​20-year-old Bob Ryder came to his AA sponsor with a chilling tale

Bob Ryder repeatedly bashed Danita in the head with a clock after he caught her going through his wallet

​20-year-old Bob Ryder came to his AA sponsor with a chilling tale. He told Floyd Nadeau that he'd been partying with a hooker at his home in Lewiston, Maine. Then she began whining with her tales of woe. He also caught Danita Brown going through his wallet.

In a fit of rage, he bashed Danita Brown repeatedly in the head with a wooden clock. Then he dumped her body in the basement of his home.

But here's where the plot thickens. It would take Nadeau almost two weeks to tell the cops of the confession. He claims he was worried about violating Alcoholics Anonymous' teachings on confidentiality -- as if the organization thought it was a really good idea to cover up a murder. 

And when Ryder confessed to police about what he'd done, Nadeau was also implicated. 

According to Ryder, his rendezvous with Danita began in mid-June. He told police and he and Nadeau were cruising for hookers when they picked her up. Ryder paid her $200 and they spent the next few days partying, with Danita occasionally leaving to score dope. 

But when she started to complain about personal and family problems, and Ryder caught her going through his wallet, he smashed her in the head with a wooden clock that sat on a bedside table. 

He then dumped her body in the basement. She was naked from the waist down, and he buried her pants and underwear. 

Ryder, who was discharged from the Marines for mental problems, claims he blacked out during the attack and was experiencing post-traumatic stress syndrome. 

But when he told Nadeau of the murder, instead of going to police, he claims his AA sponsor advised him to buy baking soda to cover up the smell of the body. Nadeau says he never offered that advice. But interestingly enough, he has a long history of violence against women.

Danita disappeared after saying she headed to the pharmacy to fill a prescription

​UPDATE: Danita Brown disappeared after running an errand to the pharmacy.

The 38-year-old woman was engaged to be married to Mike Tibbetts. They'd met in 2005. Their daughters were friends in high school who conspired to set their parents up. 

The couple had gone on to have a son of their own. He's now 4, and he was Brown's ninth child. 

But it seems Brown also had a wild streak. She had a habit of impulsively taking off. When she never returned from a brief trek to the pharmacy, Tibbetts assumed she'd gone to visit friends or relatives. He'd called around, but no one seemed to know where she was. 

It doesn't appear that Tibbetts ever reported her missing. It wasn't until police showed up at his door that he knew his fiancee was dead. 

Defeat Your Ego Before it Defeats You

 

