speaker 1: quite youthful. She grew up in a fractured home with
Speaker 1: an alcoholic mother and an absent father deeply involved infringed
Speaker 1: spiritual groups to cults. As she entered adulthood, she began
Speaker 1: drifting between identities, sometimes appearing in psychiatric facilities as a
Speaker 1: runaway team, other times inserting herself into families she had
Speaker 1: convinced to care for her. Her ability to mimic adolescent
Speaker 1: behavior wasn't perfect, I want to mention that, but it
Speaker 1: was good enough to work. She acted timid around authority figures,
Speaker 1: hunched her shoulders as she wore oversized children's clothes, and
Speaker 1: adopted the mannerisms of kids trying not to upset adults.
Speaker 1: Combined with her naturally small frame, it was enough to
Speaker 1: fool teachers, doctors, social workers, and experienced psychologists as well. Honestly,
Speaker 1: anyone who didn't examine her too closely. You know, maybe
Speaker 1: those doctors were just trying to get the session done.
Speaker 1: The psychologists assuming it's a child and treating her like
Speaker 1: a child and not really thinking outside the box.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but also in those situations, why I don't blame
Speaker 2: them because why would exactly why would you be sitting
Speaker 2: there and be questioning if this person is actually a child.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so if you look at her as an adult,
Speaker 1: I'm sure each one of them would have found it
Speaker 1: out relatively fast. But why would.
Speaker 2: You You're looking at her other issues, like bigger issues. Really,
Speaker 2: how can I try to solve these for her? Not like,
Speaker 2: holy shit, this isn't a kid.
Speaker 1: Definitely. So, with help from her brother Keyan and Katerina Morova,
Speaker 1: she built this Anica persona from the ground up. The
Speaker 1: tragic backstory, the sickly appearance, the carefully timed tears, all
Speaker 1: of it reinforced by this mysterious doctor, whose messages, by
Speaker 1: the way, were later traced back to email accounts controlled
Speaker 1: by Katina Clara's sister.
Speaker 2: Wholely shit.
Speaker 1: So, in short, Katerina was one of the puppet masters
Speaker 1: behind this whole thing.
Speaker 2: You know, this that crossed my mind. I was like,
Speaker 2: I kept questioning if the sister was involved, but I
Speaker 2: was like, no, no, there's no way, but holy frick,
Speaker 2: she is an evil monster, Like she's doing this to
Speaker 2: her sister and her freaking nephews then correct, Okay, that
Speaker 2: is okay, it just keeps going with the messed up shit.
Speaker 1: In this case, it does because guess what, even the
Speaker 1: adoption exam member from part one, when Anica went into
Speaker 1: you know, had her birth certificate, age ass asked all
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff. They exam and there was an
Speaker 1: actual child who filled in for her against Clara being
Speaker 1: aware of it well during that exam, which seemed like
Speaker 1: solid proof of her age and all that, it was
Speaker 1: of course an illusion. The girl who underwent the X
Speaker 1: rays the DNA testing was not Barbara. It was a
Speaker 1: friend's daughter, coach styled and presented as Anica for one afternoon,
Speaker 1: and doctors had no reason to spect. They were evaluating
Speaker 1: an impostor, which was this girl that Katerina helped bring in.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, yeah, I am just shocked here.
Speaker 1: Every official document issued afterwards, the birth certificate, adoption approval,
Speaker 1: legal identity, it all sat on the foundation of this fraud.
Speaker 1: And when the system finally started to crack, when the
Speaker 1: boys were rescued at the house and cureum, when it
Speaker 1: was rated, Barbara did exactly what she had done in
Speaker 1: the past. She ran and she vanished.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'm I have like serious questions.
Speaker 1: Okay, shoot, what do you got?
Speaker 2: I mean, you're probably gonna answer them, But what the
Speaker 2: fuck that's your question? What the fuck that is a
Speaker 2: that is a pretty good question. Actually, what was the
Speaker 2: sister gaining from this? I honestly is she just an evil,
Speaker 2: evil person?
Speaker 1: I don't have a solid answer for it. The best
Speaker 1: thing that I can have to answer that for you
Speaker 1: is its cult like mentality and thought process behind it.
Speaker 1: That's really what it boils down to. I have a
Speaker 1: little bit of some details that we might discuss that
Speaker 1: might help voute your thought process, but there's not really
Speaker 1: a solid foundation for that answer.
Speaker 2: So really, I guess in a way, Clara is also
Speaker 2: a victim here in.
Speaker 1: A sense, yes, definitely, Yeah.
Speaker 2: Not near to the extent that her boys are, but
Speaker 2: like to a degree.
Speaker 1: To a degree. But she is also very much so
Speaker 1: responsible still, So she was victimized, but she was also
Speaker 1: perpetuating the abuse and is not innocent.
Speaker 2: No oh, no, one hundred percent nod.
