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This is episode seven in our series on Sherry Schreiner. A quick reminder to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts if you haven't already. Also, you can email us your thoughts, feedback, or a suggestion for a future opportunist by emailing theopportunist at castmedia.com.
This episode contains disturbing content, including mention of suicide and murder. Listener discretion advised. The National Suicide Prevention Hotline is open 24-7 at 1-800-273-8255. That's 1-800-273-8255.
Sherry said many, many times over the years that she was being attacked by aliens, by snipers that she said were in her yard, the mainstream media, but also just by people online. You know, the haters. You know, I have to tell my kids, don't pay attention to that stuff. My husband, they get angry. They get angry. Everybody has haters.
And they see these videos, Sherry Shrine is an alien, and all these lies about me in all these videos. I think that's what gets my kids the most, is that these people call themselves Christians while they make hateful, lying videos about other Christians. I have to explain to them, you know, those are Satan's henchmen. Those are Satan's people posing.
Sherry always portrayed herself as the victim, not the villain. Of course, most people don't see themselves as the villain of their own story.
On May 30th, 2017, Stephen Mineo called 911. I spoke with an officer from the Pocono Mountain Police Department, and he remembers that 911 call from Stephen.
He didn't want to be interviewed on tape. But he told me that the day that Stephen called 911, they sent an officer to Stephen's apartment to talk with him. Stephen was worried that someone was in the area, took photos of his apartment, and was planning to come back and kill him and Barbara. The police confirmed that the photos were actually screenshots from Google Maps. This wasn't a threat made by someone close by. It was made by someone on the Internet.
And it's very likely that it came from an Oregon warrior because along with the threats to drink Stephen's blood, the note also mentioned Queen Shaz, the Oregon warrior's name for Sherry. In the summer of 2017, the following events happened. First, in May, Sherry told Stephen to break up with Barbara. He wouldn't do it. Next, Sherry excommunicated both of them.
Then Stephen hurled himself into an attempt to discredit Sherry by making videos exposing her as a fraud. Stephen had built a following on YouTube and on his blog, and he wanted to use this platform to take Sherry down. I was able to get my hands on some of the audio that Stephen recorded during this time, and I'm going to play it for you. These are clips from the videos he made and the conversations he had while making them.
The Mike he's talking to is Mike Hall, former Oregon warrior. After Stephen was excommunicated, he asked Mike Hall to help him make the videos to discredit Sherry.
And at that point, it had been about six months since my call was kicked out, so his wounds were fresh, and he was more than happy to join Stephen in this mission. They sent voice recordings back and forth, and in the recordings, Stephen sounds distressed, and he mentioned that all of this was putting a strain on his relationship with Barbara. I'm starting to become concerned for my wife because she's kind of like saying that, you know, she's got to get through this too, and she's pretty strong. She's tougher, and...
But I just hope she doesn't give up on me. I don't think she's going to. I just got to be stronger. But yeah, you really helped us out a lot. And you're going to be my parents every day for this. Mia, I'm glad Barbara reached out to you. You really helped me in my life, man. All right? Y'all bless you so much for that. I thank the Most High for getting us together to help each other out. This recording indicates that Barbara was actually the one who reached out to Mike Hall, not Stephen.
I don't know why that is, but I can imagine that she saw how stressed Stephen was and thought that he might benefit from talking to someone who had gone through the same things that he was going through. It's not the only time that Stephen said something like this. Here's another recording in which Stephen thanked Mike.
And in this one, you can hear the stress of these events in Stephen's voice. I just want you to know, for the rest, for eternity, I'm always going to be thankful for you because you helped me out. You helped us out a lot, man. Sorry, I'm just a little emotional. All right, man. Y'all bless.
In the last weeks of his life, Stephen Mineo's obsession began to consume him. He wanted to expose Sherry Shriner, to take her down, whatever that meant. But he also wanted to prove that Barbara wasn't all the things that Sherry claimed that she was. And more than that, he wanted to prove it to the rest of the Oregon Warriors.
