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Hello and welcome back to Cult Leader. I'm your Cult Leader Spencer Henry and I'm having a pretty good week. Finally, I feel like we have a little sliver of hope in this shit show that 2020 has been.

I pulled today's story from the episode requesting the Cult Leader Podcast Facebook group and you guys, I'm so glad that I did because it's fucking it's it's good. It's got some twist some turns. So shout out to you guys for always coming in clutch with the topics and hey, while we're here join the Facebook group and follow along online at Cult Leader Podcast at Spencer Henry rate review. And most importantly, you're going to want to visit Cult Leader.com and sign up for email updates because trust me is gone. Be good.

I promise there's no like spammy emails or anything coming. It'll be for merch launches and other surprise announcements. There's actually a lifetime movie about today's case. So I was going through the episode request and I hadn't I didn't recognize Sarah Pender's name. I've never really heard of this case before. I Google it and one of the first thing that comes up is a lifetime movie called She Made Them Do It and it stars Jenna Duam. So of course I had to watch it.

I was actually at my sister's house and it was perfect because you guys know we love a good lifetime movie over there. So we watched it loved it. We got more twist and turns than the 2020 presidential election. And it's also partially why there was no episode because I was with my sister and there was just so much happening last week. I also came back and started decorating for Christmas because I'm a manic. No, I don't know why I just needed to do it. I feel like I normally wait until December, but this year has been rough. I'm like, okay.

We're going to bring to Christmas spirit a little early, but Spencer, how can you love Christmas and love Halloween? Listen, I'm different. I'm not like the other guys. I want both. So it's 2020. I don't know. Live your truth. Man, oh man. Okay. I love this case. So let's start with Sarah Jo Pender. You guys, I'm sorry, but she's dumb. If you're like me, which I think all of you are, when you hear the story, you're going to go back and forth between feeling like, oh, well, maybe she's not so mad. Maybe she is. You'll see soon enough. She's so cute.

I think that herself up for disaster. She was born on May 29th of 1979 and her childhood was, I mean, pretty typical for a child of divorced parents. When she was just five years old, her parents split and her mom took off to California, leaving Sarah and her older sister, Jennifer, with their father in Indiana. But two years later, by her seventh birthday, her mom was back in the picture once again, living in Indianapolis. The parents continued to share custody of their two daughters and their early childhood.

It was something, it was maybe it was like an investigation discovery. It wasn't date line, but it was one of those type shows where they show Sarah and the family. I mean, they talk to all of them and interview them throughout. So I'll try and find that before I finish the episode so that you guys can watch it too, because it was actually really good. And I got a lot of information for the episode today from that.

Things were pretty normal up until high school when she began experimenting with drugs and boys like same. Also same. You play truth or dare once and then what do you know? You're gay.

Senior year, though, she cleans up her act. She stops partying with her party friends. She ends up graduating and goes off to college. She begins attending Purdue University. But after her first year, she had to stop attending the school and she dropped out to work full time.

She wasn't able to afford the tuition. So in the meantime, she's like, okay, I'm gonna find a job. And she finds a job working for a contractor. The 20 year old quickly worked her way up from secretary to actually going to the properties her company worked on and designing the blueprints.

Things seem to be going pretty well here for her. Things were going swimmingly in her professional life, but her love life not so much until July of 2000.

It's at a concert where she meets 22 year old Richard whole. He's a local bouncer and it was an instant attraction breaking news. I just read another article about this case and it turns out it was a fish concert, which makes sense.

Sarah says she was instantly attracted to his laugh because it didn't match his exterior. He was like a big guy. He looked kind of like a 90s WWE wrestler. And within a month, the couple was living together, planning their future.

So when moving pretty quick here, Richard was in between gigs at the time. A nice way to say unemployed. And he also had a record for selling drugs. So while he didn't have the best history, he did treat Sarah well.

In early August, just days after moving in together, Richard comes to Sarah and is like, hey, listen, I have a buddy in his girlfriend coming into town. Do you mind if they crashed with us for a few days?

According to Richard, his friend Andrew Katoldi in his girlfriend Trisha Normand had recently run into some financial troubles of their own. So here's the thing.

This guy Andrew in his girlfriend Trisha had actually been kind of on the run. They were living in this halfway house and both of them had warrants out for their arrest.

So really, they needed like a crash pad to recluse. I believe they were living in Vegas at the time. And then they came out to Indiana. But Sarah was still like down for it. She's like, okay, sure. So Sarah is down for the cause, right?

It's like one thing to let a guy move in after a month of dating. But if it was me, the second dude was like, hey, I got some friends that need a place to crash. I'd be like, okay, well, let's send them an Airbnb gift card and wish them the best.

Like they're not moving in with us. But at first it was great. Sarah felt like she made the right decision. They all got along so well. In fact, that they decided to move into a two bedroom house together.

However, Sarah was the only one with an actual steady income, which like Sarah, come on girl, you're putting the bill for your boyfriend and his friends like no fucking way. Richard and the other two started selling drugs. And Sarah was like, okay, you know, you know, that's fine. Just don't do it at the house. And I, how do you even live with someone who does that? I mean, maybe some of you do. And I'm not judging it.

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