Speaker 1: So, after the escape from the children's shelter, Barbara slipped
Speaker 1: across the border, first heading east, then heading quietly north,
Speaker 1: moving through Europe with the ease of someone who lived
Speaker 1: in the shadows for honestly most or life like, almost
Speaker 1: like she knew what she was doing. Her first confirmed
Speaker 1: appearance came in June of two thousands at the Czech
Speaker 1: embassy in Copenhagen. She walked in with her father, a lawyer,
Speaker 1: and two journalists, an odd entourage honestly for someone who's
Speaker 1: in hiding and terrified of the public eye. But I
Speaker 1: digress regardless. She presented identification in the name of Barbara
Speaker 1: Skerlova and calmly asked embassy staff to take DNA samples,
Speaker 1: as if she were simply clearing a misunderstanding. She confirmed
Speaker 1: her identity, answered a handful of questions, then left as
Speaker 1: abruptly as she arrived. Now embassy staff didn't really know
Speaker 1: what to make of this. They were a little bit confused,
Speaker 1: and they notified the police of the incident, but when
Speaker 1: they got there it'd be too late. She was already gone.
Speaker 2: Now.
Speaker 1: Where she went next seemed almost impossible, even for her.
Speaker 1: It was by late two thousand and seven when a
Speaker 1: thirteen year old boy named Adam appeared at a school
Speaker 1: in Oslo, Norway. He was introverted and he was strange
Speaker 1: and quiet, with traits that didn't immediately stand out classroom
Speaker 1: full of awkward teenagers. Teachers noted that Adam kept his
Speaker 1: head down and rarely spoke unless spoken to. His clothes
Speaker 1: hung loose on his frame, and his hair was buzzed short.
Speaker 1: Staff members did think something was off, but there was
Speaker 1: nothing really alarming enough to trigger an investigation. To say,
Speaker 1: Some believe he looked more like a girl dressed in
Speaker 1: boy's clothes, but shrugged it off, as you know, maybe
Speaker 1: hormones or late bloomer. Who knows, there's a plethora of
Speaker 1: things that it could be. Some also thought he behaved
Speaker 1: older than his peers, but attributed it to whatever family
Speaker 1: issues he had. See not only was Adam now in
Speaker 1: this new school, but he was also in a youth
Speaker 1: foster home. What no one realized was this Adam was,
Speaker 1: of course, what you' already suspecting. Adam was a thirty
Speaker 1: three year old woman named Barbara Scarlova.
Speaker 2: So she's just doing it again.
Speaker 1: She's doing it again. She had reshaped herself over, she
Speaker 1: had gained weight, shaved her head again, and adopted the
Speaker 1: slouching posture of a teenage boy who didn't want any
Speaker 1: sort of attention, and like before, mimic the speech patterns,
Speaker 1: emotional flatness of someone withdrawn overwhelmed. And of course it worked,
Speaker 1: but her new identity began to unravel the very same
Speaker 1: way her last one did. Quietly and through small inconsistencies
Speaker 1: see Adam quote unquote struggled to answer routine questions about
Speaker 1: his past, His recollections contradicted themselves at times, and he
Speaker 1: avoided medical exams. He reacted with fear when paperwork was
Speaker 1: mentioned and when school staff contacted the address listed on
Speaker 1: its file. While more discrepancies piled up, then came the
Speaker 1: breaking point, the real Adam, who Barbara was being an
Speaker 1: impostor of. While their relatives reported the boy missing and
Speaker 1: authorities realized the teenager living in Oslo could simply not
Speaker 1: be Adam, so Norway's police acted quickly, but again they
Speaker 1: were too late. Adam realized that you know what they
Speaker 1: were running at a time, and it vanished from his
Speaker 1: foster placement and followed a trail leading back toward the
Speaker 1: Czech Republic. Meanwhile, Chech investigators confirmed what they had feared,
Speaker 1: Adam was in fact Barbara this whole time.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, where did the real Adam go. They didn't
Speaker 2: kill them, did they. No.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that had anything to do. I think
Speaker 1: it was an opening of well, here's an identity.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay.
Speaker 1: Now it didn't take long before she was found shortly after, thankfully,
Speaker 1: in a rural area north of Oslo, alive, uninjured and
Speaker 1: carrying a children's book and a Teddy Bear when she
Speaker 1: was arrested.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the items almost looked staged, as though she was
Speaker 1: like stepping back into character for a moment when she
Speaker 1: saw the officers approaching. But thankfully it didn't fool them.
Speaker 1: Norway extradited her to the Czech Republic and the facade
Speaker 1: collapsed immediately. The girl in the adoption photo, the missing teen,
Speaker 1: the fragile child rescued from Kurum, the runaway danger, the
Speaker 1: the boy sitting quietly in the Norwegian classroom. They were
Speaker 1: all the same person, and it all pointed to her.
Speaker 1: Barbara had successfully fooled teachers, foster parents, social workers, medical staff,
Speaker 1: border authorities, crossing two countries, and more, not through magic
Speaker 1: or genius, but because she manipulated how people react to
Speaker 1: vulnerability and their kindness towards it. She knew exactly which
Speaker 1: behaviors invited sympathy, which mannerisms lowered suspicion, and how to
Speaker 1: slip into the background just long enough to avoid scrutiny.
