For a year and a half, Elizabeth G. had been living with a high-control, dangerous cult founded by a convicted rapist. But it was in a hospital bed, laying under her mother's watchful eye, that was her greatest torture. At 5'10'' and just under 110 pounds, Elizabeth's weight loss and daily panic attacks had become so acute that even her housemates — members of the notorious Providence cult, a Christian religious group founded in Korea in 1978 — couldn't spiritualize it anymore. They reluctantly allowed her mother to take her to the emergency room, where the attending physician found her at risk of heart failure if she didn't get medical help.
Elizabeth — who prefers to keep her surname anonymous for safety reasons — was at her parent's home for several weeks recovering when she got a visit from her uncle. Walking in right behind him in a suit and carrying a briefcase was a man she didn't recognize, a man her mother had secretly paid and flown in from the United States: Rick Ross, a cult deprogrammer.
