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Concept
Roch Thériault
Summary
Roch Thériault (ʁɔk te.ʁjo; May 16, 1947 – February 26, 2011) was a Canadian cult leader and convicted murderer. Thériault, a self-proclaimed prophet under the name Moïse mɔ.iz, founded the Ant Hill Kids in 1977. They were a doomsday cult whose beliefs were based on Seventh-day Adventist Church beliefs. In April 1978, Thériault was disfellowshipped from the Seventh-day Adventist Church. Thériault maintained multiple wives and concubines, impregnating all female members as a religious requirement, and fathering 26 children. Thériault's followers, including 12 adults and 22 children, lived under his totalitarian rule at the commune and were subject to severe physical and sexual abuse.
Thériault was arrested for assault in 1989, dissolving the cult, and in 1993 was convicted for the murder of follower Solange Boilard. He had previously killed an infant named Samuel Giguère, while two of his disciples, Geraldine Gagné Auclair and Gabrielle Nadeau, died following homeopathic treatments administered to them by Thériault. Thériault received a life sentence, which he was serving when he was murdered at Dorchester Penitentiary in 2011. Thériault, along with Robert Pickton, Clifford Olson and Paul Bernardo, has been considered one of Canada's most notorious criminals since the 1980s.
Roch Thériault was born on May 16, 1947, in Saguenay, Quebec, Canada, into a French-Canadian family, and raised in Thetford Mines. As a child Thériault was considered to be very intelligent, but dropped out of school in the seventh grade and began to teach himself the Old Testament of the Bible. Thériault believed that the end of the world was near, and would be brought on by the war between good and evil. Thériault converted from Catholicism to the Seventh-day Adventist Church in January 1977, and began practising the denomination's regular holistic beliefs which encouraged a healthy lifestyle free of unhealthy foods and tobacco.
In the mid-1970s, Thériault convinced a group of people to leave their jobs and homes to join him in a religious movement.
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