Beta Dominion Xenophilia was a small group based in Carroll County, Maryland, from the mid-1980s until the turn of the century. Founder Scott Caruthers began fabulating stories about his life as early as high school. By the time he dropped out, he was telling people that he was being pursued by extraterrestrials.
Over the next two decades, Caruthers drifted through a series of jobs, telling co-workers and others that he had served in the military, been an astronaut, and was a former CIA agent. (The CIA would later confirm that Carruthers was never employed there.) He married four times, in two of those instances getting remarried before the previous divorce was finalized.
In 1984, when he was 39, Caruthers invented an exercise weight that he called the “Strongput.” He managed to attract $2.7 million in backing but the venture ultimately failed due to the high production costs for the weight. But his business efforts introduced him to a new group of individuals, several of whom would join his sect.
One of these new acquaintances, Irmina Dzambo, left her husband and moved in with Caruthers. She changed her name to Dashiell Lashra and the two became the “Commander” and the “Queen” of Beta Dominion Xenophilia, a sect that claimed that Caruthers himself was a space alien.
The members referred to themselves as “Next World Alien Lovers,” with Caruthers seeking out young women as recruits. He claimed that these women provided positive energy that would increase his abilities and aid him in improving the intellect and talents of the members of the group, which was linked to a “level of U.S. intelligence 39 levels above the White House.” He claimed he could communicate to the “mothership” through the group’s pet cats.
Several women who joined Beta Dominion Xenophilia would follow Dzambo in changing their names. Caruthers cultivated relationships with young girls, some of whom were daughters of these women. He told them that sexual intercourse with him would help stave off an impending apocalypse.
Caruthers taught that members were to be “isolated psychologically” and expected to cut ties with friends and families. Members were also encouraged to give all their money and investments to the leaders and to quit their jobs. Concerned family members hired a private investigator, who discovered hundreds of journal entries by group members that totaled more than 2,000 pages. Some of these entries described Caruthers as God and detailed his sexual relations with group members.
The former husbands of two of the members successfully filed for emergency custody of their children to remove them from the group. But Caruthers expressed little concern, instead hosting a lavish party in Philadelphia at which his computer generated artwork of UFOs and extraterrestrials was exhibited. The event cost more than $500,000, with funding supposedly coming from a company Caruthers had recently formed, but the company failed and Caruthers never paid most of the bills, leading to a bankruptcy suit. Caruthers faced an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 1999.
In addition to threatening lawsuits against a range of perceived enemies, Caruthers hired a bodyguard and allegedly offered to pay him to kill a former business partner and some of the ex-husbands. The bodyguard alerted an attorney who in turn contacted the FBI. Maryland state police arrested Caruthers, Lashra, and two others. Caruthers initially pleaded not guilty and later filed an insanity defense.
After 19 months in jail pending trial, he entered an Alford plea, conceding that prosecutors had sufficient evidence to convict him not specifically admitting guilt. He was released from jail with time served and sentenced to probation.
Key Sources:
Fesperman, D. (2000, March 5). Lives caught in orbit of devotion, deception. The Baltimore Sun.
Fesperman, D. (2001, October 7). Cult’s inner circle in jail: Apocalyptic group known for lawsuits, retribution threats; 4 charged in death plot. The Baltimore Sun.
Lyons, S. (2003, April 8). Alleged cult member pleads guilty in murder conspiracy. The Baltimore Sun.
Encyclopedia of Cults, Sects, and New Religious Movements 