“He’s so full of himself” is a statement of derision. The irony of life is that whoever said it is probably full of herself too. Such is life. But does it have to be that way? While it is too much to expect to change others, you can certainly reduce your own ego and I recommend it. What few gains I have made in ego reduction have greatly increased a deep and lasting sense of well-being in my life. That is why I consider this topic top priority for both happiness and success training. First, what is ego? There are many different definitions, so I will clarify. I don’t mean that ego is your self, otherwise killing ego would be killing yourself, a terrible misunderstanding. Instead, I mean it is an illusory concept of self, inflated beyond reality. In this sense, killing your ego gets you in tune with reality. Sounds good, but there’s a catch. Wouldn’t that make you depressed? If ego protects you from the truth you don’t want to know about yourself, doesn’t destruction of ego open you up to depressing truths? Well, that depends. The only reason those truths are unwanted in the first place is because we are attached to the notion they are true. Having your sense of self popped is depressing for anyone. However, having no ego, by which I mean a sense of self that is accurate, means much less chance for disappointment. I’ll discuss how to get there in a moment. In other words, if you are not attached to a particular outcome, any outcome can be a pleasant reminder that you are alive. It’s quite nice. I invite you to try it. Lies are social lubricant because ego cannot handle the truth. Flattery, because of ego, is something that always works, though you would like to believe it doesn’t work on you (it does), but the less ego you have the less flattery can fool you. Do you really want to reward people for lying to you? Perhaps, if it makes you feel better. But soothing the ego only makes you feel better in the sense that smoking a cigarette makes you feel better: it keeps you from feeling worse. You would feel even better than that if you did not smoke at all. Likewise, without ego, you do not require soothing lies, and this will save you a lot of energy. Not only will you not have to lie to yourself, you will not have to work so hard to cover up for your (poorly concealed) self-delusions or build your ego back up while reality continually damages it. That’s never any fun. Most people assume an inflated ego is an unalterable reality, probably because most people have one all their lives. The normal, happy person consistently overestimates her abilities. Nevertheless, there are many people who have successfully reduced the ego and exhibit greater happiness and poise as a result. What did they do? Ask the happiest person you know, and see what she says. Check her recommendations against mine. Ego gets in the way of more happiness and more success. The good news is you can reduce it. HOW TO KICK THE EGO HABIT This is where your typical 7-10 steps is a waste of time. They have too many “don’ts” and too few “dos”. That can be frustrating and ineffective. I will simply share a habit or two that helps me and which I think will help the most people. Two may be one too many, since these habits are difficult and take much practice. Do only what makes sense to you. Seek doing your best instead of personal achievement. Getting in the zone and working hard makes you feel better, do better and frees you from your limiting ego. Practice concerning yourself with doing your best and getting in the zone, without benchmarking. This is huge. If you need to be “good” you will become discouraged by the fact that we all start out at the beginning and things take longer than we wish them to. So you will need to be lied to in order to keep going. “You’re doing a great job!” That is how we treat children. The problem is that when we assume we are doing better than we really are, we get scraped up real good. Ouch. Now consider the alternative. If you realize that doing your best is a deep source of satisfaction, no matter how you end up, the truth is always good news. You have plenty of room for improvement. And, since the unadulterated truth is the best aid for doing your best without running into barriers or waiting for external reinforcement, the truth will become your friend, not your enemy, and flattery will be your enemy, not your friend. Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck calls this the Growth Mindset, and she finds that when a child adopts it, even for a moment, his capacity to handle honest feedback goes through the roof, almost instantly. On the flip side, 40 percent of those whose intelligence was praised overstated their scores to peers. “We took ordinary children and made them into liars,” Dweck says. Similarly, Enron executives who’d been celebrated for their innate talent would sooner lie than fess up to problems and work to fix them. [Stanford Magazine]. When young people’s sense of self-worth is bound up in the idea that they are smart—a quality they come to understand as a genetic blessing from the sky—at least three bad things can happen. Some students become lazy, figuring that their smarts will bail them out in a pinch. Others conclude that the people who praise their intelligence are simply wrong, and decide that it isn’t worth investing effort in homework. Still others might care intensely about school but withdraw from difficult tasks or tie themselves in knots of perfectionism. (To understand this third group, think of the Puritans: They did not believe they had any control over whether they were among God’s elect, but they nonetheless searched endlessly for ways to display that they had been chosen, and they were terrified of any evidence that they were not.) [The Chronicle Review] Meditate on the idea that the individual self and the universal soul are one and the same, aka “all is one.” Don’t try and prove logically that it’s true or false. That would be absurd and frustrating. The authors of the Upanishads spent years contemplating and arguing among each other until they agreed on this one basic truth: all is one. The wisdom from all corners of the world seems to boil down to the same statement. The tremendous benefit of this centering belief is that you understand that you are simultaneously eternal and infinitesimal. When you die, you lose nothing. If you hurt another person, you are hurting both yourself and the whole world. I don’t know why, but this idea gives me deep serenity, and no shelter for ego. If you don’t like the spiritual flavor of that, meditate on the scientific probability that there are infinite universes. That has a very similar conclusion, part of which is that there is no reason to make such a big deal about getting your way or to bemoan minutiae. However, there is no reason not to either, so I cannot say you are wrong to disagree with me here. All I can say is what I sincerely recommend. ONE CAUTION Though you choose to reduce ego to improve your quality of life, be sure to respect other people’s decisions not to reduce ego or to have a poor quality of life. You can still try to convince them and, besides, doing so respectfully will be most effective. Of course, if you reduce ego, you will naturally respect others’ decisions. I just mention this because it is one place I tripped up many times.

For reasons still obscure, the program and the fellowship of AA could cause a surrender which in turn would lead to a period of no drinking.

