(birds chirping)
Member 1: Here come some more guests, ready for the shoot.
It's a jitney full of people.
Aha!
(laughter, soft chatter)
- Hello! - member 2: Welcome to the shoot!
Member 3: Bang, bang, bang.
- Member 1: Let me help you out. - (gunshot)
- Chuck Dederich: There you go!
(overlapping chatter, laughter)
- Bang bang bang bang bang bang. - Chuck: Alright.
This is the way you walk around here with a gun.
Always, like this.
(gunshots)
(tense music playing)
(clicking)
Member 1: There's no reason ever to shoot a handgun for anything.
Chuck: No, except to kill people.
- Member 2: Oh, come on. - Pistols have one purpose.
That is to kill people. There's no other reason.
(gunshot)
We take careful aim, and we fire!
(gunshots)
- (projector whirring) - (dark tone playing)
(projector whirring down)
(echoing click)
(highway noise)
(bus rumbling)
(quiet office chatter)
Narda Zacchino: You know, the whole thing about investigative reporting,
I think, is just to reveal the truth.
That's very simple. Revealing the truth.
That's my favorite kind of journalism.
In 1977,
I was a really young reporter at the "LA Times."
One day, an attorney named Paul Morantz called me.
He said, "I have a really good story for you guys.
"It's about a woman.
"Her name is Frances Winn,
"and she was, um,
she was having sort of a nervous breakdown."
- (seagulls cawing) - (mysterious music playing)
She was walking on the beach
in front of the Synanon headquarters
in Santa Monica,
and, uh, she ran into somebody from Synanon
who talked her into going into the building,
the Casa del Mar.
And, uh, they didn't wanna let her out.
So, they convinced her
that her husband didn't love her anymore.
She became very upset.
She believed them. They then put her on a bus,
and they shipped her up to Northern California,
where they had another facility.
(soft somber music playing)
(breeze blowing)
Paul Morantz: I, uh, had a client
who said that his wife was in Synanon,
and that the organization was refusing
to allow him to see or speak to her or take her out.
We got her out at approximately 9 or 10 days later,
and, uh, we filed a lawsuit.
And, of course, then the question was
how and why did all this happen?
Paul and the husband charged that Synanon kidnapped her.
All of this was revealed in an article
I wrote in the "LA Times."
When the thing with Frances Winn was happening,
there was a lot of other stuff going on.
There was, um, you know,
the Moonies were in the news.
Scientology was in the news.
The Manson chicks had shown up at court
for Manson with their shaved heads.
I didn't feel like a Manson, but I felt like
the community at large was gonna view us that way.
♪♪
Paul: You know, what is a cult?
Quite often there's one leader,
one charismatic man that sets the policies,
sets that ideology, and everyone follows.
The one thing that I've become concerned about is that
when you follow the evolution of many of these groups,
that while they may start off benign,
they quite often end up malignant.
(indistinct yelling)
Lance Kenton: Paul Morantz is a litigious,
ambulance-chasing lawyer
who's never been to Synanon.
He doesn't know anything about it.
And, um, you know, he was a proponent
of just negative thought after thought after thought.
Ron Cook: Morantz's case, the husband
who wanted his wife back and claimed
that we kidnapped her and brainwashed her.
What did we want her for?
That lady came in, saying,
"My husband's beating me, I need help."
We did what decent people would do.
We took her in off the street,
sent her to Tomales Bay.
Yeah, she shaved her head.
Everybody had shaved their head at the time.
But nothing bad happened to her.
She wasn't restrained.
She could've left any day she wanted to.
Narda: After I wrote the story about Frances Winn,
I started getting calls from people, and so did Paul.
People who had been in Synanon couldn't get out.
Families had been broken up and separated.
We realized this was a much bigger story.
Newscaster: On March 3rd, the Marin County grand jury
released a report criticizing Synanon
for actions that have left people worried and uneasy.
The grand jury referred to the number of reports
it had received about child abuse inside Synanon.
Narda: Finally, there was a grand jury
that was called in Marin,
which did a study of, basically, of child abuse.
They had testimony from kids themselves.
It shocked people into realizing
that this wasn't a utopia.
Newscaster: Julie Moncharsh, 16,
who ran away from Synanon two years ago,
says she was punched and beaten
and saw many others beaten.
One boy was physically beaten
because he did not do the 20 push-ups which he was assigned.
He was hit in the head and then socked in the stomach.
(panting)
Newscaster: Synanon says the allegations about child abuse are lies.
(children chanting)
It also denies that children are being held prisoner.
(drill instructor yells)
Judi Ehrlich: I think at that point things really started to become
stranger and stranger,
and Chuck became very defensive
and, you know, felt like a lot of people
were targeting Synanon and were gonna come after us.
The threatening telephone calls are incredible!
I can't brush this off! I just can't!
