The Guardian

‘He took everything away’: inside a depraved and devastating sex cult

In the fall of 2010, a group of sophomores at Sarah Lawrence College, a small liberal arts school 12 miles north of New York City, moved into a campus building called Slonim Woods 9. It was a laid-back college house – dirty kitchen, a lot of hanging out and being high, a half-thought plan to dump sand in one room and make a beach. So it was weird when one of the roommates, Talia Ray, invited her dad, Lawrence “Larry” Ray, to crash on their couch after he was released from prison on vague charges, but not, as several explain in a new Hulu docuseries, that weird. Ray made steak dinners, regaled his daughter’s friends with tales of his time in the marines and psy-ops for the CIA, promised to help some maximize their potential. It was off-putting to some, entrancing to others.

Over the course of several months, Ray seemed to gain control over several of the housemates – first his daughter Talia’s

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