 

 It became ever more apparent that in everyone's psyche there existed an unconquerable ego which bitterly opposed any thought of defeat. Until that ego was somehow reduced or rendered ineffective, no likelihood of surrender could be anticipated. AA, still very much in its infancy, was celebrating a third or fourth anniversary of one of the groups. The speaker immediately preceding me told in detail of the efforts of his local group—which consisted of two men—to get him to dry up and become its third member. After several months of vain efforts on their part and repeated nose dives on his, the speaker went on to say: "Finally, I got cut down to size and have been sober ever since," a matter of some two or three years. When my turn came to speak, I used his phrase "cut down to size" as a text around which to weave my remarks. Before long, out of the corner of my eye, I became conscious of a disconcerting stare. It was coming from the previous speaker. It was perfectly clear: He was utterly amazed that he had said anything which made sense to a psychiatrist. The incident showed that two people, one approaching the matter clinically and the other relying on his own intuitive report of what had happened to him, both came up with exactly the same observation: the need for ego reduction. It is common knowledge that a return of the full-fledged ego can happen at any time. Years of sobriety are no insurance against its resurgence. No AA's, regardless of their veteran status, can ever relax their guard against a reviving ego. The function of surrender in AA is now clear. It produces that stopping by causing the individual to say, "I quit. I give up on my headstrong ways. I've learned my lesson." Very often for the first time in that individual's adult career, he has encountered the necessary discipline that halts him in his headlong pace. Actually, he is lucky to have within him the capacity to surrender. It is that which differentiates him from the wild animals. And this happens because we can surrender and truly feel, "Thy will, not mine, be done." Unfortunately, that ego will return unless the individual learns to accept a disciplined way of life, which means the tendency toward ego comeback is permanently checked. This is not news to AA members. They have learned that a single surrender is not enough. Under the wise leadership of the AA "founding fathers" the need for continued endeavor to maintain that miracle has been steadily stressed. The Twelve Steps urge repeated inventories, not just one, and the Twelfth Step is in itself a routine reminder that one must work at preserving sobriety. Moreover, it is referred to as Twelfth Step work—which is exactly what it is. By that time, the miracle is for the other person.

Murder in the Rooms of AA

One AA sponsor was falsely implicated in the slaying of a prostitute, while another was gunned down after divulging someone's top-secret "fourth step" confession. Just how protected are you when helping people who may be mentally ill—or even dangerous?  

Killing the messenger

 

Confessing less-than-savory acts to a trusted AA sponsor is not an unusual scenario for most people during the early days of their recovery. A “fearless moral inventory,” in fact, is one of the backbones of the 12-step program. But what would you do if someone confessed something to you in an AA meeting that went far beyond the bounds of the usual the usual tales of drug-induced bad behavior?  What if they confessed to cold-blooded murder?  When 20-year-old Bob Ryder came to his sponsor, Floyd Nadeau, with something on his conscience, Nadeau surely had no idea that what he was about to hear would have a lasting impact on both men’s lives.

There have been many high profile cases of murder prosecutions hinging on admissions of guilt coming to light during AA meetings. This one was among the most biizarre.

According to Nadeu, Ryder confessed that he had been getting high with a prostitute at his home in Lewiston, Maine when the prostitute started to “irritate him” by constantly complaining about her tough life. The final straw came when Ryder allegedly caught the woman rifling through his wallet. According to Nadeu, Ryder said that he grabbed the nearest thing to hand—a wooden clock—and viciously beat his victim to death with it before concealing the body in the basement of his home.

Nadeu later told authorities that at first he was highly skeptical that Ryder had murdered anyone. His sponsee, after all,  had a history of mental problems, which had led to his being discharged from the marines. But to prove he was telling the truth, Ryder supposedly took Nadeu down into the basement and showed him the decomposing corpse. Still, it would be over two weeks before Nadeu went to the police; when questioned on this seemingly inexplicable delay, Nadeu claimed that he was worried about violating AA’s teachings on confidentiality.  

But the sponsor had even more revelations to come. After Ryder was arrested, he claimed that he and Nadeu had been cruising for prostitutes when they picked up the victim, Danita Brown, a mother of nine children. Ryder claimed that he and Nadeu had spent two days partying with Brown before the murder, and though he killed the woman while Nadeu was out, he insists that he immediately told Nadeu about his crime as soon as he came back. Ryder added that his sponsor had advised him to use baking soda to cover the corpse’s odor. Nadeu denies all the allegations. "I had nothing to do with it," Nadeau is reported as saying, "and I've been cleared." The truth will no doubt be unraveled now that Ryder has been formally charged with Brown’s murder.