Threatening notes, filthy mail, and-and-and so on!
Rod Mullen: Chuck had a table
down at the Home Place with a microphone,
and he would rage on about the enemies.
(curious music playing)
"Enemies of Synanon were determined to bring us down,
and we have to protect ourselves,"
and, you know, "We're under attack."
Talking people into that posture.
- (Chuck laughs) - (indistinct)
- (car rumbling) - (crow squawking)
The controversial drug rehabilitation center
is arming itself
with $63,000 worth of guns and ammunition
for a 150-person security force.
♪♪
Federal and state authorities say the arms purchase
is not illegal,
but authorities do wanna make sure
that Synanon is operating within the law.
(crow squawking)
Bob Navarro: The weapons purchase was meant as a warning.
Because it was publicized. We didn't do this in secret.
We publicized it.
The whole idea was to tell people, "Hey, we're serious.
Leave us alone."
You know, I'm not a violent person.
I could never think about killing anybody.
I can't think about hitting people.
That's alien to me.
But what's not alien is when you have
these legal cases coming, one after another,
and all of these newspapers, the television...
Officials plan to meet next week.
...it feels like you're in a war.
(indistinct chatter)
(gunshots)
- Chuck: I'll load it, Frank. - Frank: You wanna load it? Alright, that's fine.
See, it's supposed to stop in that position.
(laughing)
♪♪
Rod: Here's a nonprofit organization
that's supposed to be helping people
arming itself.
Everybody outside of Synanon knew we were crazy.
(birds chirping)
But, most of the people in Synanon
opened wide and swallowed.
(gunshot)
There were all these things that, "We're under attack,
"so everybody, you know, sleep with your clothes
"right beside your bed, so you can jump into your clothes
and immediately respond to the attack that's coming."
(gunshot)
And people did it! I did it!
Uh... uh... you know...
(sighs) It was insane.
Bob: All of this is happening.
There's investigations in Synanon
from the attorney general here in California
over the child abuse incidents.
Um, and...
they take off.
Chuck, members of the board,
Chuck's daughter, Jady, and they go on a trip.
- (wind humming) - ("Formia" playing)
♪ I've heard all the stories ♪
♪ Of all of the glory ♪
♪ Across the sea ♪
And then, they finally ended up in
this little coast town in Italy called Formia.
(singing continues)
And they settled there for, I don't know how long.
It was a couple of months or something like that.
♪ There's something happening there ♪
♪ Formia ♪
- ♪ For you-a, for us all ♪ - (seagulls cawing)
- (song ends) - (gentle splashing)
Rod: Chuck and the leadership
were in Formia and running Synanon
in exile, so to speak,
and, uh, and Chuck started drinking.
(ice rattling in glass)
It didn't take him long before he was right back
probably where he had been 30 or 40 years before.
(crowd chatter)
He was done. He was done being sober.
He had totally relapsed.
Somewhere after that,
I had a drink because that's what I was told to do,
you know, and that's what was happening.
That's what we did.
People who were close to me that were on the board,
that were alcoholics,
I guess they wanted to drink. I don't know.
I guess we all did
because we weren't willing to say, well, what are we doing?
We don't drink. We're not drinking.
But we couldn't.
Formia was a very intense period of time.
I felt very bad for Chuck
'cause I adored him.
I mean, he felt like a father to me,
and it was awful to see your father
in that kind of state of mind.
♪♪
He would, uh, drink all the time,
and, uh, sometimes end up in a stupor.
It's unclear when he actually started drinking.
(somber music playing)
I think one of our friends was bringing him vodka,
you know, secretly, way before
anybody knew that he was drinking.
Ron: I later learned that he started just before Betty died,
when she was sick, and nobody knew it.
So, the essence of Synanon, speak your truth,
the openness, and all that stuff.
Speaker: Nothing. (laughs)
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
- (birds chirping) - (leaves rustling)
Ron: When we came back from Italy,
everybody was trying to figure out what to do with him.
The board was set up in order to protect the foundation
from any kind of incursions,
but, mostly, it was dominated by Chuck and his family.
♪♪
Jady Dederich Montgomery: There were no outside board members anymore.
My dad was both the chairman and the CEO.
He was not accountable to the board.
If anything, the board was accountable to him.
Ron: Nobody would publicly say
Chuck is in no position to lead this organization.
But, at times, he was not very coherent.
Rod: We tried to convince people,
buy him a ranch someplace and get him on it,
give him some people to take care of him,
and get him the hell outta here.
But no one would listen.
(birds chirping)
Elena Broslovsky: Chuck was having his own mental health problems.
He was a wounded wildebeest
is the way I've described it,
with people closing in on him
in the community and out of the community.
Things began to deteriorate in every, every aspect.
Rod: Chuck, when he was a drinking guy,
like many serious alcoholics, destroyed his family.
He destroyed everything around him.
