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Hello and welcome back to Cult Leader. I'm your Cult Leader Spencer Henry and it's Friday, which means that this is a little leader where I read the stories that you send to me.

Hey, if you have a story you would like to share with the cult, send it on over to Spencer at cult leader.com.

There we go, cross in the T's, dot in the eyes, or maybe eventually soon you'll be able to call in to the Cult Leader Hotline. Thank you for all of the emails and messages with tips on how to set up a hotline.

It's in the works officially and hopefully maybe by next week or at least the week after we'll get that set up and figure it out and I'm very excited for it.

I feel like it's gonna be a whole new segment, add a whole new flair to our little leaders. Hope everybody had a really nice week. I know I did and I know I'm always no matter what job I've had. I am always thrilled for a Friday.

I love Fridays, I feel like the energy is just the best and I'm ready for the weekend. That is for sure, especially because I now know what I'm going to be doing over the weekend and that is binging the rest of this show that I started last night.

It is called captive audience, a real American horror story. I mentioned this on my Instagram stories, which if you don't follow its at Spencer Henry.

I mentioned that I would be talking about this today because I had a few people message me about this new show and I was like, oh shit, I didn't even realize it was out.

Honestly, I had kind of forgotten about this case, not forgotten, but I just hadn't thought about it in a while. But the show again is called captive audience, a real American horror story. It's on Hulu now. I'm sure it's trending at the top because it's phenomenally well done.

It focuses on two separate stories, really, of the Stainer family. It starts out with the disappearance of a second grade boy, a seven year old at the time, Steven Stainer, who disappeared in 1972 and reappeared years later.

I've only watched the first episode, I thought it was just a one part thing, but it's an episodic series. From what I gather, I looked into it to see what they're going to cover when I guess the first two episodes are primarily focused on Steven's story.

The third episode will focus on Carrie Stainer, Steven's older brother, who was a serial killer. I've only seen the first episode, but first of all, it starts out with a news montage. You know it's going to be good.

I mean, the whole story in and of itself is absolutely wild. It is bizarre. This poor family has just been put through the ringer, but they interview the Stainer family. They talk to Steven Stainer's daughter and son, and it's just crazy to hear the story from them.

Spoiler alert, their dad, Steven Stainer, the one who was kidnapped, died very young after having his two children. And so they had grown up hearing these stories, but they were hearing it kind of in a different way during the filming of this show. And it was just really interesting to watch. And of course, you know, heart wrenching just to hear what they had to say.

They talked to Kay Stainer, who is Carrie and Steven's mom. She comes on and she just seems very sweet, very authentic. And she's like, I don't even know why I'm talking about this. Feel like everyone knows this story already.

She talks about their childhood, which I hadn't heard that much about before. And it sounds like Carrie and Steven had a very ideal childhood alongside their siblings. The neighborhood they grow up in seemed like one of those neighborhoods where all the kids just ran around together. And then they get into the kidnapping. She talks about the kidnapping. And there was details that I had never heard before. I mean, I do have to say, I didn't even want to mention it.

I covered this story very early on in cold leader days. I tried last night after watching the first episode of this because I couldn't remember everything. And I was like, what I talked about in that episode, because this was a couple of years ago, and I went back and listened to them. And I was like, oh, God, I should have said this. Or I could have done this way better. What can you do? Watch this show.

And don't listen to my episode on it. Watch this show instead. But she just talks about what it was like the day that he disappeared. She talked about the press and how after he disappeared, because he was missing for a long time, years and years and years.

And she was like, the press initially were like, oh, we're going to keep his name out there. And we're going to do what we can on our part. But she said, as time went on, the press eventually just stopped talking about it entirely. And the only thing the family really had to go on was hope.

They interviewed a ton of different people in this. I mean, the research was incredible. They talked to people who went to school with Stephen while he was abducted neighbors, other family members. They talked to the actors who were in the television mini series that came out about the kidnapping.

And it's just heartbreaking. The whole thing. I was fighting back tears at the end of this episode. Because Kay talks about the rumors that were swirling at this time. Stephen was missing. People were saying all kinds of really fucked up things that the family was hearing.

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