Of course, it’s really not a surprise that a program that deals exclusively with addicts—and thus people who are sometimes, by extension, leading criminal lifestyles—might involve those who have several nasty skeletons in their closets or have issues beyond substance abuse. There have been many high profile cases of murder prosecutions hinging on admissions of guilt coming to light during AA meetings. Last year in Alabama, Jamie Letson was found guilty of the 1980 murder of an 18-year-old student. The case remained unsolved until Letson confessed to her AA sponsor about it in 2002. There was also the case of Southern California resident Scott Gordon Reynolds, who was sentenced to 50 years for the murder of his AA sponsor, Uriel Noriega, in 2008. The killing, which took place in front of multiple witnesses during a meeting at St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Long Beach, California, occurred because,when Reynolds snapped after he found out that Noriega had told other members at the AA meeting that Reynolds was gay. He said the secret was known only to his mother and his sponsor.  Reynolds told police he took the gun to the meeting with the intention of committing suicide in front of the group, but once he got there, he had a change of heart and decided to murder Noriega instead. If Reynolds’ version of events is to be believed, this case is an interesting inverse of Ryder’s, where an alleged disregard for AA’s principle of anonymity led to tragedy. (The prosecutor has gone on record to say that Reynolds’ claims were never fully proven in court).

Still, both of these cases bring up some interesting ethical questions, such as: what are the limits of confidentiality in AA? What should you do if you’re sponsoring someone who seems mentally ill or dangerous? And is there any kind of legal protection over what you say in a meeting or to a sponsor?

According to Michael Cohen, the executive director of Florida Lawyers Assistance and a legal expert who is in recovery himself, "Probably the best course of action would be for a sponsor to let the sponsee know in advance that if the sponsee confesses to a crime, there is always a possibility that the sponsor could be forced to disclose the information, or that the sponsor might do it voluntarily if they were really troubled by the disclosure. I would advise anyone I sponsored that if they needed to disclose this type of information, they might want to consider doing it to a therapist or clergy, in which case it would be protected by statute."

“Unlike attorney-client, doctor-patient, substance abuse treatment counselor-client, or priest-penitent relationships, there is no statutory confidentiality protection for sponsors or 12 Step group members, and they have been compelled in some cases to testify about information received,” Cohen explains. “The police could threaten to charge the sponsor with obstruction of justice if they refused to cooperate.” Under US law, while therapists and other professionals are legally obliged to disclose information to the authorities if they believe a client presents a danger to themselves or others, this statute protects them from having to testify in court.

“We’re only as sick as our secrets,” says one AA mantra. But what about a case where the secret is murder?

There are a few legal precedents here. In the case ofCox Vs Miller, a 2002 decision by the 2nd circuit court of New York struck down a previous decision by the Southern District of New York Court’s which said that a confession of murder by Cox (disclosed to several AA members) fell under the auspices of New York’s clergy privilege, the 2nd circuit court’s decision was that since the confession was not made “in order to seek spiritual guidance,” it did not qualify. However, the court did not go as far as to analyze whether or not Alcoholics Anonymous should be treated in the eyes of the law as a traditional religion for future clerical privilege analysis, therefore leaving something of a grey area for future cases.

AA is a program that doesn’t differentiate. Meetings take place everywhere from exclusive Beverly Hills neighborhoods to the bowels of maximum-security prisons. When I was in drug treatment, I felt that I could—and should—talk openly about the petty theft and fraud I’d engaged in to fund my heroin habit, as it was part of the process of “getting better.” “We’re only as sick as our secrets,” says one AA mantra. But what about a case where the secret is murder?

“Spiritual suggestions are not above the law,” said an AA spokesperson I talked to about these issues, adding that there is often confusion between the idea of anonymity and “privileged communication.”

“The tradition of anonymity does not mean that AA members enjoy privileged communication as we are not professionals,” the spokesperson told me. “However, Bill W. tells us in the Big Book that our sobriety allows us to become citizens of the world again. I think that based upon our core principles, most AA members would encourage one another to take responsibility for their actions.”