After Italy, when he started drinking again,
he just did the same thing.
He just had a much larger family to destroy.
He had lost whatever made him happy,
and, by God, you were gonna lose everything that made you happy.
I remember him saying on the Wire,
"I'm gonna ruin the place,
"and I'ma ruin all of you with it.
So strap yourself to the mast."
I mean, it was intentional.
(ominous music playing)
After Paul Morantz got Frances Winn out of Synanon,
Paul and the Winns sued Synanon.
Connie Chung: A judge today ordered Synanon,
the alcohol and drug rehabilitation center,
to pay Frances and Edward Winn of Los Angeles $300,000.
Frances Winn claims she was brainwashed, tortured,
and held against her will by Synanon.
Phil Bourdette: I mean, I know that Chuck was not happy.
He was ranting about Paul Morantz
and that something should be done.
(whirring)
♪♪
I, at this time, received, uh,
regularly, for about the past two weeks,
phone calls with hangups, sometimes three, four in a row.
Quite often, they're at midnight.
There are Synanon people who have gone to my friends,
members of my family,
going to restaurants that I, uh, that I go to.
Newscaster: Jack Hurst was a member of Synanon for 17 years.
This is what he told NBC's Rick Davis.
We have proof positive that for the last five weeks,
over the Synanon Wire, that the loudspeaker system,
uh, Paul Morantz's name, his address,
his telephone number has been announced over the Wire,
and the pleading was, why doesn't somebody go out there
and teach Paul Morantz a lesson?
Narda: Paul went to the Los Angeles Police Department
and the attorney general's office
to report the threats against him.
The California attorney general interviewed him
on October 10th of 1978.
He left that interview.
(TV chatter)
He goes home.
He goes and gets a drink,
puts on the first game
of the Yankees-Dodgers World Series,
and then, he decides to get his mail.
It was one of these mailboxes that has an opening
in the outside of your house,
and you get the mail from inside your house.
So, he opened up the mailbox,
and he saw something in there,
but it was dark
and he couldn't really see what it was.
And he put his hand in.
(tense music building)
And a rattlesnake bit him.
(siren wailing)
Newscaster 1: Details of the story now of the attempted murder
of attorney Paul Morantz.
Newscaster 2: Neighbors say they saw two men put something in the mailbox
at the home of Paul Morantz.
When Morantz reached inside, he was bitten by a rattlesnake.
The snake was a little over four feet long.
The rattles had been removed, apparently,
so there would be no warning.
(camera shutters snapping)
Narda: Paul ran out the door, yelling for help.
He's on the lawn. He's screaming in pain.
He said, "Synanon got me. Tell them Synanon got me."
And then he said,
"Somebody call Narda Zacchino at the 'LA Times'
and tell her she's next."
(siren wailing)
I raced to the hospital.
I thought Paul was gonna die.
I went up to this nurse, and I said,
"I need to see Paul. Paul Morantz."
And she said, "Are you next of kin?"
And I lied. Immediately I said, "Yes, I'm his sister."
(beeping)
So, I walked in, and his whole arm
was wrapped in this huge bandage.
Paul had this big grin on his face,
and I bent down and kissed him on the cheek,
like his sister would do,
and he said, "I knew you'd get in here."
(laughs)
(somber music playing)
They had the anti-venom there at that hospital,
which is what saved his life.
- (shutters snapping) - (indistinct chatter)
Newscaster: Paul Morantz is recovering
from the bite of the rattlesnake
that someone placed in his mailbox.
The lawyer said he had received reports of threats
made against him by the Synanon organization.
Though Morantz did not name Synanon
as being responsible for the attempt on his life,
he did say they had a motive.
Those people who put the snake in my mailbox
do not think of themselves as criminals, I'm sure,
but believe themselves to be serving a higher purpose.
(shutters snapping)
Newscaster: Morantz is recovering from the rattlesnake venom.
Doctors say there will be no lasting effects.
Narda: Before this, Paul had told all of his neighbors
that his life was being threatened.
So, luckily,
one neighbor saw a car
and wrote down the license number.
Police quickly traced the car
that neighbors saw in front of the Morantz home.
It was registered to Synanon,
and police are taking into custody
and charging with attempted murder
Lance Kenton,
a Synanon member and a son of Stan Kenton.
You know, I got a phone call from my father,
who was watching NBC news.
"They're looking for Lance Kenton,
who is at large, armed, and dangerous."
And my father immediately called up there and said,
"What the fuck is going on?"
And he said, "I wouldn't run if I were you."
I go, "Run? Where am I gonna go?"
Newscaster: Two men were arrested at the Synanon compound
near Badger, California,
and brought to Los Angeles early this morning.
Police believe that Joseph Musico, age 28,
and Lance Kenton, age 20,
were responsible for putting a rattlesnake
in the mailbox of lawyer Paul Morantz.
