"Compassion is ethics, Detective." -- Joel Theriot to Rust Cohle
Joel Theriot was a preacher educated through the Tuttle Ministries. While he was enthusiastic about his work when interviewed in 1995 by Rust Cohle and Marty Hart, he later discovered some of the activities of the Tuttle Cult, suffered a crisis of faith and had become an alcoholic by 2002.
History[]
Joel Theriot was educated through the Tuttle Ministries, and started preaching in 1975, starting with an independent evangelical church before settling with the Friends of Christ congregation in 1987. They were in a physical church, but it was burned down in September-October 1994, forcing the Friends of Christ to go on the road as a Revival tent. This church site was later used by Errol Childress for painting a mural of one of his victims.
By 2002, Theriot had quit the Friends of Christ to run a thrift store, becoming an alcoholic.