The Delphi Murders: A Heathen for the Defense? An Interview with Troth President Lauren Crow

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[00:01:05] age 21 and older. That's viiahemp.com and use MSHEET at checkout. Please support our show and tell them we sent you. Get the rest you deserve with Dreams from Viya. Content warning. This episode contains discussion of murder. One weekend day this April, Lauren Crow,

[00:01:28] the president and CEO of the heathen organization The Troth, got an interesting voicemail. Hi, my name is Andy Baldwin. I'm an attorney. Any of us would have likely been surprised to get a message like that, but it was especially shocking to Lauren. You remember, of course,

[00:01:46] that Baldwin is a defense attorney for Richard Allen, and he helped craft the first Franks memorandum in that case. And that memorandum is where the public first became aware of the claim that a group of odinists was responsible for the murders of Liberty German and Abigail Williams.

[00:02:04] Lauren has been highly critical of that memorandum. She's shared her views on it on The Troth's website, on Court TV, and here on the murder sheet. She has spoken eloquently and quite publicly about the negative impact the sensational claims in the memorandum have had on

[00:02:21] the members of her community. So why on earth was Baldwin contacting her now, more than six months after the release of the memorandum and just a little more than a month before the date the trial

[00:02:33] was then scheduled to begin? I'm looking for some information about Asatru or odinism or heathenism on the Delphi case. Today on the murder sheet, we will play the rest of Baldwin's message,

[00:02:50] we'll hear what Lauren thought of it all, and we'll give her an opportunity to tell us the effect the defense claims have had on her community. My name is Anya Kane. I'm a journalist.

[00:03:03] And I'm Kevin Greenlee. I'm an attorney. And this is the Murder Sheet. We're a true crime podcast focused on original reporting, interviews and deep dives into murder cases. We're the Murder Sheet. And this is the Delphi Murders, a heathen for the defense, an interview with Troth President

[00:03:22] Lauren Crowe. So Lauren, we've had you on the show a number of times. We've gone on your show. Before we get started, I think everyone knows who you are, who's listening consistently. But for

[00:04:16] folks who may not recall, can you just tell us a bit about yourself and your background? Yeah, my name is Lauren Crowe. I am resident of the Troth, which is the largest heathen organization.

[00:04:28] And we'll get into what heathen and all that means here in a minute. In the world, we are an international organization, and we support education and training kind of the next generation of leaders. We publish books and we help people connect in our religion and as well

[00:04:47] as promote our values of inclusivity and community, family. Really important to us to kind of share those values, especially because there's a lot of other people who may not share our faith, but share the values. And we want to work with that. One great thing about our

[00:05:08] organization, we're 100% volunteer driven. There is not a single paid staff member. So we do this all out of the love we have for our faith and really for what we're doing. So I'm actually a

[00:05:22] data scientist in my day job. I'm a public health data scientist. So I have a little bit of background there. But mostly, I've been a heathen for almost 25 years at this point, longer than

[00:05:38] I've not been. It's a huge part of my life. It's a really beautiful face full of compassion and family and community. And it's really all about making a better community together.

[00:05:56] And so, yeah, this has been kind of hard on all of us because we do very much react as a community. And so everything that's been happening has affected all of us.

[00:06:09] And to start with, I guess, can you give us a kind of a description about the differences between heathenry, asatru, as it's defined in the United States, and odinism? And what are the similarities

[00:06:23] and what are the key differences? All right, so heathenry is, okay, the best way I can explain this. Heathenry, you have to think of it like an umbrella term like Christianity. So most people

[00:06:37] who call themselves heathens are going to be pretty average, normal people. One thing they all have in common is, for the most part, is they're all polytheistic, meaning we worship many gods. So if someone worships Odin, that doesn't mean they don't also worship Frigga and Thor and Frey.

[00:06:56] And heathenry encompasses basically the beliefs of pre-Christian Northern Europe. So you're thinking Scandinavia, Germany, Britain, and those are your areas that are going to... that's going to be a commonality of all of these three. Most people who are heathenry tends to be though...

[00:07:22] most people who say call themselves heathen tend to be very moderate to progressive. They are very pro-LGBT. They tend to be very pro-community, pro-rights. They want people to be, you know, where they don't have issues with race. They don't have issues with

[00:07:47] other religions, you know, and generally very accepting people. Ossetra in the United States gets a little fraught. You kind of have two camps. You have older people who've been in the religion as long as I have or longer, where Ossetra was the given term.