Bob: We saw it on the news.
That was the first hint
I had of the rattlesnake attack.
It looked like something
that could be existential for Synanon.
I was wondering, is this gonna bring the whole edifice
crashing down on us, and everybody with it
who had nothing to do with this?
Miriam Bourdette: Undoubtedly, a couple of Synanon residents
placed a rattlesnake in Paul Morantz's mailbox.
Joe Musico definitely (laughs)
Was one of them,
and I know that because he told me that.
He told me that before he was arrested
and before everybody arrived on our property.
The "Los Angeles Times" reports that a ranch operated by Synanon
in a remote area of Tulare County, California,
was raided yesterday by two dozen investigators
armed with search warrants.
They were looking for all tapes
making reference to Los Angeles attorney Paul Morantz.
Miriam: They found some tapes.
Disastrous tapes.
Crucial tape recording was played today
in a Visalia courtroom.
They were played over and over again
for all to hear.
I do remember hearing Chuck say these words.
I was the person that recorded them and made a label,
and I did not take that literally.
I thought that's his dream language.
This is a man who feels threatened
by people closing in on him.
I never for a minute thought that that was real,
but apparently it was.
Chuck (on tape): I wanna crack some bones.
Not too many. You don't have to.
Bob: With all of the law enforcement scrutiny
on Synanon over this, Chuck disappeared again.
This time into Arizona,
where we had some properties.
Ron: In Lake Havasu, Arizona,
I lived in the apartment building.
Chuck was living in a little house in the back.
One day, I got a call.
I put on flip-flops,
and I walked back to the house.
There was about... looked like a, uh,
SWAT team of people
with all their rifles pointed at me.
(helicopter whirring)
Newscaster: Synanon founder Charles "Chuck" Dederich was arrested
and charged with conspiracy to commit murder.
(somber music playing)
Ron: So I went into his house.
He was on an ambulance gurney.
He couldn't walk. He was that bad with alcohol.
(police radio chatter)
And he looked up at me. He says, "Oh.
Everything's fine now. Cook's here."
I felt terrible.
I truly loved the man.
I went over and held his hand
and said, "Everything will be okay."
And he says, "Oh, thank God you're here. I feel better."
(quiet street noise)
Newscaster: Dederich was arraigned in a room
inside this hospital in Kingman, Arizona,
after his doctors said he was too sick to appear in court.
The judge who presided said Dederich seemed unconscious
throughout the proceedings.
His eyes was closed. He was laying flat on his back.
I do not know if he knew what was going on or not.
He does have a mental problem
and I understood that alcohol is also a problem.
Jady: He was later diagnosed with bipolar disorder.
Now, we didn't know that. He didn't know that.
So, he was suffering his whole life
in a way that was not yet really defined or understood.
And he was self-medicating with alcohol.
I, I never noticed cycling before,
between the-the depressive part and the manic part,
but that probably was there all along.
The restlessness, the needing to move,
the constant need to change things.
Chuck: I am surrounded by people
that I'm just nuts about,
and-and-and, and just about all of them,
I-I think, are-are nuts about me.
Rod: Charismatic leaders are inherently unstable.
It's part of their personality.
And whether they're mentally ill or-or not,
they just are unstable people.
(applause, cheering)
These kinds of leaders always crash.
They're good for a while,
20 years or so,
and then they all crash.
Jady: As we sit here today,
my father, who is a 65-year-old man
who has dedicated his life
for the last 20 years
to saving people
that no one wanted to have anything to do with,
is dying in a jail cell
in the Kingman County Hospital in Arizona!
(muffled chatter)
Rod: With the rattlesnake in the mailbox,
Synanon wanted to make sure
that Lance and Joe got all of the heat
and nobody above them who directed them got any heat.
Lance was such a promising young man.
He was very kind.
He was very enthusiastic and funny.
Lance: At one point, before the trial,
I was requested to go see Phil Bourdette.
And Phil said, "Lance, sit down."
He had a whole set of documents in front of me.
Said, "I want you to sign these."
Said, "What are they?"
And he said, "Basically, it's a declaration that Chuck
never inspired you or told you to do anything."
And I said, um, "Why am I signing this now?"
He goes, "We just want it. We want it in the file.
"We want you to sign this.
You can sign it, Lance." I'm like, "No.
I'm not gonna sign it."
I never trusted Phil Bourdette again after that.
Well, I-I did not talk...
Lance Kenton and, um, Joe Musico
were the other two people charged in the criminal case,
and they had their own lawyers.
I never talked to them.
I-I don't know
how that... how they got involved
in putting the rattlesnake in the mailbox.
I was wounded. No, I was wounded.
I felt really assaulted.
And then, when my father died,
he left me a little insurance money.
It was like $25,000 life insurance.