Speaker 1: But once she was back on Czech soil, there were
Speaker 1: no more identities left to run too. Now there were
Speaker 1: a lot more names to this story than just Barbara.
Speaker 1: In fact, in total, there would be six defendants that
Speaker 1: would be in the courtroom, and once they were all
Speaker 1: in custody, investigators began sifting through years of messages, documents, emails,
Speaker 1: and testimony to understand how they were all connected and
Speaker 1: how an ordinary family spiraled into something that looked like
Speaker 1: organized madness. And the first major discovery was surprisingly simple.
Speaker 1: Doctor andre Z, the specialist Clara referred to for you know,
Speaker 1: every child rearing decision, they did not exist. As I mentioned,
Speaker 1: every email, medical instruction, all of it, the toll treatment
Speaker 1: plan had come from accounts controlled by her sister, Katerina Morova.
Speaker 1: There was no trained psychiatrists, no oncologist, no trauma expert.
Speaker 1: The all of it was simply being manipulated. The authoritative
Speaker 1: voice that Clara believed was saving Anka was nothing more
Speaker 1: than a mass created by her own family circle. Her
Speaker 1: own sister. Now, this revelation was a wild one, but
Speaker 1: it didn't answer the question everyone was asking, and the
Speaker 1: question you've already been asking why, And this is the
Speaker 1: best I have for you here, So to try and
Speaker 1: understand that, investigators turned towards the Skirl family, Barbara and
Speaker 1: her brother Yan, and specifically their father, Joseph's girl. So,
Speaker 1: Joseph had once been a leader in a boy's scouting
Speaker 1: group that blended outdoor survival with rigid spiritual doctrine. Former
Speaker 1: members later described the environment as very obsessive and punishing,
Speaker 1: framing as character building, of course, but it was saturated
Speaker 1: with fear and control. Some compared it to break them
Speaker 1: down and build them up philosophy. But whatever the case,
Speaker 1: it was extreme. Authorities were careful not to label it
Speaker 1: a cult in the legal sense, but there were clear
Speaker 1: signs of a closed belief system, strict dominance, for example,
Speaker 1: higher chys, moral absolutism, and a fixation on purifying behavior.
Speaker 1: There was all also a long history of psychological manipulation
Speaker 1: in the household that Barbara and her brother Jan had
Speaker 1: grown up in. Now, it is important to note that
Speaker 1: nothing actually tied Joseph directly to the events in Curum,
Speaker 1: but the imprint he had on the mindset that shaped
Speaker 1: his children, especially Barbara, was extremely difficult to ignore. In
Speaker 1: this case, it was the same pattern of control, secrecy,
Speaker 1: self reinvention that appeared repeatedly, which explains a fair amount
Speaker 1: of the psychology where this all stemmed from. Now, the
Speaker 1: father may not have been involved in this case, but
Speaker 1: Barbara's brother Jan was, and he, along with another woman
Speaker 1: named Hannah and another man named Jan, joined in at
Speaker 1: the cottage and in forced the so called re education
Speaker 1: with increasingly sadistic methods. Now, Hannah and this other person, Yan,
Speaker 1: both worked at the youth center where Katerina and Barbara worked,
Speaker 1: So you have four individuals working at this youth center
Speaker 1: who then created this whole story about this Onnica to
Speaker 1: be adopted by Clara and then in doctrine the whole
Speaker 1: abuse system upon her two young boys. Basically because of
Speaker 1: the whole history Barbara and Jan grew up with and
Speaker 1: their fathers Joseph cult like experiences. It's a lot to
Speaker 1: take in.
Speaker 2: That is, all of this is so unexpected to me.
Speaker 2: I Like, I knew the story was a law, but
Speaker 2: this is it's huge. It's way more than I ever respected.
Speaker 1: It's so in depth and it goes back a long time,
Speaker 1: and exactly why I can't answer that, Well, why did
Speaker 1: they do this? There is no real answer. It's just
Speaker 1: very cult life. Cult like messed up ideologies is basically
Speaker 1: what it boils down to. But there's no no real
Speaker 1: explanation of why. Jeez, sure you may have had these ideologies.
Speaker 1: Clara and Katerina might have been very susceptible from a
Speaker 1: young age for their ritualistic, very extreme spiritualistic and religious
Speaker 1: upbringings and the ideologies of grandeurism that they had as children,
Speaker 1: So they may have been susceptible to these ideas too,
Speaker 1: but there's still no full explanation.
Speaker 2: Hmm. Okay, I was sitting down here to record this today.
Speaker 2: I was not prepared for all this shit at all.