[00:08:07] And so they may believe exactly like I believe but refer to themselves as Ossetra because back in the day everything was Ossetra. However, a lot of more younger, newer practitioners, Ossetra tends to be a much more conservative, especially when you get into groups like the

[00:08:27] Ossetra Folk Assembly who are anti-LGBT, anti-trans, anti... any kind... they're very, very conservative alt-right almost. You know, they are very much for traditional gender roles and they don't believe that non-whites can be a part of our faith. Then you get to Odinists.

[00:08:54] So Odinism is a prison gang with religious markings. In the United States, the modern kind of Odinism movement was started by a woman named Elsa Christensen who was a Nazi, and I'm not exaggerating, she was a member of the Nazi party during World War II.

[00:09:13] And she is most notoriously known for two things. One is kind of bringing together a lot of the nascent groups in the 1970s and influencing them for bad. And two, she's really known for

[00:09:32] starting the first prison work. And her prison meetings and worship were really just to cover for political and gang organizing. So when you talk about Odinism, you almost never talk about Odinism in the United States outside of prisons. Like it's almost a prison exclusive thing.

[00:09:55] If someone says they're an Odinist, that's a huge red flag. That means one of two things. They're either deeply racist, got involved behind, you know, in prison, or they're very new and just

[00:10:10] don't know what that means. And I've run into that a lot. But Odinism, it is very racist. It is very gang oriented. And theologically, it actually pulls, and y'all are going to laugh about this,

[00:10:24] but theologically, it actually pulls a lot from the Church of England. So there's this guy in the 1930s, who started kind of one of the first English language, Norse religions. And he was also a Nazi, Australian Nazi. And his writings were a huge influence on Elsa Christensen and

[00:10:45] other racist people going forward. But he basically took the common book of prayer, took out Jesus and God, put in Odin and Thor and Baldur and shook it real hard. And that's a religion complete with having all these long prayers like you would have in

[00:11:02] because I've been to a few of these services, long prayers, and they would end no, no, no, it gets better because the look on your face is so great right now. They would end everything

[00:11:13] in instead of Amen, they would end it in Wotan, which of course being the Anglo Saxon name of Odin. I'm shook. I did not know this. And thanks a lot, Henry VIII. He gave us Odin.

[00:11:30] Yeah, if people want to really dive into this weird stuff, I do have a podcast called the Heathen History Podcast. You can go listen to that. We're on every platform. But yeah,

[00:11:40] I have like we have like a whole episode where we dramatically read from the prayer book from the First Anglican Church of Odin. But I mean, Odinism has always been a racist thing, right?

[00:11:56] Also true. It's hard to tell you really kind of have to ask who they're affiliated with. But where I am, for instance, it's almost always racist. Other areas in the United States, it's different. It really just depends. And then of course, heathenry, most people who use heathen

[00:12:15] are not going to be racist. They're going to be pretty typical. And there is a wonderful, wonderful sociologist named Jennifer Snook who studies religious sociology, primarily paganism. And she actually did a wonderful study of heathenry specifically in her book American

[00:12:33] Heathens. And one thing she talks about is heathenry, we span the gamut, right? Like if you look at America, and you look at like the social political every idea out there, we are a reflection of America because we are Americans. We're just like everybody else. That's

[00:12:49] one thing I like to tell everybody. Like, yes, for every weird racist guy, there's also someone on the total end, like the most liberal, liberal person you could have progressive, you know,

[00:13:03] left wing person like it's we were American, just like you are, we are a human, we are just a reflection of you guys. And that means we're gonna have bad, we're gonna have good. We're gonna have

[00:13:15] everything in between. That's humanity. Right. And so for a lot of people, their introduction to Odinism came in the Franks motion that the defense in the Richard Allen case filed last autumn. And I was just wondering, how did you feel about the way Odinism was characterized in

[00:13:34] that motion? Well, I too lived through the satanic panic. And that's how I felt. It, you know, so we talked a bit about it last time I was on. I'm from East Arkansas, Northeast Arkansas. And if you don't aren't familiar, that's where the West Memphis three case happened.

[00:13:54] And I lived through that. I lived through that satanic panic. I lived through, I was a young teenager when that happened. So to me, it felt like the satanic panic all over again. It, it was one of the most maddening things I've ever read.