Ron Cook, he said to me, "Now, Lance." He goes, "Normally,
"when people inherit money in Synanon,
"they donate most of it to Synanon,
"and they keep a little bit to play with, you know.
"So why don't you put 20,000 into Synanon,
"and keep 5,000 and play with the stocks
or whatever of your own?" And I turned to him.
I said, "Are you out of your fucking mind?"
I said, "I'm under criminal indictment in Los Angeles,
"and any minute, I'm gonna have to defend myself at my own cost.
"And you want me to take every penny I own and give it to you?
You're outta your fucking mind!"
And I left and didn't talk to him ever again.
I felt like all of these people, in which I was trying my best
to protect, um, my whole life,
in being there,
that they were willing to turn on me on a dime
and throw me out as bait. You know?
Cast me aside to protect Chuck.
But, um, I don't believe Chuck had
that kind of deviousness
to directly ask me to sacrifice myself.
I think these people were acting on his behalf,
but it wasn't under his direction,
and I don't think he would've done it.
He was a very moral man, you know?
Basically, one day, the DA came in and said,
"Man, we're sick of this fucking case."
And, uh, my lawyer, he said, "Well, then drop charges."
The DA said, "Tell you what.
"If your clients will plead no contest,
we'll let 'em go with time served."
And so I said, "So what does Chuck wanna do?"
And he said, "Chuck says he'll do anything
as long as he doesn't have to go back to court."
I said, "Well, tell 'em I'll plead."
At that age, he was failing anyway,
and, you know, to have to get up every day and go to court,
and then, of course, sit there with Morantz, who he despised.
He deserved not to have to go through that, you know.
And so we go to court,
and I remember my lawyers in chambers
having a conversation with the judge.
And when he comes back,
he won't look me in the eye.
And I thought,
oh, man, this is not good.
(tense music playing)
Newscaster: 22-year-old Lance Kenton and 30-year-old Joseph Musico
pleaded no contest to charges
of conspiracy to commit murder.
Judge William Hogoboom
sentenced both Kenton and Musico
to three years' probation, the first year to be spent
in the LA County Jail.
♪♪
Lance: Apparently, the judge was very conscious of his role
in a high-publicity case,
and he thought there would be a public outcry
if we got off without serving time.
Newscaster: Hogoboom argued that while he was not convinced
the two meant to kill, he was convinced
they meant to do serious violence.
Paul Morantz, the man bitten by the rattlesnake,
reacted favorably to the sentence,
if not the reasoning.
There's speculation as to what one was intending,
however, uh,
the rattles were removed. Why remove the rattles
if it was only to scare me or intimidate me?
- (shutters snapping) - (overlapping chatter)
- Don't push. - Get to the car, please.
Get your hands off me.
Tom Brokaw: Charles Dederich,
the man who founded and led Synanon,
today was sentenced to five years' probation for his part
in a plot to kill a lawyer with a rattlesnake.
(chatter continues)
In sentencing Dederich to probation,
the judge praised his early Synanon work.
He then concluded that he was sorry
the program had degenerated.
(shutters snapping)
Very good, gentlemen. Thank you. Thank you very much.
(chatter gradually fades out)
I went straight from Synanon to prison.
♪♪
I left everyone who as a kid I grew up with
since the fifth grade.
You know, to live in a loving,
genuinely friendly family environment
and to go from that, in 24 hours,
to incarceration and solitary confinement.
In hindsight, yeah, you do things,
I would do things differently.
(shutters snapping)
I would not have gone to jail.
I would not have allowed
other people to get off scot-free.
(Rory Kennedy speaking)
You know, that's an answer that I've never discussed
with anybody. My involvement and whether or not I did it,
I took responsibility for it.
(shutters snapping)
So it doesn't matter what I say, you know?
It's something that I keep with inside me,
and I don't talk about it, so...
Once Lance and Joe were in jail,
uh, my wife Naya and I left within a week.
If anybody had any doubts
that we had lost contact with reality
and-and lost complete contact
with our original mission,
that did it.
And, you know, when people ask me,
"Well, why'd you leave Synanon?" I said,
well, I physically left, but, honestly,
Synanon left me.
I still believed what I believed when I joined.
But Synanon no longer
represented any of those things.
Judi: Chuck did not serve time for the rattlesnake case.
He was placed on five-year probation as a result
and paid a $5,000 fine.
And during probation, and thereafter,
he was not allowed to ever have any kind of managerial position
in Synanon again.
Chuck was pissed off.
♪♪
I think he felt somewhat victimized by all of this,
but he put Jady in charge.
Jady: I was anointed as chairman
to get my dad out of the line of fire.
I felt like, like my whole being
just kind of went down into the center of the earth.
It was playing a role. I was playing a role.
I was the chairman,
but my dad was in control.
You know, when he wasn't inebriated,
and even sometimes when he was,
he was in charge.
Chuck: We've got a problem now with that dunce Helen.