He wasn't trying to move on. He wasn't thinking about what his life was going to look like next, what his life would look like without Sherry Schreiner and the Oregon Warriors. There was seemingly no way forward for Stephen, but he didn't want a way forward. He wanted a way back. He wanted to magically turn back time and get a redo.
to convince Sherry to accept Barbara Rogers as his wife so that he could keep both Sherry and Barbara in his life. Realistically, I think Stephen knew this would never happen. So instead, he pursued revenge. And his relentless pursuit of that would be his undoing. From Cast Media, this is The Opportunist, a podcast about regular people who turn sinister simply by embracing opportunity. ♪
This is Episode 7 in our series on Sherry Schreiner. I'm Hannah Smith.
Dipsy is an app full of hundreds of short, sexy audio stories designed by women for women. They bring scenarios to life with immersive soundscapes and realistic characters. Discover stories about second-chance romances, adventurous vacation flings, and hot and heavy hookups. And there's even a growing library of fantasy series with vampires, Greek gods, and fairy smut to explore the bounds of your pleasure.
New content is released every week, so in between listening to your faves again and again and again, you can always find something brand new to explore. They also have soothing sleep stories, wellness sessions, and sexy written stories to read. Let Dipsy be your go-to place to spice up your me time, explore your fantasies, relax and unwind, and
or even heat things up with a partner. For listeners of the show, Dipsy is offering an extended 30-day free trial when you go to dipsystories.com slash OPP. That's 30 days of full access for free when you go to dipsestories.com slash OPP.
Winter is here, it is freezing, and I've got a way for you to heat things up. Warm up those chilly nights with Dipsy. Picture this, a cozy blanket, a crackling fireplace, maybe a glass of wine, you listening to a sexy fantasy audiobook.
Dipsy is an app full of hundreds of short, sexy audio stories designed by women for women. They bring scenarios to life with immersive soundscapes and realistic characters. Discover stories about second-chance romances, adventurous vacation flings, and hot and heavy hookups. And there's even a growing library of fantasy series with vampires, Greek gods, and fairy smut to explore the bounds of your pleasure.
New content is released every week, so in between listening to your faves again and again and again, you can always find something brand new to explore. They also have soothing sleep stories, wellness sessions, and sexy written stories to read. Let Dipsy be your go-to place to spice up your me time, explore your fantasies, relax and unwind, and
or even heat things up with a partner. For listeners of the show, Dipsy is offering an extended 30-day free trial when you go to dipsystories.com slash OPP. That's 30 days of full access for free when you go to D-I-P-S-E-A stories.com slash OPP. Dipsystories.com slash OPP. In May of 2017, Stephen Minia was hard at work trying to expose Sherry Schreiner as a fraud.
He concocted a plan with Mike Hall, and they sent voice messages back and forth for weeks, sharing their experiences of betrayal, looking for ways that they could expose Sherry.
I think they were also looking for answers. They grappled with a way to understand what they had both been through, at times hoping maybe it was all a spiritual test that they had to pass and then everything would be okay again. Yeah, you know, of course the main message is that this is strengthening our relationship with the both Thai. But man, the dust is still settling for me. And I'm still having like, every now and then I am breaking down a little bit.
You know, I'm trying not to let that happen. This is Mike's response to Steven. And that was hard to take, man. Really, really hard to take. But, you know, like, talking to you and then...
Mike and Stephen wondered if perhaps it had been part of Yaa's plan for them to get kicked out of the Oregon Warriors so that they could make these videos together and prevent anyone else from experiencing the turmoil that they had gone through. Then they thought of something else. Maybe Sherry wasn't who she said she was.
I just wanted to chime in and say, before I forget, that it piqued my interest that they said that Sherry has changed. I totally feel something happened to her, back with the whole heart attack BS and Richard BS.