[00:14:16] Or, you know, Odin, first of all, they didn't even know what an Odinist, you know, they still don't get their terminology, right? They called it an Odinite. They described pictures, they described sacred images in lurid ways. Like it read like a tabloid.

[00:14:40] It really did. It read like, or like I was raised very fundamentalist evangelical Christian. It read a lot like those, like the demons in rock and roll music are coming to get you books we had in the eighties. It really was, it was very satanic panic.

[00:14:57] The truth will set you free. We live by that on the murder sheet. We're always looking to get at the truth when we cover criminal cases, when we're parsing through legal documents and stories from survivors and detectives and attorneys just trying to get the full picture.

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[00:15:55] Listen and follow You Probably Think This Story Is About You wherever you listen to podcasts. One thing I'm curious about is did you feel like it made distinctions between heathen and ossetru and odinist or was it conflating those things? Oh, it absolutely conflated them. 100%.

[00:16:21] Just the simple fact that the gentlemen who have been accused of being the actual murderers are not odinists, right? That the guards that they're accusing are heathen, right? They're basically trying to conflate everything as odinism and that bothers me a lot because

[00:16:48] it's not. I keep saying that's like there was a murder, right? And it had all the classic hallmarks of Catholicism. So let's go and arrest a couple of Mormons. That's where we are right now with this. That's what it feels like. They're very

[00:17:06] drastically different beliefs, focus and as much as what I've dug around in these gentlemen who've been falsely accused don't seem to be great people, that does not mean that they should be tarred as murderers solely because of their faith.

[00:17:27] Yeah, it almost strikes me as not everything Italian is related to the mafia or Cosa Nostra. There's a subsection within there, but if we were to say everything Italian is the mafia, that would come across somewhat problematically.

[00:17:45] Yeah, I live in Arkansas and you deal with this constantly living somewhere like Arkansas or Alabama or it's the horror, the jokes. But the problem is this is serious because this kind of accusations can cost people child custody, their jobs,

[00:18:09] friends, family. I know that the defense feels that they need to do whatever they can do to best try to get Mr. Allen found not guilty. I understand that, right? And I also believe that

[00:18:28] every person no matter how I feel about them deserves the best legal representation possible. I don't think Richard Allen's getting that, but you know, I do think that Richard Allen is... I do feel that what they've done is basically hurt an entire community of people to try to

[00:18:47] save one person. And you have made your opinions about this motion clear, not only on our program, but on nationwide television. And so yeah, all of that. What was... One day you finally get a one day you finally get a voicemail from Andy Baldwin.

[00:19:09] Oh yeah, it was late Saturday night too. That was like, it's like Saturday evening and I get the voicemail for the organization. So I get this voicemail and I'm like,

[00:19:21] I listened to the first 10 seconds and I stop it. I go, no. So then I reverse look up the phone number just to make sure this isn't a prank call. It certainly wasn't a prank call. We are going to

[00:19:39] play for you now the entire voicemail message that Andrew Baldwin left for Lauren. The only edit in it we made was to remove Baldwin's cell phone number. Hi, my name is Andy Baldwin. I'm an

[00:19:49] attorney and I read an article about the case that I'm working on from somebody on this webpage. And even though it was kind of critical of us, I think that we can reach kind of a common...

[00:20:05] I'm looking for some information about Othatru or Odinism or Heathenism on the Delphi case in Indiana. And that was what the article was about because I think there's a misunderstanding.

[00:20:22] We are actually on your... I guess I would say we're on your side. Some of the people that I've been interviewing are Heathenists or Odinists that are great people, but these racists have

[00:20:35] hijacked the religion and the philosophy and so forth. And I think I'm looking for an expert. You might find it strange that I'm calling you with that article that I read, but

[00:20:52] I'm looking for an expert that can look at the things that I guess crime scene and give me an opinion about whether what we're seeing is like these idiot white supremacist guys attempting to replicate a runic script and also to come in and basically defend their religion.

[00:21:21] It'd be an opportunity to do that just as part of the testimony. I know I may not be making sense, but I'd love to talk to somebody. And I like that article actually a lot because I subscribe to a

[00:21:36] lot of what was said in there. And I think there's just a misunderstanding of stuff. And that's fine. And we may end up agreeing to not agree, I guess, or agree to disagree, but I don't think so. I

[00:21:49] think we'll actually have a lot of common ground. And this is my cell phone, which please don't give that to anybody, but 317. Sorry for the long message. And if I don't hear from you, that's

[00:22:02] fine too. But I'm really just looking for some guidance. And again, I'm not just saying this, some of the best people that I've worked with in terms of actual witnesses and so forth, especially one particular person really has been terrific. I'm a big fan of hers.