Now, she wants to live in one of our guest houses,
you know, and so on... Bullshit!
And, and my kid doesn't know how to handle it
and she's going to come up with a counterproposal.
I don't want any fucking counterproposal! No, no, no!
Member: Jady, why are you mumbling under your breath?
- That is what you said. - That's what you said!
- Member: That's the essence... - That's what you said!
You do that all the time!
You can't be definite! You can't say no!
I'm not in the business of entertaining counter...
Bob: By that point, the Game became a sort of
laboratory for...
fucking with people.
- You're dead wrong. - It matters to me!
Bob: He had lights and video cameras,
and that would be broadcast to a big screen in the lodge,
and people would watch it.
It was sort of Roman spectacle-like.
Hyperbole, distortion...
Marshall Carder: Chuck and the executives would sit
around their table in the other room,
and they would have a box,
and they'd be patching in and directing the Game.
- If we ran customer service, okay, Dennis? Uh... - (phone beeps)
Chuck (on speakerphone): Be careful you don't turn this Synanon Game
into a business meeting.
Marshall: But you weren't allowed to talk back to the box.
They were making these people fight.
It was just like the ultimate of manipulating the people
through the game.
(indistinct yelling)
The Synanon Game was a thing that tied
all of Synanon together.
From the beginning, it was the basic core of Synanon.
Never really talk to people, like, just like people-people.
- Do you see what I mean? Do you understand? - I do. Yeah.
And then, you know, at the end, I hated the Game.
Wait, wait, wait! Let me just say this...
Every other part of the whole...
It's in the nature of man to fight...
(overlapping yelling)
- (Game chatter fades out) - (birds chirping)
- (splashing) - (pool chatter)
Bill Goodson: Chuck drinking, I think, I heard,
not so much that Chuck started drinking,
but I heard they started drinking.
(party chatter)
I remember we had a high school reunion,
and we were allowed to return to the property.
And this was at Badger.
We had the most incredible time,
but the oddest thing was, in the evenings,
there would be, like, an open bar.
(shrill whistle)
Bar closes in two minutes!
Two minutes!
(bar chatter)
Bill: People started drinking
and getting drunk and messy.
And that was a very, very bizarre moment,
to think that Synanon
had somehow come to this.
We're here at the Badger Home Place Lodge
for the 179th consecutive sellout Saturday night party.
They do love their parties here in Badger.
Bill: That the fundamental pillars
that founded the place,
no drugs, no alcohol,
no physical violence, no threat of physical violence.
Those principles were thrown out the window.
Judi: I had spent so many years
defending and defending and defending and defending
Synanon in the legal department.
I had a lot of resentment within myself.
These were my 20s, and this was time
when I should've been out having fun.
I felt like Synanon had run its course.
But I was so undecided.
(somber music playing)
Jady came up to me and said, "You're leaving.
"You need to go. Go live your life
and tell me what it's like."
She wanted to live vicariously.
I think she just, you know, she had her own thoughts
that she could not verbalize. I mean, Jady was the chairman.
Jady was Jady.
Her commitment to Synanon
could not be questioned.
I understand it better now but, you know, at the time,
I remember being sort of flabbergasted.
But I did what she said.
I rented a car, and I drove it down to Los Angeles.
And I, I left.
(birds chirping)
(wind blowing, trees rustling)
(bikes rattling)
During the '80s, AdGap, selling advertising gifts,
was still making millions for Synanon.
Reporter: The business is providing companies
with promotional items bearing their corporate symbols.
Rebekah Crawford: They wanted all hands on deck,
doing sales and making money.
So, they made the decision
that the Synanon school would no longer exist.
I think it was taking up too many man-hours.
They cut loose all of the teachers,
and, for the kids, we were all just, like,
beside ourselves with joy.
("Just Like Heaven" by The Cure playing)
(student chatter)
♪♪
- (cheering) - I was now finally gonna go
to a normal public high school,
the kind I saw in movies.
We dusted off an old bus
and 17 of us, you know, loaded up in there
on our first day of normal school. (sighs)
♪ Spinning on that dizzy edge ♪
♪ Kissed her face and kissed her head ♪
Rebekah: It was my sophomore year.
(inaudible)
We didn't have the right clothes,
we didn't have the right hair, you know?
But none of us were shy about participating.
We were very good students.
All playing sports. We made friends.
We did really well.
There was a guidance counselor, and she said,
"You have two years left,
"and if you take these classes,
then you can go to college."
And that was my ticket out.
♪ You, lost and lonely, you ♪
♪ Just like Heaven ♪
(song ends)
But, when you're in high school,
what do teenagers do?
They drink and they smoke.
Eventually, there was a group of us
that were going out on Friday nights
and, you know, drinking and smoking
with the kids from the Valley.
(laughter, chatter)
I don't even know what tipped off the adults,
but I drove us home from school,
parked, came back, and it was just like,
okay, something very bad has happened.