Mike didn't say it outright, but the implication was that perhaps Sherry herself had been replaced by the New World Order. Maybe she was a clone. And it makes sense that he would wonder about that because for years, Sherry claimed that the New World Order was perpetually attacking her with the goal to kill and clone her.
But she always said she was surrounded by orgone and that the Most High was protecting her. Mike suggested that perhaps when Sherry had a heart attack at the end of 2015, when she was laying there vulnerable in the hospital bed recovering with no orgone in sight, perhaps the New World Order saw an opening and replaced her with a clone.
Because it was only a few months later, after the heart attack, that Sherry turned on Richard Brown, and then on Mike Hall, and then on Stephen Mineo. It almost sounds plausible, just in the sense that something could have happened to her. She was gone, replaced, and this replacement is weaning out all the true ones. Rich...
I would like to think, you know, but who knows? Intriguing, man. Intriguing shit. Holy fuck. Yeah, I know, man. She definitely is not her anymore. Something's definitely changed her. It was easier to believe that Sherry was a New World Order clone than it was to believe that their queen had actually betrayed them.
Something else that stood out to me while listening to these audio recordings is the way that Stephen talked, the words he used. His mission was to expose Sherry, but he used the phrase, "'Ya bless," and he referenced his relationship with the Most High."
Those are Sherry Shriner's words. It's the same thing Richard Brown did when he recorded that video in his backyard shortly after Sherry said he was a clone, when he stood next to the Orgone blasters and showed his face. He was using Sherry Shriner's logic, Sherry Shriner's doctrine, you know, that Orgone burns clones, to try to prove Sherry Shriner wrong.
He still understood the world within the terms that Sherry defined for him. He couldn't see outside of it yet. And neither could Stephen. Sherry was so much more to Stephen than someone he admired. She represented his future, his faith. Stephen had planned his whole life around being an Oregon warrior and preparing for the end of the world. He didn't have a backup plan.
And once he realized that Sherry was lying about Barbara, he wondered what else she was lying about. But he was also kind of stuck in between, holding on to his faith and losing it. No, I'm just confused. Like, so it seems like she's doing good, but then why would she be saying these lies towards us? So is she really hearing from the father or is she just making all this up? Stephen released his first anti-Sherry video on May 29th.
It didn't have the effect he was hoping for. So he reached out to Richard Brown. Richard was personal friends with Sherry, and Stephen knew that. Richard agreed to let Stephen interview him on tape. And on June 2nd, Stephen published another YouTube video. This one was titled, Interview with Richard Brown. He was one of Sherry Schreiner's hardcore supporters. The second video Stephen released had about the same impact as the first, which means hardly any at all.
His dreams of dismantling the Oregon Warriors through his YouTube videos was not working. Then Sherry responded to these videos on one of her radio shows. This is from June 5th, 2017. I know people have to wade through a hundred hate videos or maybe even a thousand. I heard there are more hate videos out there about me than Alex Jones. You know, they put these videos out
About how there's such great Christians and they quote scripture? Then why are they spewing lies and hate against a sister, you know? Where's their forgiveness if they think I've wronged them? Sherry went on to defend her character like this.
I've never been arrested. I don't have an arrest record. I'm not a violent person. I'm more of a lamb. There's lions and there's lambs, and I'm a total lamb. I don't have the energy to be mean to anybody. This was June 5th. Sherry called herself a lamb. But then she went on to say that the Most High would strike down her haters. And so it's incredible all the hate they put out. I've been her biggest supporter for, what, five years? I talk to you once a month.
It's not all that surprising to me at this point that Stephen's videos didn't work. If Sherry's words were the words of God, how do you compete with that? But Stephen didn't see that.
He thought if only the Oregon Warriors could understand what he was going through. If they could see how Sherry betrayed him, they would rally behind him. That's the saddest part to me. He really believed that there was a chance that he could convince the Oregon Warriors that Sherry was wrong about Barbara being a witch. There was never a chance. He had one more plan to take Sherry down, and he had everything riding on it.