[00:22:21] And she did give me some information, but she's not like a rune. She's not like, he knows about runes, but it's not like her thing. And that's one of the things that I'm really looking for somebody that really understands runes. They can look at what the crime scene,

[00:22:37] they'd have to sign an NDA to do this, but non-disclosure. That's where the message cuts off. As she said, just getting and hearing this message was a surprise to Lauren. Then I listened to it and I'm like, no, really? You read the statement on our organization's website.

[00:23:06] And you really think that anyone from our organization wants to come on and be an expert witness for the defense. What is wrong with you? Then it led to this conversation with a couple of

[00:23:19] my officers. We're just all shocked. And then I texted you guys because I'm like, y'all ain't going to believe this. Then of course I texted our lawyer. You ain't going to believe it. It was pretty shocking to hear from you. I imagine probably more shocking for you.

[00:23:41] Just to get a sense, would that have been around Saturday, April 6th? Does that sound right in terms of- Yeah. Yeah. And this is just a little more than a month before a trial was scheduled.

[00:23:55] Of course the trial has been postponed. But five weeks out of it from a trial, they're contacting and trying to find an expert on ODINism to back up their theory. Yeah. An expert who has been on national television and has been on multiple podcasts

[00:24:13] and YouTube shows speaking out and being very vocal. Even we have a statement on our website. That's what he referred was the statement on our website. Our statement on our website was very

[00:24:29] anti that first Frank's motion. I'm not going to lie, it was shocking. I'm looking at this going, first of all, no. But second, I'm not going to lie, there's a part of me that wants to call him

[00:24:45] and talk to this guy just to hear what he wanted to say. But I didn't because I just decided it wasn't worth my... It just wasn't worth it. But dang, I'm not kidding.

[00:24:57] I'm shocked because I'm shocked. I'm shook. And I genuinely... This has been so harmful to my community and not just my organization, all of us. And this is an international story, right? I'm hearing about this from heathens in Denmark and heathens in South America.

[00:25:22] I went to an international conference and this is a conversation I had with someone in South America. They had heard about the case. And now it's spilling onto YouTube and you're seeing other... I'm hearing stories and I haven't had time, honestly, I don't have time. I don't

[00:25:37] have time for this. People looking into this, but other YouTubers, I guess you would call them yellow journalism YouTubers or drama YouTubers, whatever you want to call it, are now trying to blame other crimes on odinism. It's become a trendy thing and

[00:25:59] now you have people... Heathens worried about our jobs, we're worried about our families. Is it safe? I have people in my community who already struggle to wear symbols of their faith because

[00:26:12] of discrimination. And now what's this going to do in an area like a small town like Delphi, right? Because these are small towns and small towns are where this is really hurting people. What exactly did Mr. Baldwin ask for in the voicemail? Do you remember?

[00:26:28] What exactly did he say that kind of stuck out to you? So he contacted us because we had that article on our website. Shortly after the release of the defense's first Franks motion last autumn,

[00:26:41] the Troth did indeed put up an article about it. We will read some excerpts from it now, but it is worth reading the whole thing. We will link to it in our show notes.

[00:26:52] The notion that some odinites murdered two girls in cold blood and used their bodies in some sort of white nationalist ritual seems to most of us to be ridiculous. And yet there's the headline.

[00:27:06] Yes, it's a product of sensationalism. Yes, it is going to spread because of a media that is ignorant about our real religion and our real faith. And yes, it could very well be the product

[00:27:18] of a fevered imagination and defense desperate to save their client and come up with any other suspect. But how did we get here? Why do we keep ending up here? The odinites did it defense

[00:27:32] regardless of whether or not it is true, should be a sign that odinism or any white nationalist versions of Isatru has failed to make us better, failed to heal people and at best has only made

[00:27:44] heathens into a boogeyman. This isn't the first time pagans around the world have had to weather a storm generated by sensational headlines. While some like the satanic panic of the 80s were surely a bugbear created by a desperate media. The headlines about white nationalist groups claiming

[00:28:01] paganism is a seemingly endless drumbeat. And he, he hit, he was really reiterating it was just a misunderstanding and he needed information on odinism and Isatru and that we were misunderstanding

[00:28:17] their point. That was the big thing. And I'm like, I, my thought was I've read the Frank's motions. I've read all your motions. I don't think I'm misunderstanding anything. I think you are,

[00:28:27] you know, and like I've said so many times, if any of these lawyers had called any of us before they followed that first Frank's motion and spent 30 minutes on the phone, they could have had a much better motion that wasn't a witch hunt against my faith.

