Breaking the Satanic Code of Silence
Pastor Dale Morgan
Breaking the Satanic Code of Silence*
Nikki Russo speaks out concerning abduction by witches 20 years ago
By Bob Morgan
(Created: Thursday, October 4, 2007 12:02 PM CDT)
Nikki Russo's story began in southern California. The most recent
chapter in that story is taking place here, in the central Baldwin
County area, where she and her husband have settled.
This mark on Nikki Russo's forearm represents the "Code of Silence" that
members bore who were part of a witches' coven into which she was
initiated as a teen. The mark was made by means of a hot needle. Nikki's
face is not shown in connection with this story at her request. Bob
Morgan/Staff Photo
"He's tired," she said of her husband. "He's been very patient. He was
born and raised in Alabama and has a hard time understanding how this
could happen."
They met in Georgia after Nikki left California. Nikki was in what she
calls the "victim witness protection" program in California after the
details of her abduction came to light. She left California in 1993 and,
in so doing, left the program as well.
Over the past eight years they have moved "10 or 11 times," Nikki said,
that being the reason for her husband's weariness.
He wasn't told early on the story of Nikki's abduction. He started
asking questions when he saw athletic trophies she had that bore another
name, Nikki's real name.
She wanted to play women's basketball for Pepperdine University.
As a teen and All-State basketball player in California, the goal was
certainly within the realm of possibility. What happened to her,
however, came instead from the realm of nightmares, and Nikki Russo is
still coping with the memories of the horrors she endured for two years
at the hands of a coven of witches.
Today, the 35-year-old copes daily with the memories of a shadowy
religion whose doctrines included physical and sexual abuse, drugs,
alcohol and self-mutilation. She was 16 at the time. Equally disturbing
is the realization the practitioners back then - the witches - were what
Nikki calls today "educated beings."
They were doctors and nurses; one was a psychiatrist, another an air
traffic controller; 12 adults all total in her "circle." Indeed, it was
a nurse who left a medical facility with Nikki, falsified reports and
incorporated the teen into "The Brotherhood," a dark religion of
white-collar types who, Nikki said, moved her from place to place at
night for two years within a multi-county area of southern California.
At the end, when she was 18 and weighing a scant 90 pounds, they put the
six-footer out on a freeway. She had gotten a little too sassy and
confrontational for The Brotherhood by then, she said recently.
So, why tell her story now?
Nikki's answer has to do with her future and, at the same time, being
able to go back to California and face the horror of the past.
THE PAST
Nikki is candid in saying that her family was a dysfunctional one when
she was a child. Indeed, that's precisely the word she uses to describe it.
Somewhere around 1978 or 1979, when she was about 7, she was sexually
molested by a stepbrother. As she grew older, she didn't want to develop
physically as a female, thinking if she didn't that would thwart
advances from the male members of her family.
Thus, in May 1988, when she was admitted to the Charter Hospital of
Redlands, Calif., Eating Disorder Unit, Nikki said hers was a boyish figure.
According to Nikki, she really didn't have an eating disorder. She had
lost weight, but she was playing basketball and traveling with a
volleyball team.
"I was just busy," she said, but her mother pushed the eating disorder
issue.
Nikki's conjecture is that perhaps it was her boyish figure or the
vulnerability of a freshman high schooler that attracted the then
42-year-old female intake nurse at the hospital. Whatever, their meeting
would prove to be a fateful one for Nikki.
(The nurse's name, well-documented in news accounts of the incident in
California, is not used here at Nikki's request.)
From the first meeting with the intake nurse, a timeline of events,
according to Nikki, goes something like this:
After one meeting or therapy session in the Eating Disorder Unit, the
intake nurse told her parents that, since Nikki was the only underage
person in the group, she (the nurse) would meet with Nikki individually.
Nikki's parents were okay with the idea.
Aug. 6, 1988. The nurse introduced her to speedballing (mixing a
depressant and stimulant) and alcohol after the nurse removed her from
the hospital - illegally, Nikki said - and took her to her (the nurse's)
apartment. Nikki passed out and awoke covered in blood from her first
sexual encounter with the nurse.
Five days later, the nurse appeared at Nikki's house while her parents
were away. She brought orange juice and pizza. After one drink of the
juice, Nikki became unconscious. When her stepfather came home
unexpectedly, the nurse told him Nikki had attempted suicide. She was
transported to a hospital and stayed in the Intensive Care Unit for
several days.
"Being a R.N., she was able to '51-50' me - where the state holds you
for 72 hours," Nikki said. "During the 72 hours I had no contact with my
family. She then had me transferred to Wing 900 where the state held me
for an additional month."
Nikki contends that when she was transported to Wing 900 in a San
Bernardino hospital, what she calls a "large group of medical
professionals" along with the nurse kept her from her parents. She also
alleges that during the month's stay the nurse and her cult partner, who
worked with Child Protection Services in Riverside County, filed a false
report against her parents to gain temporary custody of her.
Her parents, in turn, filed a restraining order against the nurse but it
was dismissed when Nikki couldn't be present at the hearing due to the
hold the nurse had placed on her with the state.
The nurse left her job at the hospital and disappeared with Nikki,
eventually initiating Nikki into The Brotherhood as her property.
"I didn't realize I was even missing," Nikki said recently of the events
nearly 20 years ago.
According to Nikki, the nurse said her parents didn't want anything to
do with her; that "she legally owned me."
Over the two years she was in the cult, Nikki experienced countless
incidents of physical and sexual abuse during the occult practices.
Speed was the drug of choice since so many of the practitioners were in
the medical field, Nikki said. Alcohol was always prevalent during the
"circles" or ceremonies.
"The motive was to keep us obedient," she said.