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That's promo code OPP for $25 off your first box at dailyharvest.com. Dailyharvest.com. For the last months of Stephen's life, he was consumed with this war against Sherry Schreiner. What was really going on with that? What led him to become so obsessed?
You never really know what Stephen Meneo felt during that time. But we can look at the experiences of other people who have left cults. Hi, I'm Rick Allen Ross, not to be confused with the rapper Rick Ross. And I am a judicially qualified court expert on authoritarian high control groups. Rick is a cult expert. He's often brought in to testify in court cases involving cults.
He recently testified in the NXIVM case. But I think what's even more interesting about Rick's work is that he helps people mentally transition out of cults.
He calls it deprogramming. I deprogrammed five medical doctors. One was an orthopedic surgeon. One was a cardiologist. Another was an anesthesiologist. So I think people need to disabuse themselves of the idea that only stupid, damaged, crazy people get involved in these cults.
Rick's method is to teach his client, the person leaving the cult, the basic elements of a cult, and then to draw parallels to the experience that they've been living. Rick identifies three basic attributes to a destructive cult. One, a totalitarian leader. Two, that leader uses thought reform to gain influence over the members. And three, that leader uses the influence to exploit the members.
And I asked Rick how long it takes to deprogram someone. Well, Hannah, it usually takes three to four days, eight hours a day. So we're talking about 24 to 32 working hours. And my success rate has been about 70%.
Three to four eight-hour days. And still, 30% of the people walk out before the session is complete and return to the cult. For those that stay and successfully deprogram, Rick said there is a common factor. Usually they'll stay because the family is there and the family is really using moral suasion and they're in, you know, the love of the family to keep the person there.
And Stephen didn't have any support like this. He didn't have anyone to help him through this enormous struggle and mental shift going on in his life. Not only that, but he and Barbara were physically isolated in rural Pennsylvania, and they were socially isolated from the Oregon Warriors, who had acted as Stephen's social life and community for years at that point.
Imagine, for a moment, if all of your friends turned on you all at once. All of them. Your entire community decided not to be friends with you anymore. And then they called your partner an evil monster. And then they sent you death threats. Just imagine that for a moment. Because that is what Steven Mineo was going through.
Is there any insight you can give us as to what a person would be experiencing when they're in that state? And especially with no support.
In fact, a very large portion of the people that lead destructive cults do so in the way that you've described Steve did. That is, they get tossed out, they get pushed out, but they blame themselves. They think there's something wrong with me. Though the leader may throw you out, you feel that you're a failure.
Rick said that people in this situation often beat themselves up because they feel like failures, even if it wasn't their decision to leave the cult. And usually the group or the cult that they left taught that that group was the way that they would be able to access heaven or the highest planes of awareness. And so they no longer have access to that. And that can lead a person to experience a real fear for the state of their soul.
That, along with feelings of failure, feeling like they failed God, failed themselves, failed their previous leader, that can all lead someone to become very depressed.
It's possible that Stephen was experiencing some of these feelings because he spoke about his mental anguish and having breakdowns. And it's also possible that Stephen's inability to convince any of the other Oregon warriors that Sherry was a fraud compounded his feelings of failure and depression.
And without seeking another perspective and getting counseling and unpacking the experience, it can be very debilitating and can lead to suicide. And there have been many people who have killed themselves that have left groups like you're describing. Stephen worked on a third video, a final video to discredit Sherry Schreiner.
But this time, he needed something that could really hurt her, really bring her down. He needed dirt on Sherry Shriner. He'd heard rumors about her personal life, that she was hypocritical, that she smoked cigarettes and ate shrimp, two things that she told the Oregon Warriors not to do.