[00:28:44] What could that have looked like? A way to kind of, you know, put forward what they feel is a good theory, but perhaps not malign an entire religion. Focus on odinism being a gang.

[00:28:55] Focus on the prison gang aspect, right? So you don't have to talk about it being a, it's not a religious sacrifice. This was a gang, you know, we know that here's the thing. We do

[00:29:08] know for a fact that some of the other gentlemen that have been accused are involved with a different gang called the Vinlanders. So you just simply, you don't talk about this as a religious

[00:29:22] cult and a cult killing. You talk about this as a gang killing, you know, you frame it as, you know, these guys are part of Vinlanders, Vinlanders are known to be a racist gang.

[00:29:35] You know, you, you frame it that way. You frame it in terms of gang activity and then you can leave religion completely out because that's one, that's what odinism is. Two, there's a very,

[00:29:49] you know, there's a tie there of these other men who are involved in a known, you know, motorcycle gang. So to me that makes a lot more sense than this is a religious sacrifice when there's no

[00:30:02] evidence of there ever being anything like that on record anywhere. Are you, so did you end up having any sort of contact with Andrew Baldwin or his team over this? No, I texted a couple of times,

[00:30:18] but I ended up not talking with him. It just seemed like, you know, that was kind of the consensus of the board and everyone else. We kind of decided not to talk to him because

[00:30:29] it just didn't seem like the best idea. And I quite frankly don't have the highest opinion. And I am sometimes known when I get to lose my temper and not be able to keep my mouth shut.

[00:30:45] Girls. I might have not been very kind. So I just decided that was the best thing to do. And it does worry me though, because like who else are they going to bring in? Right? Like,

[00:30:59] are they going to bring in Nancy Grace's expert who was an expert on a completely different prison gang? I mean, at the same time, I'll be honest, you know, I would have hurt their case.

[00:31:15] Like, I don't know there's any way, shape or form I could have helped their case. Because I would have gotten up there and I would have told the truth and the truth does not help

[00:31:23] their case as regards to their theory. Would you have had to sign a non-disclosure agreement in order to work with them? I have no idea. Do they offer you any money or anything or let

[00:31:35] you know what they wanted you to say? They told me they had a budget. He told me he had a budget of $5,000 for the expert. But I literally, I got as far as that voicemail and a couple of texts

[00:31:48] trying to schedule a phone call. And that was it. Like that was as far as we got. And then I decided I was done. And I went and watched the eclipse because that was cooler. I was curious in terms of

[00:32:01] have you heard from anyone else in the community if they've asked around at other heathen organizations or different like different things like that? I have not heard from anyone. I am friends with

[00:32:13] most of the, I guess you would call the relevant, I'm friends with basically all the most of the people you would call on at least on the non-racist side. So I don't really know who, you know,

[00:32:31] they may have found some professor or academic I'm not aware of, but I have not heard anyone in the community. And quite frankly, I can't see anyone in the community doing it, right? Because everyone's

[00:32:48] I will say that this is kind of a uniting thing among all of us. And we don't always agree on a lot is I think all of us are pretty, pretty angry about this. So I think if he's going to find an

[00:33:00] expert, he's going to have to find some academic and that academic probably will not have the best credentials. You know, you mentioned academics. I'd be curious on your take of this. I know you

[00:33:13] follow the case and you came up with this. So Jeffrey Turco is a Purdue professor and the defense made a very big issue about him basically indicating that they felt the prosecution

[00:33:26] hid him from them as well as that he basically co-signed this idea that the site bore obvious hallmarks of an odinous sacrifice. And it's since come out that basically Turco has said,

[00:33:39] that's not true. My words were basically twisted by the defense. And I believe that the state police more accurately characterized how I feel about things. I guess you, I know that had some thoughts

[00:33:51] about, you know, anyone using Turco at all, given his expertise in more of like the Norse mythology, I believe, and sort of writings aspect of this, which, you know, is definitely very good to know about, but it's different than knowing about current modern day white supremacist

