Ricky Rodriguez

Richard Peter Rodriguez (born David Moses Zerby; January 25, 1975 – January 9, 2005) was the son of the leader of a religious cult called The Family, formerly known as the Children of God (COG), who murdered one of his childhood sexual abusers, Angela M. Smith, and then died by suicide.

During Rodriguez's childhood, he and his mother Karen Zerby and adoptive father David Berg, the latter two being the leaders of The Family, traveled across the world to convert followers. Berg believed Rodriguez was called upon to become a prophet during biblical End Times. From a young age Rodriguez was brought up in a heavily sexually abusive environment and was sexually abused and raped by numerous people, including a cohort of adult "nannies", as described in the Family-published document titled "The Davidito Book".

Despite leaving The Family and finding marriage, Rodriguez struggled to adjust to life outside the cult and sought revenge for his abuse. He left his wife in Tacoma, Washington, and traveled across the U.S. in an attempt to find Zerby. After learning his former nanny Angela M. Smith was in Tucson, Arizona, he stayed with people he knew there until he settled in an apartment. On January 7, 2005, he recorded a video, saying he needed to take retribution for abuse in The Family—including his own—alluding to murder. The next day, Rodriguez invited Smith to his apartment, where he murdered her by slitting her throat and stabbing her, before driving to Blythe, California, where he died by suicide.

The Family urged its members to disregard media reports about Rodriguez and Smith, and a spokesperson for the group said reports neglected to show Smith as a victim. Researchers were sympathetic to Rodriguez's anger towards members of The Family, but believed his aggression and ultimate murder of Smith was unjustified. Another former member considered it, out of other suicides in the group, to be one of the worst moments in The Family's history, and noted that Rodriguez's accounts were corroborated with other victims' stories of abuse. Cult specialist Rick Alan Ross described his suicide as reflective of the cult's many individuals who suffered in "one of the most horrifically abusive and destructive cults in American history".