And if anyone could confirm these rumors, it was Richard Brown. After all, he had eaten dinner at her house. He had traveled with her. So Stephen reached out to Richard and asked him for personal dirt. But even after everything that she did to him, Richard Brown refused to reveal any personal information about Sherry to Stephen. He said, no, let's keep it about the ministry, not about her personal life.
But Stephen was losing patience. He was becoming desperate and agitated. You could hear it in the audio recordings. I know it's hard. I know it's hard. I've been supporting her for 14 years. You realize how fucked up this is? What she did to us?
This is Richard Brown.
At this point, Richard had been an ex-orgone warrior for a year. He'd had time to think about his involvement with Sherry, to process it. Stephen was just at the beginning of it all, and he was angry and upset, so much so that Richard threatened to cut ties with him. These are the messages that Stephen and Richard Brown sent to each other in late June. You realize the mental torture she gives people? Dude, I...
I had suicidal thoughts. I felt like killing myself over this.
And I want to prevent that something. Yeah, I'm exposing right now that happened. I felt like killing myself because of her, but I was strong enough to get through it because the most high his son or the main thing in my life. And I want to prevent other people from getting in to that crap. Steve, you'll be more level headed. You have to let the anger simmer. You have to recognize Steve that, you know what? All you're doing is you're playing her game. You know,
Demons come and attack those who are angry, just so you know. They attack those who are angry. So that's why I stopped listening to her shows. That's why I stopped reading her articles, so that I could get myself together and be a better person. And that's what you have to do. As Stephen became more worked up and more agitated, Richard Brown advised him to step away and just give it up. Just give it up with Sherry, just like Richard had done a year ago.
Walk away, he said. Figure out another way to live your life. But Stephen could not do that. He begged Richard to just give him some dirt on Sherry, anything that would expose her as a hypocrite. This is a message he sent to Richard.
I mean, why make it difficult for me? Why not just, you know, I just want to say what you know exactly. You know, she's being a hypocrite about Barbara's food post when she's eating shrimp and all this. Whatever you know, I just want to know. Just get it out. Get it off your chest. Let's all move on with our lives.
But the more Stephen pushed, the more reluctant that Richard became to be involved with Stephen at all. Obviously, you've been under her power just as long as me. So you don't understand it. I'm out. I'm shutting you down. You ain't got to talk to me no more. I'm tired. I've got other things to worry about. I'm out, bro. For good. Richard was done. He walked away. Listening to these recordings...
I wonder what it was like for Stephen and Barbara in those months together, going through this in their apartment in rural Pennsylvania.
Stephen and Barbara shared a twin bed in a small studio apartment on a dead-end street. I imagine Stephen spending his days making audio recordings for Mike or Richard, editing his anti-Sherry videos, talking about Sherry Schreiner, thinking about Sherry Schreiner, totally consumed with his obsessive mission to destroy her, oscillating between feeling hopeful that he could in fact take her down and
and then feeling completely depressed over the whole thing. Sometimes he involved Barbara in his videos, but she always seemed reluctant to take part.
After Barbara was arrested, the police detained her and questioned her for seven hours.
During that time, she said that Stephen hired a private detective to look into Sherry Shriner and get dirt on her. I wasn't able to determine if that was true. Barbara also mentioned that Stephen was at times suicidal. He mentioned that that Sherry Shriner woman left him suicidal. He used to follow her. He used to be really close to her. And then one day she just turned on him and...
I can't explain it. He started up... So what did Sherry Schreiner have to say about suicide? Well, she said it was a sin. So it follows that Stephen Mineo also believed it was a sin. But Sherry said that there was one instance in which suicide was acceptable, and that was in battle or if it was part of a larger good. She referenced Samson, a biblical story from the Book of Judges.