We go up to the Game.
They didn't let us sleep.
And then, we were up, I think three or four days.
(hair clippers buzzing)
We got our heads shaved.
And then, we were, you know,
every morning, up at, like, 5:30
to run a couple miles, then eat silent breakfast.
(footsteps running)
We left school in the same way we came in.
In the middle of the year, just evaporated.
Never went back.
It was... That was really a very tough moment for me
just because I was so close.
(sighs)
But no.
♪♪
Then we went to work in the factory,
just boxing pens for AdGap.
I think they really, legitimately thought
that we would just stay in Synanon.
Even as Chuck was unraveling.
(ominous music playing)
Miriam: At this point, Chuck was drinking vodka.
And we're mixing more and more water into it.
(cymbal rolls)
One day, I was sitting by the pool
at the Home Place with Chuck.
I heard him talking,
and he was talking to his brother, who was dead.
(indistinct shouting)
He was having an active conversation.
A hallucination, a delusion, whatever they're called.
- (tense music playing) - (indistinct shouting continues)
The doctors diagnosed him
as being in a psychotic state
of bipolar disorder.
Certainly, the alcohol did not help.
I don't know at what point
you could say it became psychosis.
I think it was hard for all of us
to accept the fact that this man we loved...
I mean, he was my second father figure.
He really was psychotic.
- (insects chirping) - (leaves rustling)
Bob: One night, it was around midnight,
I'd gone to bed
but there was a knocking on the door,
which was kind of unusual.
And somebody was saying,
"Everybody, everybody has to come down.
There's a general meeting."
- (tense music playing) - (insects chirping)
So we went down.
(soft chatter)
Everybody, uh, was nervous.
Chuck patched in over the Wire,
and he starts off.
Chuck (on PA): How come I'm the only full-grown man
in this whole fucking joint?!
Bob: He says, "When I sat down at my desk this evening,
"as I do all the time, and I reached for my glasses,
"which I keep in a certain spot all the time,
"and they're not there. And so, I'm looking around,
"and I see that the glasses are on the other side of the desk,
where I never keep them."
So then he says, "Well, you know what this means, don't you?
"That somebody would come in, move my things around on my desk
without my permission." He says,
"That means that I, I have been violated."
He says, "I have been so violated
"in a way I've never been violated before.
I can say that I have been raped."
(dramatic music playing)
Rebekah: The kids, we were all just in disbelief
'cause you could hear Chuck on the Wire.
"There's a rapist!
Who stole my glasses!"
You know, and just going out, like batshit crazy.
And so, we're kind of looking at each other,
just like, when are these people going to notice?
♪♪
This is the ravings of a lunatic.
- (tense music playing) - (indistinct Wire chatter)
Chuck started getting women who had been raped
to talk about... You know, really pressuring people,
"Get it off your chest if you were raped."
They began this long, long gaming situation.
(overlapping Game shouting)
Rebekah: I think, at around 4:00 in the morning,
they told us, the kids,
that we could leave and go to bed.
And so, we all ran out of that shed, just laughing.
You know, like, oh, my God, the emperor has no clothes.
Chuck (on Wire): ...hoping all the time that he would get up
and get the fuck out of my house!
Bob: You don't command people to come down
and run their most traumatic, intimate stories.
(Chuck continues indistinctly)
It was, it was a profound breach of decency.
(indistinct Wire chatter)
That's when people really got it.
The old man is... (muttering)
The old man is, uh...
He's crazy.
Chuck (on Wire): One of the smartest people in Synanon.
I may be the smartest person in Synanon.
I probably am about this business.
Chuck Dederich Jr.: He was outta control. So, I went under his building
and cut the wires loose.
(static)
Rebekah: The writing was on the wall.
This was just becoming madness.
(ominous tone playing)
And there was no way in hell
that I was not gonna go to college.
I wanted hair,
I wanted an education,
and I really, really, really wanted, like, a normal life.
But, I could not go to any college
with my lack of education.
The Synanon school was not accredited
so that doesn't hold any muster in the real world.
That's like saying you don't go to school.
♪ Doctors have come ♪
Lewis Yablonsky, who had written a book
about Synanon in the early days,
was still teaching at Cal State Northridge.
I wrote him a letter explaining my situation,
and he got me in.
♪ They say I must be one of the wonders ♪
♪ God's own creation ♪
I bought a Volkswagen Bug and drove on July 4th weekend
to Los Angeles.
♪♪
I started at Cal State Northridge,
and then I transferred to Barnard in New York
and graduated from Barnard.
And my hair was even almost long.
♪ She'll make her way ♪
♪ Hey hey hey ♪
♪ She'll make her way ♪
I was so happy. I was so happy.
- (song fades out) - (birds chirping)
Tom Brokaw: On special segment tonight,
Synanon means many things to many people.