Speaker 1: Which is a reasonable response. Can't imagine that anyone really
Speaker 1: would be. Yeah, So all six of these adults that
Speaker 1: were discussing were involved and had participated in the abuse
Speaker 1: at some level, some getting giving orders of abuse, some
Speaker 1: carrying them out, some supporting the system that allowed it
Speaker 1: to continue in some shape or form. They took part. Now,
Speaker 1: whileations swirled publicly about secret sex ritual motives or coordinated networks.
Speaker 1: The court focused on what could be proven. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, discussions and theories, that sort of stuff.
Speaker 1: The court needed to focus on the facts and what
Speaker 1: the evidence showed was horrifying enough without any mythmaking. Clara
Speaker 1: had been manipulated and may have been partially blinded by
Speaker 1: what had happened, but she also made choices. Katerina, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, knew full well what she was doing,
Speaker 1: as she orchestrated much of the structure, but of course
Speaker 1: she denied being responsible. By the time the trial approached,
Speaker 1: the line between delusion and manipulation, as well as cruelty
Speaker 1: honestly had blurred almost completely. But that wouldn't stop the
Speaker 1: pursuit of justice in the name of these two boys
Speaker 1: who were abused. On June seventeenth, two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: the court room in Bruno was crowded as six defendants
Speaker 1: sat across from the judge, each responsible for a different
Speaker 1: part of a story that horrified the tire country. Clara
Speaker 1: Morova appeared exhausted from the moment she entered the room,
Speaker 1: and when she testified, she surprisingly didn't try to deny
Speaker 1: the events. Instead, she admitted pulling her sons out of school.
Speaker 1: She admitted to isolating them and using punishments she now
Speaker 1: described as unthinkable. In fact, she even cried so hard
Speaker 1: at points that the court had to pause for her
Speaker 1: to regain her composure. According to her, everything began with
Speaker 1: the instructions she believed were coming from a trauma specialist
Speaker 1: treating Anika. She said she was convinced that if she
Speaker 1: did not follow the guidance exactly as written, she would
Speaker 1: lose the girl that she had promised to save, and
Speaker 1: that her own sons would spiral into something dangerous if
Speaker 1: left undisciplined. Listening to her, it was clear she wanted
Speaker 1: the court to understand that she hadn't set out to
Speaker 1: harm her children, even though that was exactly what she
Speaker 1: ended up doing. Now. Psychologists did support part of her claim.
Speaker 1: They described her as highly vulnerable to influence, emotionally dependent,
Speaker 1: and operating in the state of constant stress. But they
Speaker 1: were very firm in one conclusion too, Despite the pressure
Speaker 1: she was under, she still understood what she was doing,
Speaker 1: and she still made those choices to do it. As
Speaker 1: for her sister, Katerina, she entered the trial with far
Speaker 1: more composure she admitted to helping create onnica and form
Speaker 1: the whole identity of the documents in the hospital deception,
Speaker 1: but the moment the conversation shifted to the abuse, her
Speaker 1: tone changed. She insisted she never intended for things to
Speaker 1: go so far, She never met harm or never even
Speaker 1: expected her sister Clara to follow the quote unquote doctor's
Speaker 1: messages so literally. And when the judge asked who wrote
Speaker 1: the emails signed by the imaginary physician, while she simply
Speaker 1: refused to answer, and her refusal honestly says a whole
Speaker 1: lot more than confession.
Speaker 2: Ever could say something that doesn't make any sense. She
Speaker 2: doesn't she didn't expect her sister to follow them, right,
Speaker 2: and then so that makes her not like at fault
Speaker 2: for sending them.
Speaker 1: Right, and then it's okay, well if you even if
Speaker 1: that is the argument, Okay, even if she is correct
Speaker 1: in saying that you send a message to your sister,
Speaker 1: you don't expect her to actually follow it, and you
Speaker 1: see her actually follow it, and you continue sending the message,
Speaker 1: you know she's gonna follow it.
Speaker 2: Now, Yeah, okay, right, there just makes no sense. She
Speaker 2: is okay, so.
Speaker 1: She's just completely out to lunch in bullshitting, trying to
Speaker 1: save her own skin. Now then there was of course Barbarauskerlova,
Speaker 1: sitting small and strangely expressionless behind the others. Her testimony
Speaker 1: was almost surreal. She presented herself as, of course, a victim,
Speaker 1: someone terrified, coerced, and confused. She claimed that the boys
Speaker 1: attacked her and that she had been tied up, as well,
Speaker 1: that she fled only because she feared for her life.
Speaker 1: She didn't address the part that you didn't fit, or
Speaker 1: her escape from the children's home really, or anything like that,
Speaker 1: the appearance in Norway is Adam, or any of these
Speaker 1: other years masquerading as a child long before she had
Speaker 1: ever met Clara. She never explained any of that, only
Speaker 1: the convenient parts that made her look like a traumatized
Speaker 1: victim as well. The psychiatric experts didn't buy her version,
Speaker 1: not even for a second. They emphasized that she exhibited
Speaker 1: no signs of psychosis, delusion, or dissociative identity disorder. But
Speaker 1: what she also showed was an extraordinary ability to manipulate
Speaker 1: the people around her. One expert described her behavior as
Speaker 1: quote calculated innocence. Now, the remaining defendants Yon's Girl, which
Speaker 1: is Barber's brother, Jan Turk and Hannah Basova, who were
Speaker 1: two other employees at the youth center, denied outright that
Speaker 1: they were abusers whatsoever. They claimed they believe the boy
Speaker 1: suffered from severe behavioral issues and that the punishments were
Speaker 1: part of a structured method to correct them. But the
Speaker 1: injuries told a very different story, and so did the boys.