"I encountered a lot of doctors and nurses and Child Protection Services
workers in these same occult practices. I learned later why it was so
very easy for them to separate me from my parents and vice versa. All
occult members in The Brotherhood had the 'Code of Silence' marked onto
their body. Mine is on the right inner side of my forearm."
Nikki's mark was burned into her arm with a hot needle. After she got
out of the coven of witches, during the time criminal and civil
proceedings were taking place in connection with The Brotherhood, Nikki
had a heart and wings tattooed on her upper arm. "Wings of freedom" she
calls it. She knew the wings would chafe members of The Brotherhood, she
said.
Gary N. Stern, an attorney in Los Angeles, calls Nikki's story one of
his most interesting cases.
He represented Nikki in a lawsuit against Charter Hospital of Redlands
and the intake nurse who worked there when Nikki was admitted as a teen.
"A difficult lawsuit," is the way Stern put it in a recent telephone
interview.
"Nikki was deposed over seven days," he said of the civil case, one he
called "heavily defended by Charter Hospital lawyers."
Of Nikki's testimony during the trial, Stern called her a "credible
witness overall."
According to Nikki, a gag order remains in place in connection with the
Charter Hospital civil case.
THE PRESENT
"I'm wanting to put closure to this and start the healing process,"
Nikki said during the interview for this story. "It's more anger than
anything. I still face challenges and repercussions from the things they
(The Brotherhood) have done."
One of those repercussions is living with the realization that she will
never be able to have children as a result of the sexual abuse.
Lots of things 20 years later have the capability of transporting her
back to the years with The Brotherhood. A song, hearing something on TV
that parallels her experience, even food can do that.
"Certain foods I just can't eat," she said.
Does she still feel threatened by The Brotherhood?
"They're definitely older (now). I don't think they still exist. When I
was 15 they seemed really powerful, but when you take the fear out of
it, they're not that powerful," Nikki said.
She feels safe here in Baldwin County. She works in communications in
the Baldwin County Sheriff's Office, a job for which Nikki is grateful.
Sheriff Huey "Hoss" Mack calls her a "great employee," one who conducts
training in communications for the department. Nikki has made the
sheriff aware of her story.
Nikki calls sharing her story here, a long way from California and the
personal nightmare she endured, a "gift." For her, it's about more than
personal closure.
She wants parents to understand how easily children can become victims,
even at the hands of professionals who characteristically instill trust
and confidence in people.
"I think the kids get dismissed sometimes, then the parents seem
surprised when something happens."
The last move Nikki made with The Brotherhood, prior to them putting her
out on the freeway, was to a house that had tin foil over the windows.
Several other juveniles were at the location, the oldest 18 or 19, the
youngest about 14, according to Nikki.
"I found out later that some of these kids were missing as well," Nikki
said.
It isn't parents only, however, whose lack of diligence results in kids
being victimized in Nikki's opinion.
"I don't see a lot of people in the kids' corners," she said, a
reference to the legal system where juvenile victims of abuse are concerned.
Her assessment of how the legal system in California worked for her once
the details of her years with the coven of witches came to light is a
blunt one: "They really dropped the ball. They pick anything and
everything apart to use against you. You feel revictimized."
Mack, the sheriff, said it's a valid insight.
"Victims do get lost in the system, especially those who suffer from
prolonged effects," like Nikki, he said.
It's wrong "when you go to a public trust and want help and they turn
the vulnerability around on you," Nikki said.
The legal system in that regard isn't working here either, she feels,
not for youthful victims of physical and sexual abuse.
Nikki never got a penny of restitution from the intake nurse whose
property she became for two years within the coven, that in spite of the
fact the state granted Nikki both a monetary settlement and restitution.
The nurse got, in Nikki's words, a "slap on the wrist." The state took
her nursing license away but Nikki doesn't believe the woman ever served
any jail time.
"She knew how to manipulate the system." The nurse's defense was
multiple personalities. In other words, one of her personalities fell in
love with Nikki.
"It actually made me sick when I left, as twisted as it was," said Nikki
of leaving the coven in 1990.
Not only did Nikki have to change her name and relocate as part of the
victim protection program, but she also had to be deprogrammed through a
state program for victims of occult and gang abuse.
She was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder and anxiety
disorder produced by trying to merge back into society. Physically, she
has had numerous treatments to repair internal damage from the sexual abuse.
"I try to be optimistic," Nikki said of trying to move forward from the
past.
Nikki speaks with her mother about twice a week. Her mother is sick. Her
mother has a lot of anger about what happened, Nikki said.
Of the relationship with her mother, Nikki said, "We love each other ...
but it's hard at times to embrace her."
Nikki has no contact with her full brother.
Nikki has recently started going to church. The scriptural verse she
said means most to her is from the New Testament, Book of Romans,
chapter 12, verse 19: "Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but
(rather) give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance (is) mine;
I will repay, saith the Lord."
THE FUTURE
By her own admission, Nikki Russo's future will be determined in large
part by whether or not she can return to California and look her past in
the face. For her, that journey will hopefully start here, in Baldwin
County, with the telling of her story.
"If we can start educating people here, we can work back toward the West
Coast," she said. "I'd like to have closure by actually confronting her."
Her, of course, is the nurse who took away the dream of playing for
Pepperdine; the nurse who, Nikki said, continues to live off the State
of California as a result of her alleged multiple personalities.
If nothing else, right now, here, Nikki would like to see deprogrammers
available in case somebody encounters a real nightmare like the one she
went through. The Sheriff's Office did some checking and found the
closest deprogrammers to be in Texas, she said.
Deprogramming was "great" for her at the time, an 18-year-old coming out
of a two-year nightmare.
Does deprogramming take care of the long-term effects of the nightmare?
No, Nikki said.
So, what about basketball? Nikki said she and her husband shoot hoops
from time to time. On his best day, he might beat her, she said.