[00:34:07] organizations. But what has been your reaction to this fallout about the Turco statements? I didn't believe that Turco agreed with the defense, mainly because I have, one of my best friends is a college professor and a college professor will give you

[00:34:29] eight different opinions. Now it could be this, but it could also be like this, but it could also be this. So I think that I really have a hard time believing that the state police or anyone else would have

[00:34:44] just blatantly falsified documents and anything and blatantly falsified what he said. Right? So, and as much as I don't think that he is the right expert, because he's not an expert in modern practice, right? He's ancient practice and modern practice are two different things, because we

[00:35:05] don't really know a whole lot about how they practiced back then. It's been lost to time. But I do think, you know, I'm grateful that he came out and said that, that he basically came out.

[00:35:18] But at the same time, I really hope the state's witnesses, I've been eagerly looking at the state's list, you know, waiting for the list and witnesses and whatnot to see what expert they might bring in. I have a couple of thoughts about people they should bring in.

[00:35:37] All academics, all very highly qualified people. But we'll see. Yeah, also brings up something, you're obviously not going to be a witness for the defense. If per chance this odinism theory is allowed into the trial, would you consider theoretically being

[00:36:00] a witness for the prosecution and to potentially explain some of the problems with the theory? If and only if they cannot get Jefferson Kelly Co or Jennifer Snook or one of the many PhD

[00:36:18] more qualified than I am people. I'm like, plan C. There are far more qualified people that can talk about this from an academic perspective and do a much better job than I will.

[00:36:31] I would do it if it was needed. But I don't believe that I am. I think that they can get Jefferson. I know Jefferson's not that far from them. I don't think he's the one that's been

[00:36:43] interviewed on several Indianapolis TV stations. He wrote a book called Being Viking, which is a sociological study of heathenry. I hope they're smart enough to get someone like him. I don't think the prosecution would even want me. No one's contacted me. I'm assuming they have

[00:37:05] found someone like Jefferson or Scottie or excuse me, Jennifer, or someone who is far more eminently qualified than just I volunteered a nonprofit and do a podcast. I know that juries are impressed by letters after names. I think frankly, juries are also impressed by people who

[00:37:31] know what they're talking about. Anyone who listens to you speak on this subject, they're like, yeah, hit that bill. Were you surprised that they contacted you weeks before the scheduled trial instead of say contacting you weeks before filing the Franks motion?

[00:37:49] I was surprised they contacted us, period. I mean, especially if you have read the statement that we put out, it's pretty scathing against the kind of satanic panic nonsense that that first

[00:38:05] Franks motion is. I was shocked that someone would read that and not think, hey, maybe these guys are not who I should be speaking to. I think more also though that at that time, trial was scheduled to

[00:38:26] go on in May 13th at that point. Basically, they had a month. Did you feel like based on what you heard in that voicemail that they had a pretty good grasp of everything and were going forward

[00:38:42] and that this was just sort of a bonus conversation? No, no. I felt like, I don't know, it felt uncomfortable. I think that's the best way I can describe. I felt very uncomfortable. It made you uncomfortable?

[00:39:03] That voicemail just made me feel like secondhand embarrassment almost. At the same time, I have to admit, he has cojones to call us given what we wrote. I just can't understand.

[00:39:24] I don't know. There's a part of me that would love to hear his logic on how we're on the same side. Or it feels like, I don't know. It was just weird. It was just a weird... I think we all kind of felt

[00:39:37] like it was really weird and we're all just... we all were just like, yeah, I don't think we should touch this. Yeah, I think it's a shame because I think perhaps if those constructive conversations

[00:39:49] had happened early on prior to publication, that could have been a really good opportunity for a stronger filing and a stronger knowledge base of the issues and avoiding maligning a large group of people who don't deserve it. Well, also a stronger relationship with his local community

[00:40:11] because I've gotten calls from a lot of Pagans in Indiana, especially around Indianapolis, who've been very upset and very scared. And that would have also led to a better relationship with the community because now you're able to say, okay, this is... we understand what

[00:40:31] odinism is. We understand it's a prison gang. We understand this could be gang related. So let's work on whatever we need to do to fix that situation. And let's focus on that. And then your local Pagan community, then they could have been like, this is not about religion.