Speaker 1: Their descriptions of who hit them, who dragged them, who
Speaker 1: took part in all the agonizing abuse was painfully clear,
Speaker 1: and the defendant's claims of ignorance simply couldn't stand against
Speaker 1: the physical evidence and everything else that was against them.
Speaker 1: And as the trial went on, a clear pattern emerged.
Speaker 1: Each adult had relied on others to justify their own actions.
Speaker 1: Clara believed Katerina and the doctor. Katerina leaned on Barbara's
Speaker 1: authority within the invented world they built. Barbara made use
Speaker 1: of Clara's desperation and Katerina's loyalty, and the others followed along,
Speaker 1: accepting you know what instructions as truth because challenging them
Speaker 1: would have required actual critical thinking, which they clearly lacked,
Speaker 1: and confronting the horror of what they were participating in
Speaker 1: was clearly too much for them. It was influence, manipulation,
Speaker 1: and pressure. Those were all the real factors, but none
Speaker 1: of that erased their responsibility. Every adult in that room
Speaker 1: had seen the boy's condition, heard their cries, and chosen
Speaker 1: not to step in or stop it. Whatever brought them
Speaker 1: into the situation, whatever convinced them it was necessary, they
Speaker 1: continued long after any reasonable person would have recognized the reality.
Speaker 1: It was clear that the trial wasn't really about figuring
Speaker 1: out whether something terrible had happened. That much had been
Speaker 1: undeniable from the start. It was more about determining how
Speaker 1: a group of seemingly ordinary adults became the architects of
Speaker 1: an absolute nightmare, and which of them understood the truth,
Speaker 1: even as they claimed they didn't. When the trial finally
Speaker 1: came to a close in Bernou in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 1: the evidence and witness testimonies left very little room for doubt.
Speaker 1: Clara Morova, the boy's mother, was found guilty and convicted
Speaker 1: of torture and abuse of a minor. The court acknowledged
Speaker 1: that she had been manipul related, but not to a
Speaker 1: degree that excused her actions. Katerina Morova, her older sister,
Speaker 1: was found guilty in the same way and was convicted
Speaker 1: of child abuse. Barbara Skerlova, who had spent years passing
Speaker 1: as a teenage Onika, was found guilty and convicted of
Speaker 1: involvement in the abuse, including participating in the confinement, manipulation,
Speaker 1: and rituals inflicted on the boys while posing as a
Speaker 1: teenage girl. Hans Skirla, Barbara's older brother, and Han Turlik,
Speaker 1: the youth center instructor, were each found guilty and convicted
Speaker 1: of child abuse after witnesses and boys confirmed their involvement.
Speaker 1: And finally, Hanna Bosova, a longtime acquaintance of the Skerlova
Speaker 1: siblings who had also spent time in the cottage, was
Speaker 1: also found guilty and convicted of child abuse for her
Speaker 1: role in enforcing the punishments, helping maintain control over the boys,
Speaker 1: and supporting the groups twisted ideology. But by the time
Speaker 1: the judge finished reading the verdicts, every adult tied to
Speaker 1: the case had been found guilty. Then finally came sentencing.
Speaker 1: Each defendant stood as the sentences were delivered, and for
Speaker 1: a moment it seems as though justice had finally arrived,
Speaker 1: But for many people, the numbers handed down told a
Speaker 1: very different story.
Speaker 2: I'm about to get real pissed you think so. I
Speaker 2: have a feeling by how you just stated that.
Speaker 1: Well. Clara Morova, the mother of the two young boys,
Speaker 1: was sentenced to nine years in prison.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: The judge acknowledged her emotional vulnerability and the psychological pressure
Speaker 1: that she was under, but also made it clear that
Speaker 1: none of it excused what she had done to her
Speaker 1: own children. She had participated willingly, even if she understood
Speaker 1: later how manipulated she'd been. As for her sister, Katerina Morova,
Speaker 1: while she was given ten years, the court pointed to
Speaker 1: her role in constructing the fake identity, forging documents, and
Speaker 1: orchestrating much of the deception that kept professional and authorities fooled.
Speaker 1: She had acted with a level of planning that went
Speaker 1: far beyond emotional influence.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's way too low for her.
Speaker 1: Barbara Skerlova, the woman in her thirties posing as a child,
Speaker 1: received five year sentence.
Speaker 2: What the actual shit?