AA has long strived to protect its identity as a program without leaders, a program built upon the foundation of addict helping other addicts. But I can’t help but wonder—given some of the examples detailed here—whether or not some kind of formal training should be required before someone takes on the massive responsibility of sponsoring another addict. After all, if I were to set up an office tomorrow and advertise myself as a psychotherapist, I imagine I would be closed down in a matter of weeks unless I had the necessary qualifications. Yet AA sponsors, unpaid and untrained, are entrusted with the spiritual and mental wellbeing of fragile—and occasionally dangerous—newly sober people every single day. Surely it’s not too critical to suggest that the program as a whole should consider implementing some basic protections for sponsors and sponsees alike?

Whatever the eventual truths that emerge from the Ryder murder case however, anyone who argues that cases like this prove that the rooms of AA are dangerous is missing the point. There’s nothing more threatening happening in the meetings and fellowship than anywhere else where you may come into regular contact with your fellow human beings. (During the years I attended AA meetings, the most dangerous thing I ever encountered was the second-hand smoke wafting over from the usual huddle of chain-smoking ex-dope fiends.) For every tale of a 12-step tragedy, there are hundreds if not thousands of stories being shared about lives being saved. And sometimes, as it turns out, the rooms themselves can be a safeguard—as they were for an unlucky armed robber who was gunned down while trying to rob a particularly well-armed AA meeting in Greenville, South Carolina. How many other places are there where the guy sitting next to you—who happens to have a concealed weapons permit—is willing to risk his life in order to keep the group safe?

No A.A.'s, regardless of their veteran status, can ever relax their guard against a reviving ego.

 

 The function of surrender in A.A. is now clear. It produces that stopping by causing the individual to say, "I quit. I give up on my headstrong ways. I've learned my lesson." Very often for the first time in that individual's adult career, he has encountered the necessary discipline that halts him in his headlong pace. Actually, he is lucky to have within him the capacity to surrender. It is that which differentiates him from the wild animals. And this happens because we can surrender and truly feel, "Thy will, not mine, be done." Unfortunately, that ego will return unless the individual learns to accept a disciplined way of life, which means the tendency toward ego comeback, is permanently checked. This is not news to A.A. members. They have learned that a single surrender is not enough. Under the wise leadership of the A.A. "founding fathers" the need for continued endeavor to maintain that miracle has been steadily stressed. The Twelve Steps urge repeated inventories, not just one, and the Twelfth Step is in itself a routine reminder that one must work at preserving sobriety. Moreover, it is referred to as Twelfth Step work-which is exactly what it is. By that time, the miracle is for the other person.

The addiction to drugs, food, alcohol, etc. is nothing compared to the addiction we humans have to thinking.

The addiction to drugs, food, alcohol, etc. is nothing compared to the addiction we humans have to thinking. Sitting quietly in silence is so foreign to most of us that the mind quickly starts thinking of its "problems" simply because it feels more "natural." We say we want peace, but because of our conditioning many of us actually feel more comfortable worrying. Worrying about what? Anything, the mind is not picky. -Michael Jeffreys

Take 5 seconds just to be quiet.

Take 5 seconds just to be quiet. Everything that disappeared in those 5 seconds for you, that’s what’s not real. So when you are not thinking, everything that disappears… that’s what’s not real. For most people, that’s about 99% of their whole experience of life… their whole world.

Take 5 seconds just to be quiet.

Everything that disappeared in those 5 seconds for you, that’s what’s not real. So when you are not thinking, everything that disappears… that’s what’s not real. For most people, that’s about 99% of their whole experience of life… their whole world.

If Life has no interest in the past, why should you?

 

If Life has no interest in the past, why should you? –Michael Jeffreys

It doesn't matter what it is--an atom, a thought, a sound, a situation, a body, a mental state, a plant a storm, a mountain, or a galaxy--everything that we know of is changing

 

It doesn't matter what it is--an atom, a thought, a sound, a situation, a body, a mental state, a plant a storm, a mountain, or a galaxy--everything that we know of is changing, either quickly or slowly. Inward and outward, big or small, there is only this shift and flux. If this is fully acknowledged, it may be realized that this is all that actually exists. No object or "thing" is ever truly formed anywhere. Nothing is ever established or defined. No thing ever comes to stay, to exist, to "be."