Deadly Cults

I went inside, and Emily

- I went inside, and Emily says, "Sara, Trisha's dead."

- Another person associated with Lou Castro has died.

- The people disappearing started making it strange.

- He controlled who lived and who died.

Was this some sort of a cult?

- Lou Castro is this master manipulator.

- We all believed he had these powers,

and he was actually an angel.

- He's on to what I'm trying to do.

He could easily disappear.

- He said, "If you ever tell anybody what goes on out here,

I will kill your dad."

We need to arrest Luke Castro

before the next person dies.

When people think of Kansas,

they think of mostly flat plains and rural areas.

Wichita is the largest metropolitan city

in the state of Kansas,

but it really has something of a small town feel.

I've been writing for "The Eagle" for nine years,

and one of the things

I've learned through crime reporting

is how very much real life is not like what you see on TV.

They're more often telling the stories

that create the greatest impact in people's lives.

In 2003,

you know, I was interested in the narcotics investigations.

One of the guys I worked with began to tell me about

this guy that we knew as Lou Castro

that lived on a small acreage up north of Wichita

called Angel's Landing.

They had unexplained wealth.

Being a narcotics detective, you want to look at that.

It's an indicator that there may be drugs involved.

- These people were outsiders, you know, moving in.

They were all driving, like,

close to a million dollars in expensive vehicles.

- On the property at Angel's Landing,

the initial house and 10 acres were purchased

on paper by Patricia Hughes.

And then the adjoining 10 acres were purchased,

and then two more houses were built.

They were placed almost like a compound.

It was very unusual.

And then I started looking

at the vehicles that were registered there.

All the vehicles had personalized license tags

of angel 1 through 8.

I saw the similarity with the angel tag

and Angel's Landing.

So the angel thing means something to these people.

Is this some sort of a cult?

- When I was younger, my mom always talked about angels.

She always told my sister and I

that there's just angels living among us

and that they protect you.

So, it all made sense as to why

my mom chose to have us living at Angel's Landing

with an actual angel.

At Angel's Landing we were all like one big happy family.

Here is Jennifer, my mom.

She loved everybody.

She was always really put together.

Never really lost her cool.

And then, there was Trish.

Trish was like the matriarch or the boss.

She was very loving and caring

and a protector.

She was like another mother to my sister and I.

And then Brian, her husband, he was just very sweet.

And then Dave. He was like a big teddy bear.

In 2003, I met Brian.

Him and I were working at the same construction company.

Brian was a pretty laid back, easy going kind of person.

I came out here to the Angel's Landing.

They had a barbeque. That's how I kinda met Trish.

Trish was kind of a fun-loving person.

She was always laughing and making jokes.

Trish was always friendly to me.

Really, all of them were pretty friendly to me.

I moved out here to Angel's Landing.

I... lost my last wife,

and I didn't like being alone.

I didn't.

And then... this is Lou.

Lou created Angel's Landing

and brought more people together.

The first time I met Luke in 2001,

my mom introduced me to him.

She said, "He's one of my new clients."

My mom was a real estate agent.

But first she was just showing Lou around

to different properties.

And then it blossomed into a friendship

because they did spend a lot of time together

looking at different houses in Wichita.

My mom wrote about the first time she met Lou

in her journal.

"The first time I met Trish, Brian, and Lou,

"their innocence and trust of people

"in situations was a little alarming to me.

"I began to sense that I needed to watch out for them,

"more than I did other people.

"It was almost as if we had

"some sort of instant bond or connection

with my sole purpose being their protector."

So I was like 15 or 16,

and all of a sudden, my parents are fighting.

I remember my mom saying,

"I don't like living so far away from Lou.

I think we should just move out there with him."

"Trish used to tell me,

"'People say you can't choose your family,

"but that's what we did.

"You could come with us.'

"I thought, 'She must be joking, '

"but I was amazed at myself.

"I was actually considering it and thinking the same thing

as I stared at each one of them."

And then my mom divorced my dad.

I was very angry with my mom for tearing our family apart.

And so, my mom, my sister, and I moved here

to Wichita with Lou.

Lou was the head boss.

Second in command was Trish.

Lou and Trish had been family since they were teenagers.

When we first moved in to Angel's Landing,

I didn't really like Lou.

I didn't really like him at all.

Lou was trying so hard to be this cool person,

and just, like, really trying to win my sister and I over.

But I think my mom was fascinated by the fact

that he was saying he was actually an angel.

He could tell you, supposedly, when you're going to die.

And because of Lou, you would come back.

At first I didn't believe him.

But Trish had told us that at one point in time,

Lou got real sick, and he died

and then came back to life.

So, I assumed that Lou had these powers

because Trish actually witnessed it,

and she's telling me about it.

So, it must be true.

The women around me that I admired,

like my mom and Trish, you know, if you asked them,

"Hey, what do you think of Lou?

Do you trust him with everything?"

They'd say, "Well of course, 100%, he's a great guy.

He wants nothing but the best for us."

And if you would have asked me at that time

what I thought of Lou, I would have given you the same answer.

We all believed Lou had these powers.

He was the reason why everybody came together

at Angel's Landing.

- I think it's really important for people to understand

that all of these people had vulnerabilities in their lives.

Lou Castro was going to be the answer

to whatever struggle or tragedy they had in their life.

He also made sure that all the members of Angel's Landing

had their needs met.

They had this material wealth.

- When I first came here, I thought,

"Okay, Lou must have money."

I didn't think that was unusual.

- We lived this extravagant lifestyle.

And it was fun

to have all that stuff.

But there was always a price to pay

for that stuff.

One day it was Trish,

my sister,

Lou and I.

After lunch, Lou and I are gonna go to the dealership

to get a new car.

I was driving.

I get a phone call from my sister, and she screams,

"Sara, get home right now!

Trish fell in the pool."

And I said, "I'm on my way."

I pull up to the driveway, and I run inside.

And Emily is just... crying.

And she says, "Sara, Trisha's dead."

After Patricia died,

it appeared to be nothing more than an accidental drowning.

She had slipped and fallen and hit her head.

There was a mark on her forehead

that had corroborated what had happened.

But I was suspicious because

it was on this property of Angel's Landing.

Lou talked about death

and how going to the other side was the ultimate goal.

I don't think that it could have been an accident.

- Maybe they aren't involved in narcotics trafficking.

It seemed like Lou was suggesting that

people kill themselves.

- Angel's Landing by this time was known for two things:

money that no one could explain the source of

and the death of Patricia Hughes.

Initially, Patricia Hughes' death