Speaker 1: She received only five years in prison. Her long history
Speaker 1: of masquerading as child in these childish identities, like her
Speaker 1: critical role in the whole manipulation of Clara, all of
Speaker 1: it and her presence throughout the abuse. Somehow it didn't
Speaker 1: translate into a harsher penalty, and she only got that.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that's not enough time. She's going to
Speaker 2: be out in the five years and be doing all
Speaker 2: this shit again.
Speaker 1: The three other adults received the following sentences for their
Speaker 1: roles in the abuse and torture as well. Jan Turik
Speaker 1: received five years, Yon Skirl, Barbara's brother, received seven years,
Speaker 1: and Hannah Basova received seven years. Each of their sentences
Speaker 1: was given depending on the level of physical harm the
Speaker 1: court was able to directly attribute to them. With each
Speaker 1: sentence handed out, the courtroom filled with shock. None of
Speaker 1: the penalties match the severity of what the boys had endured.
Speaker 2: No shit is okay, especially barbarus. Oh my gosh, some
Speaker 2: of the like the brother or whatever the fuck got
Speaker 2: longer time than her.
Speaker 1: Correct.
Speaker 2: She is literally just like completely nuts.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean honestly, even the fact of just you know,
Speaker 1: false identities, that shit, Yeah, a fucking massive thing right there.
Speaker 2: Because they're just gonna let her enter into this into
Speaker 2: the world again, and she's gonna just keep doing this
Speaker 2: kind of shit. It's clearly just going and getting a
Speaker 2: job and living life. Is not in the yards for her,
Speaker 2: not her forte. I still stand by that would be
Speaker 2: much easier than all this shit.
Speaker 1: But well, I do have to say a certain point
Speaker 1: she will become old enough to not portray children anymore.
Speaker 1: But that's not to say she won't manipulate others, you know,
Speaker 1: pretending to be sickly or who knows what right, Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she'll think of some sort of other thing exactly. So.
Speaker 1: Once the trial ended, the public's reaction was immediate, and
Speaker 1: it was also visceral. In newsrooms, cafes and living rooms
Speaker 1: across the Czech Republic. People asked the same question, how
Speaker 1: could torture this extreme result in such short prison terms? Commentators, reporters,
Speaker 1: they all called the sentencing insulting, incomprehensibly light, and a
Speaker 1: failure of the justice system. Even veteran journalists admitted that
Speaker 1: they had never seen such a gap between the brutality
Speaker 1: of a case and the punishment that followed afterwards. What
Speaker 1: unsettled everyone the most, honestly, though, was the knowledge that
Speaker 1: everyone in this case, all the adults involved, would be
Speaker 1: freed within a decade, every single one of them, and
Speaker 1: by the early twenty tens, they had all completed their
Speaker 1: reduced minimum terms and walked out of prison, legally finishing
Speaker 1: with the consequences behind them.
Speaker 2: They're all out at this point.
Speaker 1: They are. Meanwhile, the two young boys who suffered the
Speaker 1: most in all of this, Jacob and Andrea, would never
Speaker 1: escape the legacy of what happened to them. No legal sentence,
Speaker 1: regardless of the term, could erase the psychological scars or
Speaker 1: the years that they lost. In the days after the
Speaker 1: two of them were rescued, Jacob and Andrea were kept
Speaker 1: under close medical watch, and the full extent of the
Speaker 1: trauma became impossible to ignore. They were pale, dangerously underweight,
Speaker 1: and carried injuries that told their story long before either
Speaker 1: boy was able to get the courage to tell them
Speaker 1: what happened themselves. Nurses documented all their injuries and scars,
Speaker 1: while doctors described them as children who had been systematically broken.
Speaker 1: Sleep was honestly, at times almost impossible for them. Every
Speaker 1: noise jolted them awake. They avoided eye contact and moved cautiously,
Speaker 1: as if expecting consequences for every single thing that they did.
Speaker 1: The simplest tasks eating at a table or holding utensils,
Speaker 1: even choosing a place to sit felt overwhelming. They even
Speaker 1: began to experience developmental delays as a result of what
Speaker 1: they went through. Therapists did their best working with them,
Speaker 1: and progress was slow, but there were signs of healing
Speaker 1: too now. Once their health did eventually stabilize, the question
Speaker 1: of where they would live took center stage. Social workers
Speaker 1: determined that returning to Clara was out of the question,
Speaker 1: and the courts quickly stripped her of any custody rites
Speaker 1: So the boys replaced in foster care, which was an
Speaker 1: environment that proved a lot gentler and far more stable
Speaker 1: than anything they've known for years. They began building the
Speaker 1: routines of normal childhood, with schools, meals, friends, hobbies, and
Speaker 1: all the things that a young kid should have. Their
Speaker 1: father re entered their lives as well. The divorce had
Speaker 1: pushed him away long before the abuse began, but the
Speaker 1: boys still recognized him, still had memories of weekends together
Speaker 1: before everything changed, and slowly that relationship started to rebuild,
Speaker 1: and soon he would be granted custody of them both
Speaker 1: for all all the progress they made. Though trauma never
Speaker 1: disappears cleanly, certain triggers stay, and so do certain habits.
