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Hello and welcome back to Cult Leader. I'm your Cult Leader Spencer Henry and I'm just feeling the love this week. In case you guys missed it, we have launched our Patreon.

I'm going to address a few things and questions that I saw pop up. If you want to check it out, it's patreon.com slash Cult Leader. First things first, literally nothing is changing with Cult Leader itself except some of the older episodes from 2018, early 2019, like the early first episodes. Some of them have already been archived, a few more of them will be archived and they will be put onto the $3 tier. The majority of the episodes will remain wherever they are now.

Again, Cult Leader, go nowhere, will always be a free show. Second, and most excitingly, I dropped a new Patreon exclusive show called Obituary and I'm thrilled at the reaction so far you guys seem to be liking it. It's co-hosted by my best friend Madison, who I feel like you guys have at this point heard me talk about a million times.

We are having so much fun. Each episode we read in Outland to show Obituary, we talk about some dumb criminals, we played Mash on the second episode. Who doesn't love Mash? It's just so fun to do together. We are having a blast. And that is on the $7 tier. I know not everybody can spend $7. I totally get that.

But when I launched the Patreon, I wanted to make sure it was worth it and something that I could guarantee. And Obituary has been on my mind for quite some time.

So I dropped the trailer for it last week. It should be the episode before this, wherever you're listening. You can check it out there. And if you want to hear the first full two episodes, go to patreon.com slash cult leader.

I'm excited for the Patreon because there's a lot of cool things I'm learning that you can do on there. So stay tuned. Now let's get to the good stuff, the bad stuff. The reason we're all here, the moida. Maybe not a moida. Possibly a moida. I have not been so intrigued by a case like this since we covered the deadly day bells, chat and Lori.

Which hopefully we get some more updates on them soon. Our story takes place in Nanop, Western Australia. A small town whose name means a stopping place. But the population of just around 600 people give or take, it's a very simple life here.

The town boasts a main street with a few cafes in the Nanop hotel. Cattle farms in the area seem to dominate the local economy. For the Codwell family, it was the perfect place to call home.

When they moved there to a small blue farmhouse in 2003. The family consisted of Simon Codwell, his wife, Chantel, who was 18 years his junior and their daughter that was born in 2001, Lila. Also living in the home was friend of the couple, Tony Poppich.

We'll get more into the inner workings of the family dynamic a little bit later on. Upon moving to the town of Nanop, Chantel assimilated quickly. She was very involved in the community teaching swimming classes and eventually she picked up shifts at a fish and chips bar in a local hotel in town called the Nanop Hotel.

The family friend, Tony, also got a job fairly quickly after the move, working at the local hardware store. According to his manager at the time, Tony related easily to people and always kept busy and he was an excellent employee, a real nice guy.

While Chantel was out and about starting a life, her husband, Simon, was much more introverted. He would stay up all night online and he would sleep in late. Raise your hand if you also are the same.

He was a private person and to be honest was not thrilled with how chatty his wife was with the other people in the town. Simon was controlling and bizarre. His behavior was off. Friends and family reported that his behavior was even sometimes outrageous.

Chantel's own parents, Jim and Kathy McDougall, weren't thrilled necessarily with their daughter's marriage to Simon.

Of course they were like, you know, he was nice enough, but the more that they met him, the more they questioned his quirks. I read somewhere that I think the parents the first time they actually met Simon wasn't until shortly after they gave birth to Lila.

So the couple had been together for a bit before the parents met him.

And it was nothing to do with the age difference necessarily. It was more just the things that she would tell them. Simon has radical beliefs. Chantel would tell them he's going to change the world. Like ladies listen, if your man says he's going to change the world, you better fucking get out of there.

And then you're going to run based on our experience here at quote leader, you want to know whose world he's going to change yours. Because now you're with some dude that thinks he's on this higher level. You're going to end up in a closet portal or you're going to end up six feet under.

When they would visit their daughter and granddaughter, they saw his controlling behavior firsthand. Even something as simple as taking a family picture was met with some drama or angst.

And then he went to the hotel's father recalled having to secretly take pictures of shantel and Lee, like sometimes Simon would be in them too, but he had no idea they were being photographed. He was not about it. Never wanted to be in any of the family pictures.

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