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Discovery Investigation to air Rulo-cult story

Investigation Discovery will be airing the story of a Rulo, Nebraska, cult in the program “Evil Lives Here,” at 9 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 22.

The focus of the piece is Dennis Ryan, the son of cult leader Michael Ryan, who was convicted of second-degree murder in the torture and death of James Thimm, a follower who the elder Ryan felt was turning against him.

The story of the cult was documented in the book “Evil Harvest,” written by Hiawatha, Kansas, native Rod Colvin. The cult was a group of around 20 adults and several children who followed Michael Ryan on a farm near Rulo.

The elder Ryan met the owner of the farm, Rick Stice, and his wife, Sondra, at a meeting of followers of James Wickstrom in Hiawatha. Wickstrom was an anti-Semitic preacher who believed in the extremist and anti-tax group Posse Comitatus. Sondra Stice died in 1983, and after that, Rick Stice allowed Ryan and his followers to live on the farm.

The cult was an anti-Semitic group that believed Armageddon was coming. The group stockpiled weapons and food. Ryan called himself their king, and his son, Dennis, was considered the prince.

Michael Ryan believed Thimm and Rick Stice’s son, Luke, then only 5, were starting to question his teachings. Both were tortured in weeks leading to their deaths.

Michael Ryan was given a death sentence for the April 1985 murder of Thimm, and he also was convicted in the second-degree murder of Luke Stice.

Rick Stice eventually fled the farm, which was raided in June 1985, not long after the murders. Two months later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation joined the case in another raid, and the bodies were uncovered from their shallow graves on the farm.

Rick Stice eventually joined the prosecution as a witness and provided information in the case against Michael and Dennis Ryan and three followers, Timothy Haverkamp, James Haverkamp and John David Andreas. The latter two were later released and in 2009, Timothy Haverkamp was paroled.

Dennis Ryan, only 16 at the time of the murders, initially was sentenced to life for his part in Thimm’s murder. A legal loophole allowed him a new trial, but he was released in 1997 after pleading guilty to manslaughter.

Michael Ryan died in 2015 of brain cancer after serving on Nebraska’s death row since 1986. His death came just days after state legislators in Nebraska dissolved the death penalty there.

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