[00:40:51] This is gang affiliation, blah, blah, blah. They could absolutely have made this a better filing. I don't necessarily... nothing in their filing has made me think that... has given me any indication

[00:41:05] that it's true, but at least would have been a... but at the same time, it wouldn't have been a... would it have gotten this press? Would it have done what it has done to this case and caused

[00:41:18] the amount of confusion and discussion? You know, I... on one hand, it might be a good strategy just to cause this much confusion. Or maybe, you know, there's been a lot of lively debate. I am in

[00:41:35] your Facebook group. There's been a lot of lively debate about like, you know, is there... what's their strategy on this? And at the end of the day, I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. If you ask me about

[00:41:46] their... yeah, on their computer programming strategy, I could help you, but no. I'm not this. I see a lot of online discussion about this. As you said earlier, there's some people now saying that, oh, the odinists are responsible for other serious crimes. And I also... I see people

[00:42:01] trying to make it into a joke, or if there's something unexplained in this world, it must have been odinists. Odinists were on the grassy knoll of JFK or whatever. What... how does it make you feel to see odinism being discussed like either it's a joke or they're

[00:42:17] the big boogeyman of the world? So first of all, in our community, it's the odinites did it. Yeah. We made that joke. So in the very franks filing, they didn't call it odinists. They called it odinites,

[00:42:33] which is a rock. It's not a person. So we do frequently bring the odinites for it. You know, I'm not gonna lie. The big bad jokes are funny. I actually enjoy them because like, you have to understand how incredibly small odinists are even in the heathen population. It's

[00:42:55] it really is equivalent to the racist Christian identity and regular Christianity, right? It's a very small population. And so it is kind of funny to make those jokes. However, when people start making the odinists are behind this crime and that crime, and I'm like, it's annoying at first,

[00:43:18] and then it gets disheartening because they're putting up our sacred symbols as some sort of mark of a serial killer or something. And it's hard. It's scary. There are people who are afraid to wear our sacred symbols now out because they're afraid, you know, of being confronted.

[00:43:45] And I say this is a true crime person, someone who likes true crime. A lot of true crime people are a little bit or a lot. And they tend to get caught in one theory and then they just follow that theory forever. It's

[00:44:02] actually one of the few things I've not encountered in your community that I've encountered in other ones. That's the smartest listeners in the world. You do. I mean, I'm one of them. That's why.

[00:44:13] Yeah. But it becomes this thing where they just get stuck in one theory and whatever theory that is there, whether their body in because it's bringing in views or their viewer, and they're

[00:44:25] bought in because of some parasocial belief from their favorite creator. The fact of the matter is it is terrifying when some rando person comes up to you and starts talking about the Delphi case

[00:44:38] because you're wearing a Thor's hammer. It's that's happened to people or being asked if you're Otanus, you know, being asked about Delphi when you're just trying to get your groceries. It's a little terrifying from some random stranger. And so I think that it's just it's hard and it's

[00:44:59] it's hard on people. There's already a level of fear for American heathens, especially because of the things going on in this country and because of fears, political fears based on loss of rights because of certain plans that certain politicians have

[00:45:20] in place. So add to this now this idea that we may be the boogeyman and you're basically looking at a group of people who are genuinely terrified that we're going to end up.

[00:45:36] You know, on a list or something, you know, it's scary. It really is scary. And you're just going to end up getting accused of being a racist, a child murderer, a Nazi, whatever. It's just

[00:45:50] it's hard. And I really the people who seem to want to blame everything on Otanus and want to paint everyone who worships the Norse gods as Otanus are doing something incredibly dangerous and someone's going to get hurt. Yeah, and I really would encourage people who are kind of

[00:46:11] in that mindset of just considering how you would feel if it was your religion sort of on the top here. If everything Christian was associated with, this is, you know, sinister, you know, goings on, then I think a lot of people would be rightfully upset.