And we don't know about Samson because Samson they had captured, he was an incredibly strong Jewish soldier. The story goes that Samson had supernatural strength. Once, he tore apart a lion with his bare hands. And then, later, he killed 1,000 men with just the jawbone of a donkey. And the secret to Samson's strength was in his uncut hair. Samson fell in love with a woman named Delilah, a
a Philistine and an enemy of the Israelites. And one night, Samson told Delilah his secret, that if his hair was cut, all of his strength would disappear. And while he slept, Delilah betrayed him, cut his hair and turned him over to his enemies. They found out how to get rid of his strength, and so they chained him up.
When they were leading him into the temple, they were going to probably have some kind of huge sacrifice thing and humiliate and torture and torment and kill Samson. Samson's power was gone. The Philistines strung him up between two pillars in a temple. They gouged out his eyes. And Samson pleaded with God to return his strength for one final act of bravery. He would destroy the entire temple, filled with thousands of Philistines.
and by doing that, also destroy himself. You know, Samson knew standing under the pillars of that temple that when he pushed the main two pillars apart, he was going to die.
But he was on his way to his death when it happened. They were going to humiliate, harm, torture, and kill him, and preventing a greater humiliating and more torturous death. And that is justifiable suicide. Samson's desire to kill the Philistines is what gave him strength in his final hours. He chose to destroy himself in order to destroy his enemies. And like Samson pulling down the walls of the temple to crush the Philistines,
Stephen tried to ruin Sherry using the only weapon that he had, his YouTube videos. He was so blinded by his own obsession that he didn't even realize that he was destroying himself in the process. After Stephen died, Sherry was quick to romanticize their relationship, talking about how he was like a son to her. But before he died in those last few months, her tone was different.
This is from a show in June, during the time she was fighting with Stephen. They just try to get a rise out of you. They really do. I'm not your mother. I'm not your therapist. I'm not here to be your spiritual, psychic, or counselor. I am a prophet of the Most High. I speak for him. People want me to be their mother and their therapist and their psychologist and their psychiatrist. I don't have time for that. I'm here to wake up an army. So all you people find petty stuff.
If Stephen had followed Richard Brown's advice, if he had stopped listening to Sherry Talk Radio, stopped reading her websites or looking at what she wrote on Facebook, maybe things would have turned out differently. But Stephen couldn't stop.
And Sherry continued to post. On June 30th, she wrote, Oh, but I'm sure he'll continue to make his lying hate videos about me. He should be more concerned about his mouthy, vulgar, witch, reptile, blood-eating wife. And then she added Steve Mineo below that, just to be clear who she was talking about.
Sherry wrote another post claiming that Stephen was always afraid she would expose him for who and what he was. She implied that both Stephen and Richard were on the government's payroll. Sherry continued to post about Stephen, and Stephen continued to read her posts and then respond to them, fighting with the Oregon Warriors on Facebook.
The Facebook messages that Stephen exchanged with the Oregon Warriors were collected and presented as evidence in Barbara's trial. I wasn't able to get copies of them, but I asked Barbara's defense attorney, Richard Galloway, about these messages. I think both of them were fearful of the way it was getting published.
It was revving up and becoming more and more and more threatening to them physically as time went on. There was mention that there was something about like 6,000 back and forth messages on Facebook where he was arguing, you know, trying to defend Barbara, whatnot. Can you describe, because I don't have any of those, you know, screenshots or messages and his Facebook has been taken down. So I'd love to get an idea of kind of like what those conversations were like, if you remember. Yeah.
Well, some of them were simply telling the
the followers that they were like lemmings and they were listening to this woman. She was a phony. She was not, she had not been in heaven. That went back and forth. And when he would send that on social media, he would get a flurry of replies. Yes, she is the queen. You are terrible to say that. You ought to die. And you know about, you know, you ought to be bathed in blood, et cetera, et cetera.
On July 1st, 2017, Stephen posted his final video about Sherry Schreiner, and it didn't get much traction. Stephen was defeated. Not only had he failed to take Sherry down, he had failed with his hopeful career as a YouTuber. For 14 years, he had a singular focus, spread orgone around the world and prepare for the apocalypse. And Sherry Schreiner was his guiding light.
