Blue mountain cult.

[Gob]

When his wife, Kylie, joined a small Christian study group in the Blue Mountains near Sydney, Nathan Zamprogno had no idea his life was about to change forever.
By Tim Elliott.

Most horror stories begin ordinarily enough - the comfortable home, the happy family, the loving couple. And so it was with Nathan Zamprogno, who in 2008 was living with his wife, Kylie, and their five-year-old son, Liam, in Richmond, a small town at the foot of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney. Nathan and Kylie had met as teenagers in a local church group, and had been married almost 10 years. He was 35; she was 33. They drove a station wagon and played soccer on Saturdays. Nathan worked nearby, at Wycliffe Christian School, where he was the IT specialist; Kylie, who had studied nursing, was waiting to start at Nepean Hospital as an administrator in the emergency department.

Life, as Nathan saw it, was good. "There wasn't a day that we didn't wake up and count our blessings," he says.

Slightly built, with thin, sandy-brown hair and a large nose, Nathan is an unusual, some would say eccentric, character, with a default expression that is doleful and intense, like a real-life Leunig cartoon. He is almost compulsively civic-minded, having been involved with the Red Cross, the Rural Fire Service, the local library and community theatre. Despite being a lifelong Christian, he is also a rationalist, and lists among his passions public speaking, conservative politics and "extropianism" - a progressive philosophy that stresses ethical, intellectual and physical self-improvement.


Above all, he is an optimist. He is the first to admit, for example, that his marriage wasn't perfect. Kylie suffered regular bouts of mental illness, including postnatal depression in 2002. Despite being close to her mother, who lived a short drive away in the Blue Mountains, she often felt lonely. She suffered a breakdown in 2004, then another in 2006, when she threatened self-harm, and, according to Nathan, falsely claimed to have swallowed two packets of Panadol.

"Yet, with the help of family and friends, Kylie always got better," he says. Indeed, the couple had even decided to try for more children and had extended their mortgage to renovate the house.

In April 2008, with her job at Nepean Hospital yet to start, Kylie found work on the front desk at Wycliffe Christian School, where she met an older woman called Virginnia Donges. Donges, a mother of six, had worked as the school's first aid officer, and was well known in the community. One day she invited Kylie to join a Bible study group, weekly meetings of which were held at members' houses in the Blue Mountains. "Kylie wasn't a lady who made friends easily," says Nathan, "so I was pleased."

Soon the meetings began to run later and later. Kylie would often stay out past midnight, without any explanation. Sometimes she wouldn't come home at all. When Nathan tried to call her, he would receive a text message, usually from Donges, saying that Kylie would "be home in the morning".

Nathan became increasingly worried: Kylie had been anxious about her new job, and had been showing signs of another depressive episode. But he was unsure what to do. "Kylie would take our only car, and I had a five-year-old in bed," he says. "I couldn't just take off after her." Besides, he told himself that she was in good hands: he knew Donges from her work at the school, and the group's other members seemed equally reputable.

On January 4, 2009, however, Kylie left for another meeting, telling Nathan she would be back for dinner. Liam and Nathan waved her off. "She never came back," he says.



Story continues here;

[rubato]

Those idiot 'recovered memories' assholes claim another victim.

yrs,
rubato

[Econoline]

I thought this was going to be a thread about coffee.

[dales]

[rubato]

Yeah, me too. I only ever bought Blue Mountain coffee for myself once back in the 70s. Very nice. But since then I've only bought it as gifts for other people.

yrs,
rubato