[00:46:27] We're normal. I mean, most of us, I mean, we work, we have kids. I mean, we're pretty, I mean, okay, we might slide a little bit nerdy because we do like to discuss and argue about literature, but we're pretty normal, weird, you know, we're a little weird,

[00:46:43] but aren't we all, but we're pretty normal people. We are families. We know our lawns, you know, we, our faith is really the thing that's very different about us from everyone else. But

[00:46:54] quite frankly, if you to know most heathens, you wouldn't know unless you asked them if they were heathen. One question for you is just around the trial. It's not clear at this point whether or

[00:47:08] not the Odinism theory will even be allowed in because of possible like lack of evidence around that. And so my question for you is, are you hopeful that it just gets dropped for lack of

[00:47:19] evidence and then this kind of is quelled somewhat or are you concerned that the damage is already done as far as the perception to your community goes? I'm hopeful it gets dropped only because

[00:47:32] it takes it out of the mainstream media, right? It's no longer a focus of the case. Now the case is focused on everything else. However, and yeah, the damage is done. There is damage done. There

[00:47:48] will be damage continuing to be done. And most importantly, there's a group of men whose lives have been completely ruined by this. And you can't take that back, right? Their names are there. If

[00:48:06] you Google their names, they're there. If you Google my faith, that stuff is there. You know, I get Google alerts on keywords related to my faith and that's it. If I get one now, it's almost

[00:48:18] always going to be about Delphi. And that's hard because now it affects search engine results, right? So trying to find information on my faith is being affected by Delphi.

[00:48:33] I think the damage is done, but I think the sooner that it's over, the easier it will be to repair, I guess is the best way. If we have to go through like a long protracted trial where we're

[00:48:47] literally arguing odinism and people are arguing misunderstandings, it's just going to make things 10 times worse. Because I don't trust, at this point, I don't trust a fair and accurate portrayal of any part of the religion to be put forward. And that's just been my experience with not just

[00:49:09] the court. I'm talking about television. I'm talking about everything. I don't trust any of them to put forth a fair representation. Who wants accuracy when you can have something lured and boiled down that you don't have to question? If it bleeds, it leads. Yeah.

[00:49:27] Is there anything we didn't ask you about that you wanted to mention or include? If you're interested and want to know about actual what all this actually is, you can go to our website. It's thetroth.org.

[00:49:43] We have a huge library about our faith. It's free. It's for everyone. And that's really important to me and to us that we have that information there. So you

[00:49:53] can go and see and you can look at our activities. You can look at our blog. You can look and see just how painfully boring we are. And like, I don't know. I don't know if I'm going to be

[00:50:06] and like how completely normal we are, because that's kind of where we are as a group. I think that's something that boggles people's minds when they're talking about this, that, the other. And I'm talking about, oh yeah, board meeting and bylaws. And they're like,

[00:50:24] are you some sort of mystical? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, we are still a non-profit. We still operate like every other one. And ask questions, reach out to the organizations.

[00:50:39] If it's not to us, to the way of fire and ice and Ryan Smith, there's lots of really great groups and people you can reach out to and talk to and ask questions. I mean, I, like I said,

[00:50:52] if you're in the Facebook, I'm in there. Find me, ask me questions. I'm happy to answer anything you want to know. Cause that's the thing I want you guys to know me. Like, I want, I want you guys to know us and to see that we're just,

[00:51:09] we're just normal people with a different faith, but we really want, you know, we want the same things. We want a good life. We want, you know, good education for our kids, safe neighborhoods, cheap groceries, cheap gas,

[00:51:24] you know, to never hear about Elon Musk again. We want what everyone else wants. I love it. Well, Lauren, delightful as always to speak with you. Thank you so much for coming on

[00:51:36] and discussing all of this. And yeah, we will include links to the troth in our show notes. So definitely check it out if you are interested. And we're also linked to your podcast.

[00:51:48] Yes. And thank you guys so much. Hopefully I won't have to come on and discuss this again because you know, I believe it's this week that they're having the, the hearings on, Oh, it's not this week. I pushed out again. I can't know.

[00:52:01] It was supposed to be last week. Last week. Yeah. I mean, the Odinism hopefully I won't have to be on to those squash the Odinism thing. And then I won't have to talk about this much more. You can go back to focusing on your board meetings.

[00:52:14] Yeah, exactly. Thank you guys so much. We'd like to thank Lauren for taking the time to speak with us today. As we mentioned, we will include links to the troth website and her podcast in our show notes.

[00:52:27] We encourage you to check them out. Thanks so much for listening to the murder sheet. If you have a tip concerning one of the cases we cover, please email us at murder sheet at gmail.com. If you have actionable information about an unsolved crime,

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[00:53:09] slash murder sheet. We very much appreciate any support. Special thanks to Kevin Tyler Greenlee, who composed the music for the murder sheet, and who you can find on the web at kevintg.com. If you're looking to talk with other listeners about a case we've covered,

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