And now, all of that was gone. This is from Sherry's show on July 11, 2017, four days before Stephen died. And hello, everybody. Welcome to the show. I'm Sherry Schreiner. A couple things I want to talk about today. You know, the father's had me on two things lately. One is the pole flip, and one is...
Those who have crept in unawares. And so, not exactly unawares, we've been on their butts for years. The pole flip is the idea that the earth will flip. The North and South Poles switching places, which will be a sign of the end of the world. Sherry talked about the pole flip a lot. The second thing she mentioned was infiltrators into the Oregon Warriors.
I don't think it's too far-fetched to assume she was talking about Stephen Mineo. He was a prepper, and also, he called his blog posts bunker reports. You cannot urinate on his people.
And then expect it just to smell like a rose. He's not going to let you get away with it. There's always judgment coming. And for a lot of you, it's coming. And for a lot of us, we pray that it comes and speed it up. Okay. You can be the lamb, and you can pray for the forgiveness and salvation. You can't do that for these fallen beings because they're not even human. This was Sherry's age-old trick. You can be as mean as you want to someone, as long as they're not a human.
You can pray for their destruction and their demise, as long as you just tell everyone they're a witch or a reptilian or a clone or an FBI agent. Things had clearly gotten more intense with the fighting between her and Stephen. Remember, just a few weeks before, Sherry called herself a lamb. But you can be the lamb and do that. Or you can be the lion and pray for their destruction. Me, I prefer the lion because I'm done being lamb to enemies. It doesn't work.
On the evening of July 14th, 2017, Stephen was reading comments about Barbara on Facebook, like he did many days. But I guess that night, he was particularly upset. Hours later, this is what Barbara would tell the police about the beginning of that night. Okay, it all started. I know that we were on Facebook, and I think this might have been what triggered it. He saw a bunch of bad comments from somebody named Marion,
that, you know, that I'm a witch and a reptile. Barbara estimated that Stephen was looking at Facebook around 7 or 8 p.m. And then...
When he saw it, that he was just somebody who uploads crappy videos to YouTube. And I think when he saw it, he got really angry and he commented like a whole bunch of comments. And I kept telling him, look, just forget the whole thing. Don't worry about it. Stephen and Barbara decided to walk down to Lombardi's, the local bar, to grab some dinner and a drink. Barbara wanted Stephen to get out of the apartment to clear his head, and she hoped that going to the bar would help him cool off and forget about his feud with the Oregon Warriors on Facebook.
You know, we sat there, we had fun, and he seemed normal. You know, we were having fun, you know, we had like one or two drinks, you know, and everything was well. Stephen and Barbara stayed at the bar until closing time, 2 a.m., and then walked home. When they got back from the bar, Stephen got agitated again. He was upset about the things the Oregon Warriors were writing about Barbara online. Okay, and then when we came home...
He goes, you know, I need to practice shooting my gun. He goes, come walk with me into the woods. So Stephen and Barbara went out to the woods behind their apartment. Stephen loaded his gun and shot it three times into the woods. Then he handed the gun to Barbara and she shot it one time.
This was a common stress reliever for Stephen, to shoot his gun or set off fireworks. Although it's perhaps a sign that his judgment was impaired that he decided to shoot his gun at that hour. And Stephen and Barbara did have neighbors who told the police later that the shots woke them up, but they didn't think too much of it and went back to sleep. I spoke with Andrew Kreckle, a prosecutor in Barbara's trial.
So they were, before they go inside, they were outside. Stephen was all upset. And I guess when you get upset, you'd want to shoot his gun. And that made him feel better. He fired off three shots just randomly into the woods. Barbara said he made her shoot one. We did find four shell casings and the neighbor heard four shots. So I think that part of the story is true. And then they go inside and Barbara said that when Stephen would get upset like that, he would pull all of his...
doomsday things out or prepper things out. He had a bulletproof vest. He had combat boots. He had a whole box of MREs, military-style meals. He had a bag, I believe. He had the gun and he had a box of ammunition out. It was the early morning hours of July 15th, 2017.
