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The Cult of the Family Season 1 Episodes
Season 1 Episode Guide
3 Episodes 2019 - 2019
Episode 1
Unseen, Unheard, Unknown
Tue, Mar 12, 201958 mins
In 1987 a teenage girl escapes from a lakeside compound. She triggers the police to raid the property and rescue her siblings - a group of bleached-blond children. Who are these children? What is this cult called The Family?
Episode 2
A Question of Identity
57 mins
A total of twenty-eight children were brought up by the Hamilton-Byrnes, hidden from the outside world at their property on picturesque Lake Eildon, 240km north east of Melbourne. The children rescued from the cult struggle to establish a 'normal' life. They discover they have been lied to about the identity of their biological parents. It's a difficult investigation to match DNA and discover the truth behind forged birth records. Operation Forest is allotted scant resources for such a complex case; sect members refuse to be interviewed and the investigators' request for a Royal Commission to force witnesses to testify is quickly declined. But police are determined to bring justice to survivors despite the forces stacked against them. They dig deep into Anne's past and realise that nothing is as it appears. She has adopted the name Hamilton-Byrne (amongst others) and has changed her appearance through cosmetic surgery. And Anne herself remains elusive. She appears to be residing in an Elizabethan mansion in Kent in the United Kingdom, masquerading as part of the landed gentry. She seems to be living a glamorous tropical lifestyle in Hawaii. She is sighted in the remote Catskill Mountains in upstate New York at a property she has purchased near Swami Muktananda's ashram. Then comes the breakthrough. Detectives discover falsified documents, providing the leverage to force the cult's solicitor to testify against Anne and potentially secure her extradition.
Episode 3
In Search of Justice
56 mins
The cult's solicitor reveals enough evidence for a warrant to be issued for Anne's arrest and extradition back to Australia. With the assistance of INTERPOL and the FBI, Operation Forest tracks Anne and her husband Bill down to their isolated retreat in the Catskill Mountains, upstate New York and arrests them. Anne pleads a heart condition but when one of Bill's cellmates is murdered he persuades Anne to return to Australia to face justice. Their return ignites a media circus. Anne hires a costly legal team to fight the charges all the way to the Court of Appeal. The maximum penalty is a $60,000 fine and a six-month sentence, but the drawn-out court proceedings leave Anne pleading guilty to just one charge and avoiding jail time, with only a $5000 fine. The survivors of the cult are shattered. How do they move on and rebuild their lives? Despite all the testimony they have given, the system has let them down. The series follows the survivors as they meet their birth families and take on the role of parents themselves while still coming to terms with their own stolen childhoods. Bill dies in 2001. Unrepentant, Anne leads the cult until her death on 13 June 2019 at the age of 98. There is no public funeral and no headstone.