True Crime Meets Cults: Derrick Levasseur on Solving the “University of Cosmic Intelligence” Mystery

A Little Bit Culty

Sarah Edmondson & Anthony “Nippy” Ames

True Crime, Society & Culture, Education

4.6 • 2.7K Ratings

🗓️ 25 August 2025

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on A Little Bit Culty, we’re stepping into the crossover world of cults and true crime with Derrick Levasseur—former undercover detective, private investigator, and host of Crime Weekly and Detective Perspective. You may also know him from Big Brother or America’s Most Wanted: Missing Persons, where he and Sarah recently worked together on a harrowing case.

That case? The mysterious disappearance of six people tied to the University of Cosmic Intelligence (UCI)—a fringe social-media-fueled cult led by self-proclaimed prophet Rashad Jamal.

Among the missing: Naaman Williams (28), Gerielle German (26) and her 3-year-old son Ashton Mitchell, Mikayla Thompson (23), Ma’Kayla Wickerson (25), and her 3-year-old daughter Malaiyah Wickerson.

From ritualistic chanting and “divine downloads” to bathroom-mirror graffiti scrawled with “I am that I am”, the UCI story reads like a mash-up of sci-fi fantasy and sovereign citizen ideology. But underneath the esoteric claims are real lives at risk—and children who need to be found. Derrick unpacks the law-enforcement challenges of cult cases, why coercive control is so hard to prosecute, and how everyday people can spot the warning signs.

We also dive into Derrick’s fascinating career—from undercover ops to winning Big Brother, launching Criminal Coffee (a true crime-funded cold case project), and his take on why “every cult has a hook.”

⚠️ If you have information about the missing members of UCI, contact your local law enforcement.

Follow Derrick for more: IG @DerrickLevasseur • X @DerrickL • officialderrick.com. You can also check out his book The Undercover Edge and his PI firm, Break Investigative Group, where he continues to work cold cases.

Also… let it be known that:

The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Nobody’s mad at you, just don’t be a culty fuckwad.

**PRE-ORDER Sarah and Nippy's newest book here

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CREDITS:

Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames

Production Partner: Amphibian.Media

Co-Creator: Jess Tardy

Associate producers: Amanda Zaremba and Matt Stroud of Amphibian.Media

Audio production: Red Caiman Studios

Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

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0:29.7	This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, medical,
0:34.0	medical, or mental health advice. The views and opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast and are not intended to malign any
0:41.5	religion group, club, organization, business, individual, anyone, or anything.
0:55.8	I'm Sarah Edmondson.
0:57.6	And I'm Anthony Nippy Ames.
1:00.3	And this is A Little Bit Calti.
1:01.9	Cults are commonplace now.
1:04.3	From fandums to fads, we're examining them all.
1:08.6	We look at what happens when things that seem like a great thing at first go bad.
1:12.0	Every week we chat with survivors, experts, and whistleblowers for real culty stories told directly by the people who lived through them, because we want
1:16.7	you to learn a few things that we've had to learn the hard way. For example, if you think you're
1:21.3	too smart to get sucked into something culty, you might be prime recruitment material, and who
1:25.7	knows, you could already be in a cult.
1:28.2	If you're not aware of your programming, you're probably being programmed. So keep listening to
1:32.3	find out. We'll talk about all sorts of topics on the show, but be aware. This podcast might
1:37.6	contain stories that could be alarming to some of our listeners. So please check our show notes
	...

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