Barbara and Stephen both had had a couple of drinks at the bar. They were also taking Kratom, a drug that is technically legal in Pennsylvania, but the FDA has advised consumers not to buy it, and there's currently legislation in the works to ban it. Barbara had ordered it online and would later regret this decision.
Kratom is touted by some preppers as being this sort of cure-all drug that big pharma doesn't want us to have access to. It's made from the leaves of a type of evergreen tree that grows in Southeast Asia. And it hasn't really been widely studied. But some claim that it has the same effect as caffeine in small doses. But in large quantities, it's said to act more like heroin. And it reportedly can cause psychosis in some people.
Stephen's blood was later tested, and he had a blood alcohol content of 0.15, which is twice the legal driving limit in Pennsylvania, and is probably about three to four drinks. He also had a very high level of kratom in his blood. We got Stephen's blood, and he had over 400 nanograms of metragynine or the kratom in his blood, which toxic levels range anywhere from 20 nanograms to 600-something nanograms. So he was way higher.
Exactly what happened next, we'll never know.
If you asked the prosecution, they would say Stephen and Barbara had been arguing all night that it had been months leading up to this moment, Stephen's obsession growing and growing, and Barbara was getting more and more fed up with it. And then in a drunken, drug-fueled, angry moment that night, she grabbed Stephen's gun, which was still loaded from when they shot it outside earlier. She put the gun right up to his forehead and pulled the trigger, instantly killing him.
Barbara Rogers told a different version of what happened. So then, you know, we walked back into the house. All of a sudden, he took the gun and started putting it into my hand. He goes, here, take it. Point it at me. Point it. He just starts grabbing it and saying, you know, he put it in my hand. And he goes, point it at me and shoot it right now. That's when it went off, right there. What we definitely know to be true is that Stephen Mineo died in the early morning hours of July 15th, 2017.
At 2.20 a.m., Barbara Rogers called 911 to report his death. My boyfriend, he had a gun and he grabbed me and he told me, here, put this here, he grabbed me and he told me, here, press this trigger. Oh my God, he's dead.
No matter what you think happened, that night changed Barbara's life forever. For her, it was only the beginning of the nightmare that would follow. ♪
Next time on The Opportunist, our final episode in the Sherry Schreiner series. But if he had jammed the gun into his head the way they said he did, that type of gun would not have fired. Considering the fact that she put the gun...
right in the middle of his forehead. What more for intent do you need? You know, he just put it in my, it's like the second he put it in my hand, it just, you know, I moved and it just went off. With me, you've changed your story a half a dozen times already. Well, I'm, I'm,
I'm under trauma from everything that's happened. I remembered him standing. We did move to have her whole entire statement thrown out based on its duration, intoxication, interrogation tactics. Why would you go to that length, though, Sherry? Why would you go to that length to find out who she was? I love Steve. And I just could tell you, it's a mother's instinct, whatever you want to call it, that this woman was no good. This girl was no good.
The Heartaches The Heartaches overtook and you had someone made you oh so blue. If not, you've got a lot to look forward to. The Opportunist is a cast original podcast. It's produced by myself and Kate Mays. Editing, sound design, mixing and mastering by Matt Sewell.
Colin Thompson is our executive producer, music editor, and supervisor. Story development help from Jennifer Krohn. Our podcast art is by Code of Arms. The Opportunist is written by me, Hannah Smith. Original script and some interviews by Tony Rousseau. Thank you to everyone at Cast Media for your feedback and support. The ending credits song is A Lot to Look Forward to by Lester Norton. Doesn't matter anymore
Someday when someone says to you, darling, you and I are through, you'll see what you have to look forward to.