(office chatter)
It means big business, and some say big scams.
Steve Delaney: Companies that donate to Synanon and companies
that do business with Synanon do it, they say,
because they believe they are helping alcoholics
drug addicts, and other people in need.
That may have been true in the beginning,
but Synanon is a long way from its beginnings.
Synanon's actions contributed
to the loss of tax-exempt status
for its church and federal liens of $55.6 million
in back taxes and penalties against the organization.
Bob: The IRS was asking for millions.
And so, the question was,
to the extent that it even was a question,
whether Synanon would be able to continue to exist
after meeting this court obligation.
Newscaster: Synanon bills this little shindig
as its first and last annual auction,
subtitle "Bye-bye, San Francisco."
There's everything from furniture to office supplies,
from appliances to books.
We had, at one time, the Oakland Athletic Club,
and that was sold.
And then, we had the Del Mar Club, and that was sold,
and we had a bunch of apartment buildings that were sold.
I mean, it was very depressing.
It was not wind in your face,
and look at all the excitement and the laughter.
And at that point, Chuck was a broken man.
(quiet room chatter)
Chuck Jr.: The place was a wreck after a while.
It didn't have any...
It wasn't, it wasn't Synanon anymore.
It was just a bunch of people kinda figuring out
what to do next, really.
We couldn't fix the culture after a certain point.
We didn't have his touch.
He knew how to fix cultures.
(soft music playing)
Bob: Synanon had lasted 33 years.
And I thought, well, you know,
that may be the lifespan of a...
(sniffles, sighs)
Of... (clears throat)
Of that particular experiment.
(tools scraping)
Miriam: We decided to leave.
I said, "This is not what I wanna do."
And Phil did not wanna do it either.
We talked about it, and I said, "I just don't think
Synanon is here for me anymore."
Bunch of us started moving down the hill here to Visalia.
(birds chirping)
Elena: Eventually, Chuck and Ginny,
they moved to Visalia, too.
They lived in a trailer park.
And then, he was in a small care facility.
And I-I went to visit him.
He had no idea who I was at that point.
And he said, "Why are you visiting the old fart?"
I said, "Well, I love the old fart."
"Oh." And then, he said,
"Well, when you, when you get to be my age,
you're gonna really laugh at things."
I said, "At what?" He said,
"Just the human condition.
It's very, very funny."
That was the last time I saw him.
(somber music playing)
Phil: It was in the '90s sometime
and his wife Ginny called me.
Told me he'd passed away.
(applause)
That he was gone.
(applause fades out)
(mysterious music playing)
(indistinct Game chatter)
Bob: I believe that Synanon
is a promising message
and a cautionary tale.
(quiet street noise)
It started out as a way to address addiction
and alienation in the United States.
Chuck: We've come from all over the earth.
People who got off of drugs
and built a kind of life for themselves.
I still love the old man.
Without him and his crooked face
and his loud noises, right?
I wouldn't be here.
He helped save my life.
♪♪
Mike Gimbel: There's no doubt in my mind I'd be dead
if I didn't go to Synanon.
Synanon saved my life.
But, at the same time,
you know, it screwed it up, too.
Whether it's brainwashed or committed or dedicated,
we were so into Synanon
where we never questioned anything.
We did what we were told. We were good soldiers.
(military chanting)
Marshall: There's always this thing in life
where there's everything is a mixed bag.
And there's just so many good things that came out of Synanon
and so many good people
and so many great relationships that we all have.
But that doesn't mean that a lot of really dark stuff
didn't happen. And it did.
♪♪
For me, the thing that makes me cry is the other people,
because a lot of people got messed up.
And, I mean...
(sighs) Yeah,
that's the shit that'll make you sad, you know?
Rod: The excuses you make in your head.
"Well, this is just one thing. It doesn't...
"I don't like this,
but I-I'm okay with about 90% of what's going on."
And then another thing happens,
and you rationalize that, and another thing happens.
"But all my friends are here and my family is here,
and I love these people."
There are so many forces
to kinda keep you going along with it.
But it's very, very hard to leave.
Bob: I have felt this sense of loss about...
Synanon since Synanon ceased to be.
There's many things that I regret
that I may have done
or didn't do while I was in Synanon.
But, overall, I don't... (clears throat)
I don't regret having been there.
Because community is so difficult,
and the bonds created in community
are powerful.
(sighs) And lasting.
Why did people do it? I think I know why, a large part.
♪♪
I talked with people, and I asked them,
"Why did you stay?" You know?
And they said, unapologetically,
you know, "I needed that community.
"It just filled such a hole in me.
"I was so lonely.
I was so lonely."
So it was always about that.
It's about community.
(hopeful music playing)
♪♪
- (seabirds chirping) - (sea breeze blowing)
(shutter snaps)
(sea breeze fades out)
♪♪