Speaker 1: But compared to children who once slept on concrete floors
Speaker 1: and flinched at the sound of footsteps. Jacob and Andre
Speaker 1: grew into young men with the chance to take on
Speaker 1: the world and choose their own futures, something that should
Speaker 1: never have been taken from them in the first place.
Speaker 1: In the years following the trial, the people responsible for
Speaker 1: this whole ordeal slipped quietly back into the world, each
Speaker 1: of them released after serving the minimum required portion of
Speaker 1: their sentence. Their re entry into ordinary life didn't spark
Speaker 1: the kind of public outrage the verdicts did, unfortunately, mostly
Speaker 1: because the news of their release was given little attention.
Speaker 1: It felt as though the system wanted to move on
Speaker 1: from the case as quickly as possible, even if the
Speaker 1: public didn't. Clara Morova left prison in twenty thirteen. By then,
Speaker 1: she had completed therapy, undergone evaluations, and she said she
Speaker 1: understood the gravity of what she'd done. The courts, as
Speaker 1: I mentioned, reinstated none of her parental rights, and she
Speaker 1: has remained out of the public eye ever since. No
Speaker 1: official updates mentioned where she lives or what she does now,
Speaker 1: only that she is barred from working with children in
Speaker 1: any capacity. Her sister, Katerina was released a year later.
Speaker 1: There was even less information about her. Journalists attempted to
Speaker 1: track her down after her release, but every lead ended
Speaker 1: with a dead end. What is certain is that she
Speaker 1: also received standard restrictions preventing her from taking any job
Speaker 1: involving miners. Beyond that, her whereabouts remain unknown. Barbara Skulova,
Speaker 1: the woman who once lives Anica and later described herself
Speaker 1: as the teenage Adam, completed her sentence in twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: Authorities allowed her to change her name, and she reportedly
Speaker 1: survives on disability benefits while living somewhere undisclosed. There have
Speaker 1: been no confirmed sighting since, only rumors online about someone
Speaker 1: who resembles her. None have ever been verified. The remaining
Speaker 1: three defenders, Yon Turrek, Yon Skirl and Hannah Basova serve
Speaker 1: their sentences and live lives that the public no longer
Speaker 1: have access to. All of them were also legally prohibited
Speaker 1: from working with children. Beyond that, their paths remained largely untracked.
Speaker 1: As for the boys, their public lives, well, they're not
Speaker 1: really so public, and that's definitely a good thing. Privacy
Speaker 1: is the kind of mercy the world certainly owes them.
Speaker 1: The Kurrum case became one of those stories that spread
Speaker 1: far beyond the borders of the Czech Republic, and with
Speaker 1: that attention, while it came layers of speculation that often
Speaker 1: overshadows the verified facts. The crimes themselves were already disturbing enough,
Speaker 1: but the gaps in the timeline, the secrecy surrounding certain details,
Speaker 1: it created a kind of void that rumors rushed into.
Speaker 1: One of the most persistent claims involved cannibalism in this story.
Speaker 1: During the trial, witnesses described an incident which Andre suffered
Speaker 1: injuries to the back of his thigh. The explanation given
Speaker 1: was that the wound had been intentionally inflicted as part
Speaker 1: of a punishment ritual. Investigators documented the injury, and the
Speaker 1: court accepted that it had been caused deliberately. What no
Speaker 1: one could confirm, though, was establishing what had happened afterwards.
Speaker 1: Some accounts claimed that a piece of skin or flesh
Speaker 1: of being cut and then consumed by the adults present
Speaker 1: in the cottage. Others say Andre himself was forced to
Speaker 1: eat it. What we do know is the injury was real,
Speaker 1: but everything beyond that it entered a gray area where
Speaker 1: evidence ran thin and memories conflicted. It became one of
Speaker 1: the cases most sensational elements, often repeated more boldly than
Speaker 1: it should ever have been. Another set of rumors suggested
Speaker 1: that the abuse in the cottage had been recorded for
Speaker 1: paying viewers, sometimes framed as dark web content or part
Speaker 1: of a larger exploitation ring. This idea spread quickly online,
Speaker 1: likely because there were in fact cameras involved and the
Speaker 1: family had their ties to a fringe religious group that
Speaker 1: encouraged this strict con over children. But during the investigation,
Speaker 1: police never found any footage of the boys being abused
Speaker 1: that appeared to be created for profit, nor did they
Speaker 1: uncover any distribution network. They did find personal recordings and
Speaker 1: surveillance used inside the home. But despite this, the idea
Speaker 1: of a hidden audience watching from afar it still circulates
Speaker 1: among people who follow the case casually, even though it
Speaker 1: was never supported by physical evidence. Then there's a theory
Speaker 1: that a cult directed everything from behind the scenes, and
Speaker 1: there's even a theory that connects this story to the
Speaker 1: horror film called Orphan, and it became part of the
Speaker 1: mythology behind this whole story. The parallels, well, they're obvious.
