Bateman's Playbook: How a Nobody Built a Cult in Three Years | Part 1
Hidden Killers With Tony Brueski | True Crime News & Commentary
True Crime Today
3.3 • 907 Ratings
🗓️ 16 April 2026
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
You've heard what Samuel Bateman did. Twenty wives. Children as young as nine. Fifty years in federal prison. But the part the Netflix doc Trust Me: The False Prophet can only gesture at is the how — the behavioral mechanics that turned a man with nothing into a prophet with total control over fifty people's lives, finances, and children.
This is Part 1 of a three-part panel discussion with former FBI Behavioral Analysis Chief Robin Dreeke, psychotherapist and true crime consultant Shavaun Scott, and Tony Brueski. We go move by move through Bateman's playbook. The way he read the desperation of a community that had lost its prophet when Warren Jeffs went to prison. The way he used public confessions as leverage — once you've confessed, you've given someone ammunition, and leaving means that ammunition gets used. The way his narcissism made him invite cameras into his own criminal operation because he genuinely believed he was untouchable.
We talk about the two police visits that went nowhere because parents lied. The loyalty that survived Bateman's arrest and allowed him to orchestrate a kidnapping from behind bars. And the question that sits underneath all of it — could someone like Bateman get to the people in your life, and would you see it happening before it was too late?
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Transcript
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| 0:24.2 | CrimeCon London, partnered by True Crime Channel 3rd and 4th of October, 2026. |
| 0:30.3 | If you're fascinated by True Crime, then join us in October 26 for CrimeCon London. |
| 0:36.5 | Meet the biggest names in True Crime TV, experience live |
| 0:39.8 | forensic demonstrations and dive deep into the criminal mind with your favourite authors, experts, |
| 0:45.6 | podcasters and content creators. To secure your place, go to Crimecon.com.com.com.com |
| 0:51.0 | now and be part of the UK's biggest true crime community crime con London partnered by |
| 0:56.5 | true crime channel third and fourth of October 2026 this is hidden killers live with tony brusky |
| 1:06.0 | and robin green all right if you have uh checked out the new Netflix doc about Samuel Bateman and the FDLS cult, |
| 1:16.8 | you're in for a good episode. |
| 1:18.3 | Samuel Bateman was borrowing $20. |
| 1:22.2 | Originally, sleeping on couches. |
| 1:25.3 | Three years later, fathers were handing him their nine-year-old daughters and businessmen were buying him Bentley's. |
| 1:34.8 | The Netflix stock, trust me, the false profit shows you what he built. |
| 1:39.3 | It doesn't show you how the specific moves a man with nothing used to make 50 people hand over everything. |
| 1:48.7 | What did he see in them that we couldn't see in themselves, that they couldn't see in themselves? |
| 1:56.2 | That's the question that we are asking today as we get into that doc and the thinking of Bateman and the thinking |
| 2:03.7 | of the FLDS members and how people get there. I think that's a big question. So many have is, |
| 2:10.2 | how did you even get here? How did you find yourself falling into this world this hard? |
| 2:17.8 | Joining Robin Drake and myself to discuss |
| 2:20.7 | Chavon Scott, psychotherapist and author, |
| 2:24.0 | Nightbird is her book. |
... |
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