Speaker 1: An adult woman posing as a child to infiltrate a family.
Speaker 1: Many viewers assumed the movie was actually based on Barber Skerlova,
Speaker 1: especially since the case received international coverage around the same
Speaker 1: time the film was being developed, but the filmmakers never
Speaker 1: cited her as an inspiration, and the timeline honestly it
Speaker 1: suggests the script was already underway before the Curum case
Speaker 1: was ever fully public. The resemblance is striking, but it
Speaker 1: appears to be just that resemblance, a coincidence rather than
Speaker 1: a direct adaptation. All in all, a lot of rumors
Speaker 1: cling to this story because parts of it still feel unfinished.
Speaker 1: People disappeared from public view, others refused interviews, authorities never
Speaker 1: release certain details, and some documents remained sealed from the public.
Speaker 1: Silence often breeds imagination, and the Curum Case contains enough
Speaker 1: unanswered questions to keep those questions alive for decades. But
Speaker 1: when separating truth from speculation, the core story remains horrifying
Speaker 1: without any of that added embellishment. Though two young boys
Speaker 1: were tortured for a fabricated narrative that convinced adults to
Speaker 1: do the unthinkable, the documented facts show more than enough
Speaker 1: cruelty on their own, and cases like this tend to
Speaker 1: also be remembered for their villains, for the shocking photos,
Speaker 1: the unbelievable twists, but at the center of it, while
Speaker 1: it was two young boys who didn't deserve a single
Speaker 1: hour of what was done to them, the horror of
Speaker 1: their story is in the simple fact that adults chose
Speaker 1: to torture children, and a pair of brothers had to
Speaker 1: learn how to live afterwards. The Curum case remains a
Speaker 1: reminder of evil, for sure, but it also stands as
Speaker 1: proof that even the smallest window, like a glitching baby monitor,
Speaker 1: for example, can be enough to pull someone out of
Speaker 1: the dark. Two boys survived because a neighbor happened to
Speaker 1: turn on the wrong device at the right time, and
Speaker 1: it saved their lives. And that is the story of
Speaker 1: the Kurum case.
Speaker 2: Right, I have forgotten how this kind of started and
Speaker 2: went down.
Speaker 1: Well, there's so much to this story it's easy to
Speaker 1: kind of lose track of how it really started off
Speaker 1: in the first place.
Speaker 2: Huh. Well, I mean, gosh, the fact that like these
Speaker 2: two boys, they had their childhood just destroyed. And that's
Speaker 2: like when it's supposed to be one of your most
Speaker 2: magical times of life, you know, yeah, fortunure, it just
Speaker 2: got taken away from them. Is just that's really what
Speaker 2: this is all about.
Speaker 1: It is and I mean, I don't mean to overshadow
Speaker 1: what they went through, but the silver lining is at
Speaker 1: the very least they managed to come out of it.
Speaker 1: They have some semblance of their life afterwards, and they
Speaker 1: have you know what they've they've got someone like their dad,
Speaker 1: they're now there for them. Right.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, I mean what they endured, it could have
Speaker 2: gone with quite differently, some of the stuff they had
Speaker 2: to go through. It's like, it's surprising they, you know,
Speaker 2: didn't die, so right, the fact that they still get
Speaker 2: to live their life and it's got to be better
Speaker 2: than It's better than that, right, one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And it's who's to say that, Hey, if that guy
Speaker 1: didn't buy the right baby monitor model or turned it
Speaker 1: on the next day, who knows that that signal could
Speaker 1: have been intercepted. Yeah, and that could have been the
Speaker 1: thing that saved their lives. Probably was the thing that
Speaker 1: saved their life, which honestly, in retrospect, puts it in
Speaker 1: this perspective like, Okay, what small thing can any of
Speaker 1: us do to help save someone else's life? You never
Speaker 1: know what thing you're going to do could pull someone
Speaker 1: out of the dark, whether it's physically like that, pulling
Speaker 1: a person out of a literal dark cramp space being abused,
Speaker 1: or just a mental space, pulling them into a better
Speaker 1: spot where you know what, that could save their life too.
Speaker 1: So remember, be kind, just do the little thing. Be human,
Speaker 1: You never know what impact you can make.
Speaker 2: And observant really too. Yes, So on that note, hey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for being here. This was definitely a
Speaker 1: heavy and in depth case.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: We appreciate you being here. If you want to check
Speaker 1: out all the description stuff in the podcast, we got socials,
Speaker 1: all that good stuff. I'm just going to leave it
Speaker 1: at that for now, we appreciate you being here.
Speaker 2: And until next time, I just have to say, have
Speaker 2: like a nice warm hot chocolate today.
Speaker 1: This something to warm the soul from head.
Speaker 2: I think I think that that's our recommendation.
Speaker 1: So okay, warm hot chocolate. We'll make one after
Speaker 2: This, yes, and until next time, stay wicked.